From today's Science ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Not (Just) in Kansas Anymore Eugenie C. Scott* Eugenie C. Scott a physical anthropologist, is executive director of the National Center for Science Education, Inc., a not-for-profit membership organization that works to improve the teaching of evolution and of science as a way of knowing. It opposes the teaching of "scientific" creationism and other religiously based views in science classes. She is a coauthor of the National Academy of Science's, Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, and has consulted with the NAS on the revision of its "Science and Creationism" booklet. In August of 1999, after months of wrangling, the Kansas State Board of Education passed its state science education standards. Against the recommendations of a committee of 27 scientists and teachers, the board voted to strip from the standards all mention of the Big Bang, the age of the Earth, and any reference to organisms having descended with modification from common ancestors: in other words, evolutionary astronomy, geology, and biology. Teachers were informed that evolution would not be included in the state high-school assessment exams, greatly decreasing the likelihood that the subject would be taught. Full text: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/288/5467/813