1 he debate on evolution captured public attention when the Kansas Board of Education adopted on 11 August 1999 a new science curriculum that removed
requirements on teaching evolution. Although local school, boards can still permit the theory of evolution to be taught, questions on evolution—especially as they relate to human origins—will not be included in state assessment tests. Teachers with limited class time and boards with tight budgets will be less likely to teach a subject for which students will not be held accountable. Efforts to promote "scientific creatioriism" began in the 1960s. Creationists argue that much of the physical evidence that has been explained by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution can better be accounted for by a "scientific" but still literal interpretation of the Bible. Thus, when a 1968 Arkansas law forbidding the teaching of evolution was struck down...