Conservative Republicans who approved new classroom standards that call evolution into question lost control of the State Board of Education in Tuesday's primary election.
A victory by pro-evolution Republican candidate Jana Shaver over conservative Republican Brad Patzer, who supported the standards treating evolution as a flawed theory, meant conservatives would at best have five of 10 seats on the board.
Five seats were up for election in the primary, the latest skirmish in a seesawing battle between faith and science that has opened Kansas up to international ridicule.
Conservative Republican John Bacon kept his seat by besting two pro-evolution challengers. But Shaver's win split the makeup of the board between evolution supporters and opponents. She won a seat that was vacant because a conservative Republican evolution opponent was retiring.
Besides Bacon and Shaver's races, the seats of two conservative Republicans who oppose evolution were up for grabs, along with that of a Democrat who favors evolution.
Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat who opposed the new standards, defeated a more conservative Democrat who favored the anti-evolution language with 65 percent of the vote.
One conservative incumbent, Ken Willard, held on to his seat, but another, Connie Morris, was losing to a pro-evolution candidate.
Morris' race in western Kansas was the most closely watched. The former teacher has described evolution as ''an age-old fairy tale'' and ''a nice bedtime story'' unsupported by science.
Think about that for a minute: A Biblican literalist calls Darwin's theory of evolution "an age-old fairy tale." Pot, kettle, etc.
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