csadams, asks at Kansas Cit­i­zens for Sci­ence:

Why aren’t these the ques­tions being discussed?

1. Dis­cuss the inter­na­tion­al­ly accept­ed, work­ing def­i­n­i­tion of sci­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly with ref­er­ence to the major­i­ty and minor­i­ty definitions.
2. Dis­cuss your under­stand­ing of a hypoth­e­sis and the­o­ry, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to intel­li­gent design the­o­ry , how an indi­vid­ual hypoth­e­sis and the­o­ry is used and sup­port­ed and what hap­pens when com­pet­ing hypothe­ses and the­o­ries are at odds.
3. Dis­cuss the idea that intel­li­gent design “research” is not per­formed in the fash­ion of empir­i­cal sci­ence, that is, observ­able, mea­sur­able, testable, repeat­able and falsifiable.
4. Dis­cuss the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence con­cern­ing the idea that intel­li­gent design can (?) pro­duce speciation.
5. Dis­cuss the evi­dence from intel­li­gent design research con­cern­ing the idea that there is a com­mon bio­log­i­cal ancestor.
6. Dis­cuss the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence con­cern­ing the idea of what can fal­si­fy the “the­o­ry” of intel­li­gent design , par­tic­u­lar­ly how radio­met­ric dat­ing and the fos­sil record inter­acts with the idea of falsification.
7. Dis­cuss the idea that stu­dents (after mov­ing from con­crete think­ing and being able to think in the abstract) should be able to explain, in sci­en­tif­ic terms, the phi­los­o­phy of sci­ence and var­i­ous the­o­ries of sci­ence, as well as var­i­ous sci­en­tif­ic crit­i­cisms. 7b. Dis­cuss the idea that stu­dents should most emphat­i­cal­ly be able to dis­cern between sci­ence, and pseu­do-sci­en­tif­ic non­sense put forth by attor­neys in pur­suit of a social agenda.
8. U.S. edu­ca­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to math­e­mat­ics and sci­ence, has been crit­i­cized for being a mile wide and an inch deep and thus not pro­mot­ing crit­i­cal think­ing and/or prob­lem-solv­ing skills. With regard to sci­ence edu­ca­tion, is this a valid con­cern? Dis­cuss the idea of how teach­ers need to or need not address this situation. 
9. Dis­cuss the con­nec­tion between the lack of pro­mot­ing reli­gious ideas as sci­ence in oth­er coun­tries, and their cor­re­spond­ing­ly high­er test scores.

These are excel­lent ques­tions. The prob­lem with the ques­tions being asked is that they assume the answer. The Board is ask­ing peo­ple to jus­ti­fy var­i­ous aspects of the major­i­ty’s rec­om­men­da­tions, rather than mak­ing the minor­i­ty report’s sup­port­ers jus­ti­fy them­selves. In a fair fight, evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gy can win this fight.

This isn’t a fair fight, and no one should read my ear­li­er advice as an endorse­ment of the pro­ce­dure. But there it is. Ten peo­ple will inevitably sub­mit essays. I hope they take my advice, and I hope we win the pub­lic aspect of the debate. And I hope that peo­ple demand that IDC be sub­ject to the same lev­el of scruti­ny that any the­o­ry would receive before stu­dents are exposed to it.