CHARLES DARWIN’S theory of evolution is facing a new challenge in America from Christians who argue that life shows an “intelligent design”.

The Kansas Board of Education has begun taking evidence from anti-evolution scientists in a bid to rewrite the state’s teaching standards to ensure that pupils learn alternatives to evolution that suggest a guiding hand in the origin of life.

Kansas is one of a growing number of states to consider authorising schools to teach religious alternatives to Darwin — but a four-day hearing of the Kansas board has outraged mainstream scientists, who are boycotting the meeting and holding protests outside.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science declined an invitation to testify, arguing that the hearings would confuse rather than educate the public.

“This is a showcase trial,” Jack Krebs, vice-president of Kansas Citizens for Science, said. “They have hijacked science and education.”

On the first day of testimony in Topeka, the audience heard lectures on “primordial soup”, fruit-fly mutations and whether human beings were related to worms as six anti-evolution scientists argued that the theory of evolution could not explain gaps in the fossil record, the complexity of DNA or the origin of life itself.

William Harris, a professor of medicine who specialises in omega-3 fatty acids and co-founded the Intelligent Design Network, said that Darwinism clashed with the biblical teaching that life was created by God. “Part of our overall goal is to remove the bias against religion that is currently in schools,” he said. “This is a scientific controversy that has powerful religious implications.”

Other witnesses included Jonathan Wells, an embryologist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, who described himself as “an old Berkeley antiwar radical”. “The way Darwinian evolution is usually presented is that the evidence is overwhelming, and there is no controversy about it,” he said. “That’s clearly not the case.”

Dr Wells, who holds PhDs in theology from Yale University and in biology from the University of California, Berkeley, confirmed under cross-examination that he was a member of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.

Pro-Darwin scientists distributed an internet posting outside the hearing in which Dr Wells declares: “Father’s words, my studies and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism.”

The anti-evolution scientists faced sharp questioning from Pedro Irigonegaray, a lawyer defending Darwin at the hearings. He said that he fantasised that he was defending John Scopes, a Tennessee biology teacher who in 1925 was found guilty of illegally teaching evolution at what became known as the “Monkey Trial”.

“The delicious fantasy of being in a courtroom-like environment, with the overhead fan slowly twisting and being able to question witnesses about all of these issues, is very appealing,” he said.

The US Supreme Court outlawed the teaching of biblical beliefs, or “creationism”, in state schools in an Arkansas case in 1987, forcing Christians to embrace “intelligent design”.

All three members of the Kansas sub-committee support a change in the standards to tell students that evolution is only a theory, not a fact, and to include alternatives. The full Kansas school board, which is controlled by a 6-4 conservative majority, is expected to rewrite the standards in June, joining Ohio, which took a similar step three years ago. Legislators in Alabama and Georgia are also considering Bills to allow teachers to challenge Darwin in class.

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