Wednesday, November 10. 1999
The University Daily Kansar
Section A · Page 5
Haskell group calls Web site biased
By Derek Prater
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
A teaching tool for a University of Kansas class in public planning has drawn fire from Haskell Indian Nations University students and faculty who think it gives a biased view of issues surrounding the South Lawrence Trafficway.
Last week, the Wetlands Preservation Organization, a student group opposed to the trafficway, sent an e-mail to KU officials concerning a case study of the trafficway on a Web site http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/-kupa /Truman/truman.htm, maintained by the Department of
Public Administration.
the trafficway, which was designed to relieve congestion on 23rd Street, was blocked from completion last month by the Haskell Board of Regents because of concerns about the effects it would have on Haskell lands.
The site presents information about the public policy that guided the development of the trafficway. Chuck Haines, professor of biology at Haskell and sponsor of the Wetlands Preservation Organization, said that the Web site provided a one-sided presentation of the issues involved in the trafficway and that a number of photographs on the site should be removed because they were areas sacred to Native Americans.
In particular, photos of the sweat lodge and a prayer ceremony are not accompanied with the appropriate text to explain their significance. Haines said.
Haines offered to help make the site more complete.
The case study is used as part of the curriculum for Political Science 331, a public administration class.
John Nalbandian, professor of public administration and creator of the case study, said he had received the complaint.
"I have made a few changes to indicate that the Web site is not meant to be authoritative or comprehensive," he said.
Nalbandian said that he did not plan to incorporate input from the
Wetlands Organization.
Preservation
Liza Pehrson, Chinook, Mont., sophomore, is a student in the class and said the case study was helpful.
Pehrson spoke to Haines to gather more information on the trafficway and said she understood the concerns of the Wetlands Preservation Organization.
"It's important to take something away from the whole situation and learn from the mistakes that were made, particularly in terms of cross-cultural negotiations," she said.
"Until I talked to him recently, I didn't realize how important those issues are." Pehrson said.
— Edited by Rebecca Sutherland
Creationists question use of KU textbook
By Jim O'Malley
Special to the Kansan
A University of Kansas textbook became an issue in last Thursday's debate at Washburn University.
The debate was supposed to be about the State Board of Education's removal of evolution from the state's education standards. But three advocates of intelligent design from the Discovery Institute in Seattle raised other issues including whether a KU biology textbook ruled out a divine creator.
Microbiologist and theologian Jonathan Wells, philosopher Stephen C. Meyer, and Gonzaga University law professor David DeWolf said evidence for Darwinism was weak and students should be taught both intelligent design and natural selection.
Board member Steve Abrams was the only debater who defended the Board's decision.
On the other side were board member Bill Wagnon, Tim Miller, KU professor of religious studies, John R. Staver, professor of science education at Kansas State University, and First Amendment scholar Robert M. O'Neil from the University of Vireinia.
Staver said intelligent design
Staver said in was a supernatural explanation outside the realm of science. Meyer and Wells said that intelligent design was not a supernatural
The evolution debate
explanation but an inference from evidence in the natural world.
They conceded that it had religious implications, but evolutionary theory did too. Wells said it was blatant viewpoint discrimination to exclude design from classrooms.
About two-thirds of the crowd of 700 to 800 applauded this statement, and continued to applaud points made by design advocates.
Wells quoted from Douglas Futuyma's "Evolutionary Biology," which is used as a textbook at the University.
The book says that under Darwin's theory, "biological phenomena, including those seemingly designed, can be explained by purely natural causes rather than by divine creation."
Wells argued that this said Darwinism ruled out a divine creator.
Board member Wagnon disagree.
"The textbook did not say that God didn't exist," he said. "It said that God was unnecessary for understanding evolution."
The textbook also says that although evolution conflicts with a literal interpretation of the Bible, it does not deny the existence of God.
According to Futuyma, science cannot investigate the supernatural and neither affirms nor denies it.
"On these questions, science, including evolutionary biology, is silent." Futuyma wrote.
Saver gave personal testimony that science did not deny the existence of God.
"I have no conflict between God and science." he said.
Miller said intelligent design was the first step toward introducing religion into science classes. He said he found it troubling that one of the funding sources of the Discovery Institute supported Biblical slavery.
The Institute Scholars said this was untrue.
However, one the Institute's major donors also supports an organization with extreme religious views.
O'Neil said the Board's action violated the First Amendment because the history of the controversy suggested that the board's motivation was religious, not scientific.
Edited by Jamie Knodel
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