WICHITA, Kan., Aug. 21 -- The publisher of a Kansas history textbook is removing a chapter on state geology and paleontology after the State Board of Education voted to allow schools to stop teaching evolution. The non-profit Grace Dangberg Foundation in Nevada says it didn't want to limit the marketability of the middle-school book, tentatively titled 'Kansas -- The Prairie Spirit Lives.'
Publishers tell the Wichita Eagle the book, scheduled for publication this fall, will eliminate reference to fossils, an inland sea that once covered Kansas and an extinct sea lizard whose fossilized remains are in the natural history museum in Hays, Kan. The first chapter that dealt with how the state's oil and salt deposits, rocks and minerals were formed will be edited out. Instead, the book will begin with the history of American Indians. A Board of Education member who opposed the Aug. 11 decision to allow local school districts the option of ignoring evolution in class lessons says it is a dangerous precedent. Bill Wagnon said, 'The next thing you know, we will be removing the Holocaust from history textbooks because it's objectionable to some people.' Another State Board member, Mary Douglass Brown, says it is unlikely the decision alone motivated the change, adding, 'That's hard to believe -- that we were that powerful.' ---
Copyright 1999 by United Press International. All rights reserved. ---
