toledoblade.com --

Ohio's state Board of Education is attracting unwelcome national attention with its dubious consideration of dogged efforts by fundamentalist religious groups whose ultimate goal is to expel Charles Darwin from biology classrooms.

The Ohio board is the nation's first to consider requiring that "intelligent design" - the latest incarnation of creationism - be taught on an equal footing with evolution.

Hearings on proposed new science curriculum standards drew huge crowds in Columbus last week. The hijinks raised eyebrows around the country and already have begun to paint Ohio with the brush that made Kansas a national laughingstock in 1999.

That's when the Kansas Board of Education dropped evolution as a required topic.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee borrowed a phrase from the Bible to title their famous play about the Scopes Monkey Trial. A Tennessee court ruled in favor of teaching evolution in that 1925 case, which should have established Darwin's place in the classroom once and for all.

Lawrence and Lee titled it Inherit the Wind. Sow the whirlwind, and inherit the wind. Based on the fallout in Kansas, that's exactly what Ohio may do if the board writes the wrong final act in these ridiculous theatrics.

Many Kansas school districts devoted more time to evolution - to protest the board's folly, or to correct misinformation spread by creationists. Gov. Bill Graves labeled the board an "embarrassment." Board members who cast anti-Darwin votes were ousted in the next election. Disgraced, the board reversed its decision and restored evolution to the curriculum in 2001.

All in all, Kansas got smeared, unfairly, as a hayseed state adrift in another century along Oz's Yellow Brick Road. Now headlines are alive with jeers like "Oz Relocates to Ohio."

That's just what Ohio does not need in this era when states are competing for jobs in high-tech industries. They want scientifically sophisticated employees and favor enlightened communities to locate new offices and factories.

Sunday's special report in The Blade noted widespread misconceptions about evolution.

Many people mistakenly think, for instance, that the major Christian and Jewish religious denominations oppose evolution. Many more dismiss evolution as "just a theory," not understanding that "theory" has a different meaning in science. A scientific theory is not a guess, but a solid body of evidence backed by facts.

The report also pointed out that many scientists are deeply religious. But they recognize - as all citizens must - that faith and science belong in two separate spheres.

Science deals with explanations based on actual observations and experiments that can be verified. Faith leaps beyond what can be tested and proven in the world. Children benefit immensely from faith-related instruction. But public school science classrooms are not the appropriate venue.

Ohio got into this mess partly because the two-party political system is in eclipse. The Republican Party totally dominates the legislative and executive branches of governments. With weak and ineffectual opposition from the Democrats, extremists in the majority party bend public policy to their whims, catering to special-interest groups like the creationists.

In an era of more balanced political leadership, these groups would have been given short shrift.

And the board of education would have a membership capable of focusing on legitimate educational problems - of which we have a multitude - and educational standards that burnish rather than tarnish Ohio's national reputation.

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