The panelists, all of whom are conservative Republicans who have questioned evolution, will report to the school board which is expected to approve new science standards in June (Johnson pp). Defenders of evolution acknowledge that their boycott leaves opponents unchallenged but said that they hoped their absence would help to defuse the "media-saturated argument over science and the Bible" (Johnson pp).

Efforts to require schools to teach the purported errors of evolution are under way in nearly two dozen states, and are led by two groups of activists (Johnson pp). One group consists of religious conservatives who believe the traditional biblical account that God created the world in six days (Johnson pp).

The other group are the advocates of intelligent design and consists of "intellectual thinkers, some of them scientists, who argue that life on the planet is too complex to have come about without some sort of guiding intelligence"...
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