The state of Kansas has recently been one of the battlegrounds over the teaching of evolution in public schools. Two years ago the State Board of Education voted to remove evolution as the sole explanation for the origin of man from the public school curriculum.

At that time, the majority of the elected board favored the change. Last November, three of these members of the board were defeated in the elections.

This February, the new board voted to adopt new state science standards that essentially mandate the teaching of evolution as the scientific basis of the origin of the universe. But the action was not a total loss for creationists.

The new standards are careful to refer to evolution as "a broad, unifying theoretical framework in biology." It also points out that to "understand" does not mandate "belief."

"While students may be required to understand some concepts that re-searchers use... they may accept or reject the scientific concepts presented ...where students' and/or parents' beliefs may be at odds with the current scientific theories or concepts," the standards said.

While such skirmishes often end in political defeat, the publicity involved is useful to focus attention on the fact that evolution is just a theory. It is also evidence that more and more people are becoming aware how bankrupt that theory is.

Dr. Kent Hovind, author of the Creation Evangelism videos available from www.drdino.com, has been deeply involved in another state, Arkansas, where creation advocates are taking a slightly different approach.

Hovind has been working with several state legislators crafting a bill banning lies from textbooks and other tax funded publications. One of the videos in Hovind's series is entitled Lies in the Textbooks.

There he details examples such as the fictitious "Geologic Column" which exists only in the text books, that mutations can add new genetic information; that natural selection can make something better than its original design and that similar bone structure in different species proves they evolved.

Hovind was invited to testify before a legislative committee where he presented examples of the falsehoods. A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was there attempting to defend the textbooks. At one point a committee member asked the lawyer if she thought she descended from an ape.

When the testimony was complete, the committee voted 9-1 in favor of the proposed law. When the bill reached the floor of the legislature, the lawmakers lacked the courage to admit evolution was a lie and narrowly defeated the bill.

The bill's sponsors resubmitted the bill and this time it was tabled for further study. The beauty of this approach is that there is no mention in the bill of creationism or evolution as a theory of man's origin. It simply mandates that public school and other government agencies refrain from using or publishing material that contains statements that are obviously false.

Hovind and the legislators hope to craft a law that can be used in other states to counter some of the unscientific falsehoods that are being taught as scientific fact.