Kansas Textbook [and History] Rewritten

[JAMES BASS]

>From the NEW SCIENTIST (www.newscientist.com) of 28 August, 1999:   
NEWSWIRE 

DELETING DARWIN | A publisher has removed sections on palaeontology and 
historical geology from a school textbook on the history of Kansas after the 
state Board of Education voted to remove evolution from its science curriculum 
(New Scientist, 21 August, p 4). The book for 12 and 13-year-olds originally 
started with a chapter on fossils, the origins of oil and gas deposits, and an 
inland sea that once covered the state. The new version will open with the 
arrival of Native Americans, although this falls slightly before the start of the 
creationist time scale. The publisher, the nonprofit Grace Dangberg Foundation 
of Nevada, says it wanted to improve the book's marketability. "You don't want 
to offend any group in Kansas," says James Bean, director of the foundation