John Mangels
Plain Dealer Science Writer
Columbus - In an arena that usually hosts plays, concerts and boxing matches, supporters and critics of evolution sparred yesterday over what Ohio's students should learn about the development of life.

The head-to-head matchup between two evolution proponents and two backers of a competing concept called intelligent de sign gave the State Board of Education its first chance to hear directly from both sides of a sig nificant na tional debate.

The panel discussion took place at the Franklin County Veterans Memorial Auditorium. The board late this year will approve state guidelines that will spell out what science information students are expected to know.

Board members had asked to hear from experts on evolution - which posits that genes and our surroundings shaped the diversity of life from a common ancestor - and from proponents of intelligent design, which suggests that a purposeful but unspecified force or being is the architect of all development. Evolution is widely taught, while intelligent design never has been a part of any state's curriculum guidelines.

"I'm very pleased. It was a balanced presentation that . . . was very helpful," said board President Jennifer Sheets, who moderated the mostly polite panel discussion before an audience of nearly 1,000.

To panelist Lawrence Krauss, though, the even-handed treatment given intelligent design is part of the problem.

Framing the question of what to teach in a two-on-two debate looks fair but gives intelligent design a credibility it doesn't deserve, said Krauss, chairman of Case Western Reserve University's physics department.

A true representation of the ratio of support and evidence for evolution versus intelligent design, Krauss said, would present 10,000 scientists on one side. On the other side would be one representative of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle organization that is the major national group pushing intelligent design.

Krauss and fellow evolution proponent Kenneth Miller, a Brown University cell biologist and biology textbook author, told board members that fossil finds, genetic studies and other experiments and observations strongly and consistently support Charles Darwin's theory that life evolved due to natural selection. All major scientific groups support teaching only evolution, the two said, and to do otherwise would be a waste of valuable education time and a misrepresentation of science.

Intelligent design advocates Jonathan Wells and Stephen Meyer, both senior fellows at the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, insisted that there is a growing scientific controversy over evolution's ability to explain how life came to be.

Wells, who has doctorates in molecular and cell biology, and Meyer, with a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science, said mainstream scientists censor attempts to publish scientific articles about intelligent design and use an intentionally limited definition of science to thwart theories that run counter to evolution.

Scientists confine themselves to proposing and testing only "natural world" explanations for the development of life. Wells and Meyer argued that the definition of science and the scientific method ought to be changed so that the "best" explanation can be pursued, whether in the natural world or otherwise.

Meyer proposed that the Ohio board create science guidelines that would allow teachers to "teach the controversy." This compromise, Meyer said, would let students learn about the scientific arguments for and against evolution, and would permit, but not require, teachers to tell pupils about alternative theories such as intelligent design.

The volunteers preparing the science guidelines that the board will vote on have submitted one version that recommends teaching only evolution. A revised draft is expected next month, but Sheets said board members do not know whether it includes an option to also teach intelligent design, as some board members had wanted. The board will seek public input this summer and will vote on final science guidelines in December.

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