Brandon Kenig is a District 2 candidate for the Kansas State Board of Education. Last Friday morning, Kenig sent us an email in which he said that we had "completely distorted" his position on evolution by including the following quote from his blog on our map:
"The theory of evolution should be taught in classrooms, but not forced upon students. Holes in the current evolution theory and alternative theories (such as intelligent design) should be mentioned."
Did we distort Kenig's position? Was this truly a case of mistaken identity?
Keep reading to follow the evidence where it leads . . .
[Added in edit: Brandon Kenig Responds]
At the time we made our endorsements, there was admittedly little information available concerning Kenig's positions. All we had to go on was a two-year-old post on Kenig's blog (archived) in which he described his position on evolution.
Evolution--Let me just say that I'm Catholic, and I believe in evolution somewhat and that creation can go hand-in-hand with evolution. I think evolutionists have done a poor job by trying to leave God out of the equation (I don't think the earth's 6 billion years old--more like 10 or 15 thousand years old). The theory of evolution should be taught in classrooms, but not forced upon students. Holes in the current evolution theory and alternative theories (such as intelligent design) should be mentioned. This isn't about teaching the Bible in the classroom, it's about examining scientific evidence, critiquing it, and looking at alternative evidence. Science isn't perfect and we should be prepared to examine all the evidence and not try to ignore obvious problems in current evolutionary theory and the opposition to it. Having said that, attempts by school boards and politicians to downplay evolution or ban it entirely are also ridiculous. The classroom is an open forum. And I believe that evolution and creationism can co-exist (In fact, I personally think they're both compatible).
Kenig has since clarified his position to us via email, and he gave us permission to quote from those emails.
First, he acknowledged that his stance was confusing:
I wrote that blog entry two years ago and it was stream-of-consciousness thought at the time, and I realized after reading your interpretation of it and others' interpretations that it was unclear. I meant for it to read that intelligent design in light of the current controversy should be mentioned, but this is not the same thing as teaching it. This is not anything new--in fact, when I was in high school, virtually all of the biology teachers in my school made a statement or alluded to the controversy over teaching evolution and how some wanted intelligent design or creationism taught. Then, the teacher would proceed to teach about evolution and only evolution. So what I stated is not shocking or anything new--most people already know about the controversy but for students who don't, a brief statement acknowledging the controversy would give students some perspective and let them know what is happening.
He went on to state his unequivocal support for the current science standards:
I fully support the current standards re-written by the board in 2007. I feel fortunate that in the 2nd district we've had Sue Gamble as our board member and she's been a great voice for our district. This controversy has hurt Kansas nationally, and economically, we've suffered--I've heard stories of several companies that hesitated before re-locating to Kansas because of the State Board's debacle in weakening the science standards. Corporations and national organizations look at the quality of the education systems and schools where they re-locate as a major factor in their decision-making process. Religion and philosophy belong in religion and philosophy classes and science belongs in science classes. It's as simple as that.
One of the questions we asked Kenig concerned his public statement at a recent candidate forum in Prairie Village. Due to a personal conflict, Kenig was unable to attend the forum, but he did send along a statement to be read by the moderator. In that statement, Kenig said that he would like to give school districts more local control over the teaching of "controversial" scientific topics. We asked him whether he considered evolution to be one of those controversial topics.
In response to this question, Kenig wrote:
In my statement concerning local conrol [sic] over controversial topics, I now realize I was too vague. I was not attempting to describe evolution as one of those topics--I think topics like sex education and suitable reading for English classes should be decided on a local level. I think larger, more urban and suburban districts should have the ability to go beyond the abstinence-only policy set forth by the state board and include other aspects of sex education as they see fit. These are the issues I think should be handled locally. Evolution, however, is a major component of the biology curriculum and as such, it should be consistent across the board and across the state.
We wrote back, pointing out the following "Theme" listed on the Facebook group Brandon Kenig for Kansas State Board of Education:
Believer in local control (reducing mandates on how certain subjects are taught in favor of local control and letting local boards augment/adjust existing state standards for their own needs--evolution, sex ed., etc., . . .
Kenig responded, writing:
I read what my facebook blog entry said and and [sic] what I meant was that teachers should be able to augment the teaching of evolution with additional details.
He went on to say:
I apologize if this appeared inconsistent--I had not intended for it to be. It is ultimately my fault because I was not more specific to begin with. But to recap: the current science standards (sans creationism or intelligent design) must remain in place, and local teachers should be given the flexibility to expand and teach the topic beyond what is offered on the state assessment (discussing different periods, different hominid forms, different research and researchers on the subject) but in no way, shape, or form should this be interpreted or used to REDUCE or DILUTE the existing pro-science standards--it should only be used to ENHANCE them.
We are grateful that Kenig has taken the time to more fully explain his positions.
However, we are still troubled by a few issues:
1. We asked Kenig why he was inclined to believe the earth is 10 or 15 thousand years old, rather than ~4.5 billion as determined by geologists and accepted by 99.9% of scientists in the field. He did not respond to this question.
2. In his response to our questions, Kenig asserted that "scientific critiques of evolution or missing data or holes in the theory can and should be discussed and taught if they are scientific in nature and technical--and that is consistent with my stated position all along." Unfortunately, Kenig did not explain which "scientific critiques" of evolutionary theory he thinks should be discussed and taught. After all, the 2005 standards included a litany of so-called "critiques" of evolutionary theory that had already been thoroughly refuted and rejected by the scientific community. We cannot help but wonder, are these the kind of "scientific critiques" that Kenig has in mind?
3. Throughout Kenig's Facebook group page, a recurring theme seems to be that local school districts should be able to ignore state mandates whenever they so choose. He even specifically lists evolution as one of the topics for which state mandates should be reduced. This is in direct opposition to Kenig's stated support of the current science standards. Indeed, this same "local control" stance was promoted by the instigators of the infamous 1999 standards.
Are these seemingly contradictory statements the result of a candidate who is trying to obfuscate the issues, or are they products of a campaign that just isn't very well organized and coherent at this point? Frankly, it's hard to tell.
The bottom line is this: we are not convinced that Kenig is a REAL science candidate, so we are changing his designation to "Unknown" with a link back to this post. We are hoping that Kenig will clarify these issues for us soon.
We promise to keep you informed, and to continue following the evidence where it leads.
posted by Jeremy Mohn
