ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

 From the National Center for Science Education, October 13, 2005

In the Kansas City Star (October 9, 2005), Jason Gertzen and Diane 
Stafford report that Kansas's reputation as a state officially 
hostile to evolution education is having discernible effects on 
recruitment efforts at universities and in the burgeoning 
biotechnology industry. "Some business leaders and economic 
development recruiters in the region say ... the region has acquired 
an 'anti-science' label in some key professions, fueled by the 
evolution debate in Kansas and efforts in Kansas and Missouri to 
impose restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research," they 
write. For example:
	*	"We have become a bit of a punch line ... We just 
tend to get lumped in there as the stereotypical conservative, 
backward-thinking area," said Blake Schreck, the president of the 
Lenexa Chamber of Commerce.
	*	When I go to national meetings, people start to buzz 
about Kansas and 'intelligent design.' When people begin to laugh at 
you, that is worse than if they disagree with you, and that is what 
is beginning to happen," said James L. Spigarelli, the president and 
chief executive officer of the Midwest Research Institute in Kansas 
City.
	*	"People can't believe we'd go backward and lose our 
standing in the scientific world. ... scientists like to be around 
other scientists. If the feeling they get is that in this community 
they can't explore, they can't be curious, maybe they won't come 
here," said Thomas Giarla, the former president of JRH Biosciences 
(now SAFC Biosciences).

Gertzen and Stafford acknowledge that the previous debacle over 
evolution in Kansas in 1999 appeared to have little economic effect, 
"perhaps because a slate of newly elected board members quickly 
reversed the previous board's action. As a result, many in the 
science community at the time wrote it off as a temporary blip." 
While it is difficult to compile economic data to prove that the 
region's economy would suffer from the state board of education's 
expected decision to adopt a set of science standards in which 
evolution is systematically impugned, they reported a Kansas City 
economist as characterizing the idea as not far-fetched.


Martin
-- 
Martin Weiss, Ph.D
Vice President, Science
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111 th Street
Corona, New York 11368
718 699 0005 x 356

***********************************************************************
More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
Association of Science-Technology Centers may be found at http://www.astc.org.
To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the
message  SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to
[log in to unmask]