Intelligently Designed Trojan Horse

As Jill noted, the Ohio State Board of Education considered last night to revise the State science standards in light of the court decision striking down an Intelligent Design curriculum in Dover, PA. After a rough-and-tumble meeting, the Board voted 9-8 to keep the standard. About half the major papers covered the meeting -- nothing on the ABJ website. The Toledo Blade story has the best backgrounder; the Columbus Dispatch ($$) has the best detail about the meeting itself. DDN also and PD also cover.

Akron's representative on the Board is Deborah Owens Fink, a friend of David Brennan and reliable honk for charter schools. She also spearheaded the original movement to inject intelligent design into the curriculum and, as such, was the center of the storm last night (from the Dispatch):

Martha W. Wise, a board member from Avon, sought the resolution, arguing that Ohio’s 10 th-grade science standards are flawed and could subject the state to costly litigation. She said it had been the intent of at least two board members to get intelligent design into Ohio’s standards.

"You’re obviously calling me a liar," Michael Cochran, of Blacklick, told Wise, denying he ever pushed intelligent design. Deborah Owens Fink, a board member from Richfield, said she was livid that Wise would question her intent in such "unprofessional attacks."

"You don’t want to go there," Fink said.

The exchange prompted Robin C. Hovis, of Millersburg, to remind members that Fink several years ago had introduced a proposal calling for students to be taught both intelligent design and evolution in science class.

The standard itself appears innocuous. It merely says that student must be able to "describe how scientists today continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." Sounds, well, scientific. Lawrence Krauss, a Case Western physicist and leader of the pro-science lobby explains the problem:

We won because we had kept intelligent design out of science classes. We
lost because in the spirit of “fairness,” the board added a sentence to the
standards saying, “Students shouldlearn how scientists are continuing to critically examineevolutionary theory.” I strongly opposed this. I wanted them to say that scientists are continuing to critically examine everything.

The idea, from the ID perspective, is to use the language as a wedge, opening a gap and shove ID and eventually creationism in. Krauss continues:

As I feared, this sentence opened the door for the creationists’ claiming that there is controversy about the accuracy of evolutionary theory. And it’s come back to haunt us. Just the other week, I had to put everything I was doing aside because the creationists were back at their old games again in Ohio. One of the model lessons that came out was an intelligent-design diatribe. Basically, they snuck the whole thing in again, through the back door.p>

In retrospect, the effort to change the standards was probably doomed from the start. First and foremost, the Board is stacked with Republicans, enough of whom want to sop the religious right that they will won't vote for something that would so thoroughly piss them off. But also, the proponents of the change were making a frontal assault that the sneakily innocuous language resists. In fact, the language itself probably can survive a court challenge unless the Sixth Circuit really falls in love with an "improper motive" theory.

The better argument is that changing the standard would save local school boards from wasting money with court challenges. The State standard doesn't require ID teaching, it merely creates an environment where local school boards might be tempted to try it. Hopefully the Dover decision will prevent that from happening, assuming it holds up on appeal. The Dover decision didn't prompt the State Board to remove the Trojan Horse, but it may keep the trap door locked.

Speaking locally, could ID happen here? As of now, it doesn't appear so, but ID lovers are closer than they were before the election. At the Candidates Night (which I attended) Sheila Smith -- who won one of the open seats -- openly proclaimed her support for ID. Kirt Conrad -- who was appointed to Loretta Haugh's seat -- was softly opposed. After publicly fretting about "the role of a Christian in public life," he came down against it basically because it would subject the School District to litigation. It sounded to me that he might be open to the idea if the prevailing case law allows it.

As the Alito hearings drag on, Kirt Conrad takes up residence in my anxiety closet.