Andrew Buncombe (Extracted from "Alternative to Darwinism to be taught in Kansas", The Independent, 10 November 2005)

". . . . The Kansas Board of Education voted 6-4 to adopt a new series of standards for the science curriculum taught in schools. Tuesday's vote will redefine 'science' to say that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena; in short, science no longer means scientific.

. . . Janet Waugh of Kansas City, one of four dissenting board members, told reporters. 'We're becoming a laughing stock not only of the nation but of the world.' "

[Ed True. America might become a laughing stock -- if it is not already, as manifested in a hapless president -- but this decision might also be an economic watershed. America has been recruiting most of the best scientific brains of Europe for half a century and some of the best students of Asia for a quarter of a century, and this has probably been the main reason why America has become the most powerful and inventive nation on earth until the last decade or so. The Kansas decision might be relatively trivial but the history books might point to this as a watershed in the personal decisions of the most brilliant research scientists from this time onwards. The Chinese instituted their green card system for the first time two years ago and are now building well-funded research facilities and beautiful housing estates for new arrivals. This might also be pointed out by historians as a watershed in world science.]