The hearings were arranged by the Board of Education with the intent of introducing intelligent design into science classes via the Teach the Controversy method.
[1][2] The hearings raised the issues of creation and evolution in public education and were attended by all the major participants in the intelligent design movement but were ultimately boycotted by the scientific community over concern of lending credibility to the claim, made by proponents of intelligent design, that evolution is the subject of wide dispute within the scientific and science education communities.
In 2005, prompted by the Kansas Intelligent Design Network[8] and the Discovery Institute, the board sought new high school science standards.
The revisions did not eliminate evolution from instruction, but presented it as a theory greatly challenged and disputed, in line with the Discovery Institute's Teach the Controversy campaign.
Board member Connie Morris sent a taxpayer-funded newsletter to constituents calling evolution an "age-old fairy tale" that was defended with "anti-God contempt and arrogance."
Describing herself as a Christian who believes in a literal interpretation of Genesis, Morris wrote that evolution was "biologically, genetically, mathematically, chemically, metaphysically etc.
[10] Each side was invited to provide witnesses to testify before the board for intelligent design or evolution, with the taxpayers of Kansas covering the travel expenses.
It stated: Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.
In contrast, intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent.
[14]The Discovery Institute has consistently insisted that its Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan is not another attempt to open the door of public high school science classrooms for intelligent design, and hence supernatural explanations.
Discovery Institute spokesman Casey Luskin in February 2006 coined the term "false fear syndrome" of those who said it was, and said: This is simply another instance of Darwinists attempting to oppose critical analysis of evolution by pretending that it is equivalent to teaching intelligent design.
)"[17]To the statement that the Kansas science standards had nothing to do with intelligent design but were only about teaching evolution in a "balanced" way, Borofsky responded: It really is ID in disguise.
The theory of evolution provides a framework that explains both the history of life and the ongoing adaptation of organisms to environmental challenges and changes."
"[23] The hub of the intelligent design movement, the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture, played a central role in bringing about the Kansas evolution hearings, first by supporting ID proponents in their bids for seats on the board, and later in aggressively lobbying for a "Teach the Controversy" solution.
[29] A notable intelligent design proponent, Dr. Skell's letter to the board touts the alleged benefits of the Teach the Controversy approach, as well his credentials as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, despite the fact the National Academy of Sciences issued a policy statement against the Teach the Controversy solution and intelligent design as a concept.
[75][76] Kansas joined Ohio in adopting the Discovery Institute's Critical Analysis of Evolution public school science standards during that period.
On August 1, 2006, 4 of the 6 conservative Republicans who approved the Critical Analysis of Evolution classroom standards lost their seats in a primary election.