You real­ly should read this arti­cle. I’ll hit the big points, but this is a great sum­ma­ry, and note that it’s being picked up for nation­al syn­di­ca­tion. Those seek­ing change on evo­lu­tion haven’t read sci­ence stan­dards:

None of the eight intel­li­gent design pro­po­nents who tes­ti­fied at the Kansas State Board of Edu­ca­tion’s evo­lu­tion hear­ings Fri­day have read the sci­ence stan­dards they want changed.

Under cross-exam­i­na­tion, all eight admit­ted they sim­ply read the 28-page minor­i­ty report and not the full 107-page draft of pro­posed sci­ence stan­dards, most of which is not controversial.

State board mem­ber Kathy Mar­tin spoke up dur­ing the meet­ing to reas­sure Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia pro­fes­sor Rus­sell Carl­son that read­ing the stan­dards was­n’t real­ly important.

“Please don’t feel bad that you haven’t read the whole thing because I haven’t read it myself,” Mar­tin said.…

Sev­er­al times dur­ing Fri­day’s tes­ti­mo­ny, the exchanges between Irigone­garay and wit­ness­es grew testy, par­tic­u­lar­ly when they tried to evade his yes-or-no questions.

After Carl­son fin­ished explain­ing how he does­n’t think evo­lu­tion affects his bac­te­r­i­al research, Irigone­garay asked whether Carl­son believes in the the­o­ry that all life descend­ed from a shared ancestor.

“No, and I — ‚” Carl­son said, try­ing to explain.

“I’m not inter­est­ed in an expla­na­tion,” Irigone­garay said, cut­ting him off.

Do you believe humans descend­ed from pre-hominids? he asked next.

“I don’t accept that as a fact — sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven fact,” Carl­son said.

Then how can you explain human life? Irigone­garay asked.

“I don’t have an alter­nate the­o­ry,” Carl­son said. “That is not my area of research.”

Sev­er­al of the wit­ness­es also admit­ted under ques­tion­ing that the sub­jects they were tes­ti­fy­ing about were not the areas they study.

For exam­ple, Edward Peltzer, an ocean chemist in Cal­i­for­nia, tes­ti­fied about the like­li­hood of chem­i­cal evo­lu­tion because he stud­ied it as part of his doc­tor­al the­sis on the con­tent of a mete­orite more than 20 years ago.

And John Mil­lam, a com­pu­ta­tion­al chemist in Lenexa, Kan., tes­ti­fied about the his­to­ry of sci­ence and the ori­gins of nat­u­ral­is­tic phi­los­o­phy because research­ing that his­to­ry is a hobby.

Peltzer said the chem­i­cal reac­tions need­ed for the start of life in the pre­vail­ing the­o­ry isn’t like­ly to have happened.

“There are big prob­lems with the sci­en­tif­ic the­o­ry of the ori­gin of life,” Peltzer said.

But the minor­i­ty group wants to insert a sec­tion about the­o­ries of the ori­gin of life into the stan­dards because it would reveal flaws in evolution.

Har­ry McDon­ald, pres­i­dent of the pro-evo­lu­tion Kansas Cit­i­zens For Sci­ence, said there’s a good rea­son why the ori­gins of life was left out.

“It’s not in the stan­dards because the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty has not reached a con­sen­sus,” McDon­ald said.

One of the oth­er main com­plaints the minor­i­ty group’s wit­ness­es repeat about the pro­posed sci­ence stan­dards is they think the stan­dards are biased in favor of nat­u­ral­ism. They see that as an endorse­ment of athe­ism, which many sci­en­tists deny.

So when one of the slides in Mil­lam’s pre­sen­ta­tion mis­tak­en­ly quot­ed that the major­i­ty’s pro­posed stan­dards includ­ed “method­olog­i­cal nat­u­ral­ism” Irigone­garay object­ed sharply.

“That is incor­rect and should not be made out to the pub­lic as our stan­dards,” Irigone­garay said, inter­rupt­ing Mil­lam’s presentation.

I like the high­light­ed part. I’m con­vinced that these hear­ings will back­fire bad­ly, show­ing the press and pub­lic the true hypocrisy of IDolators.