THE Republican “red states” that voted for President George W Bush in America’s Bible Belt are claiming their reward in an unexpected area: rolling back the teaching of evolution in schools.

Bold initiatives to introduce the concept of “intelligent design”, wrought by a god or higher being, into theories about Earth’s creation are being sponsored in towns and communities across America.

Religious fundamentalists — or “theocons” — opposed to Darwinism have adopted sophisticated tactics enabling them to pass under the political and legal radar that keeps church separate from state and forbids the promotion of religion in schools.

The champions of intelligent design, who are mindful not to specify a particular creator, are poised for victory in Kansas later this year after a new school board favouring the teaching of evolution as a theory rather than a fact was elected in November by a majority of six votes to four.

Jack Krebs of Kansas Citizens for Science said: “The re-election of Bush has emboldened the intelligent design movement. They feel they have the wind at their backs.”

The president, a born-again Christian, has proclaimed his own scepticism about Darwinism in the past. “On the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth,” he once said. A recent CBS poll found that 55% of Americans and 67% of those who voted for Bush do not believe in evolution.

This Tuesday marks the start of a series of public meetings in Kansas on the teaching of Darwinism and the battle lines are firmly drawn.

The prairie town of Salina, Kansas, in the centre of the United States is modern enough to have a two-mile airstrip. When it comes to religion, however, little has changed for some families since the pioneers rolled by on their wagons.

In a small diner on the outskirts of the town, Ruth Coleman, 58, the mother of a Baptist pastor, was treating her five-year-old granddaughter Kendra to lunch. “I am creationist,” she said stoutly. “I believe God made the Earth 6,000 years ago and he deserves the credit. If there was evolution, why are there still monkeys?”

A 14-year-old girl asked members of Coleman’s congregation last Sunday for guidance on how to answer exam questions about the origin of mankind. “Shall I give the right answer and fail the test or give the wrong answer and pass?” the puzzled teenager asked.

“We teach kids not to lie and if we believe in creationism, evolution is a lie, so the grown-ups were kind of stumbling,” Coleman said. “A mom said, ‘Just put the textbook says this, but I believe that.’ Everybody thought it was a really good idea.”

Educationists across the state arrived in Salina last week for a meeting of a science standards committee on rewriting the curriculum. The leading protagonists on each side traded barbs as they discussed changes that would open the door to challenging evolution.

“Darwinism is a non-theistic religion,” protested one supporter of intelligent design, “and you’re trying to give it to our kids even though they don’t want it.” An opponent retorted: “The alternative to natural causation is supernatural causation . . . and that’s what you are trying to open the door to.”

The well-funded, nationally based intelligent design movement is casting itself as the promoter of academic freedom. It is hard for opponents to write the group off as the American equivalent of Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Taliban when it appears to be challenging received wisdom rather than stifling debate.

For Bill Harris, a 56-year-old scientist and a Christian, the question is: “Is it impossible that a god created the Earth? If it is impossible, then take it off the table, but if it’s possible don’t ignore it.”

He believes evolution should continue to be taught with important caveats. “There are definitely elements of Darwin’s theory that are well founded, but the origins of the universe, the origins of life and the origins of the genetic code are currently unknown. We can’t state frequently enough that science is still looking for the answers.”

Harris believes the finely tuned relationship between the planet and its living creatures point to the existence of a higher designer. “It’s not a religious debate,” he insisted. “It’s a scientific debate with religious implications.”

Krebs, 56, a veteran of skirmishes with anti-evolutionists, said his opponents had learnt from past mistakes. “It used to be easy to dismiss the views of young Earth creationists as an embarrassment, but the intelligent design movement is deliberately keeping them in the background. It is a cleverly designed strategy to say, ‘You guys are being dogmatic’, and we wind up looking like the ones who want to limit science.”

There are signs that the tactic is paying off, even among staunch supporters of evolution. In the same diner as Coleman, Doug Guenther, 48, had just finished a plate of fried chicken. His job for the Kansas rural water authority has led him to develop a passionate amateur interest in fossils.

“I’ve dug up shark teeth that go back 67m years to the Cretaceous period when the sea spread from Texas all the way to Canada,” he said proudly. “I’ve seen mammoth teeth, camel teeth and large arrowheads belonging to early man. It would be pretty hard to explain that in the Bible.”

Yet Guenther has no problems with teaching children about intelligent design. “Evolution is definitely not a theory — it is a fact. But you can fit in it with the Bible as long as you don’t believe everything it says literally.”

Evangelical Christians, such as James Dobson’s influential Focus on the Family movement, are delighted by the success of intelligent design as a “wedge” issue to challenge and undermine Darwinism.

Changes to the science curriculum are being sought by religious conservatives in Wisconsin, Missouri, Mississippi, South Carolina, Montana and Pennsylvania, where one educational district has already placed stickers in biology textbooks with the warning that evolution is a theory rather than a fact. It plans to appeal against a recent court decision ordering the schools to remove them.

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