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Direct action by scientists has helped secure a victory against the US creationist movement. A grassroots campaign seems to have played a key role in ousting three anti-evolutionists from the Kansas Board of Education, clearing the way for evolution to be taught in the state's classrooms.

Last year, the board dropped the requirement to teach biological evolution and geological theories about the Earth's formation from the school curriculum (see Nature 400, 701; 1999).

But during an election campaign for board members that has been closely watched nationally and abroad, scientists — many new to political activity — campaigned in voting districts and led public education campaigns in protest.

Partly as a result, three creationist board members were dropped in last week's primary election, held to select Republican party candidates for the general election in November.

Some Kansas scientists say the campaign is a model for future elections. Before, scientists largely ignored creationists and their political efforts. “This suggests a change in political activity,” says Adrian Melott, an astrophysicist at the University of Kansas. “It shows that those who support enlightened values are as committed as the religious right wing; that could change American politics.”

But campaigners say that their efforts cannot stop here. “We should treat this as a wake-up call, not a long-term victory,” says Douglas Phenix, a member of the action group, who trained as a chemist at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and is now a Presbyterian minister in Kansas.

Kansas — dominated by the Republican party and home to many fundamentalist religious groups — became the latest battleground over evolution last year when a right-wing majority on the state school board quietly dropped evolution from state standards.

The move brought the state international embarrassment. Scientists are said to have rejected jobs at universities; businesses declined to open high-tech facilities there; and Kansas scientists claim to have been humiliated by criticism. This led to the formation of groups such as the scientist-organized Kansas Citizens for Science that helped produce last week's victory.

Heading for victory: Gamble (above) defeated anti-evolution school board head Linda Holloway. Credit: AP

In the Republican party primary, four board members in the creationist majority were up for election. Three of them, including board president Linda Holloway, were beaten by pro-evolution candidates.

Given the expected make-up of the ten-person state school board, this assures a pro-evolution majority after November's general election, when the Republican candidates will face pro-evolution Democrats. As a result, the school board is expected to rewrite education standards to include evolution and associated subjects, officials say.

Holloway — whose campaign cost nearly three times as much as that of her challenger, Sue Gamble — was rejected by 60% of the voters in the Kansas City area, the state's major urban centre. Some claim that even more significant is the victory of pro-evolution Carol Rupe in Wichita, given the conservative voting record in that rural region.

Among those working to mobilize the pro-evolution vote in rural areas was Pat Ross, an assistant professor of biology at Southwestern College in the small town of Winfield, Kansas. A member of Kansas Citizens for Science, Ross campaigned and helped organize a faculty vote against the state board's anti-evolution stance.

Buechner: spent this summer campaigning.

Southwestern is affiliated with the Methodist church, and was the only religious college in the state to have the faculty take such a position. “Typically, researchers are so immersed in their own science that they assume people will see the light, so scientists don't need to get involved,” says Ross. “This experience shows us scientists need to go outside their institutions and classrooms.”

Another researcher who left the lab to fight the creationists was Matthew Buechner, a cell biologist at the University of Kansas. Appalled by the state board's actions, Buechner spent this summer campaigning door-to-door in conservative voting districts.

Buechner has already signed up to help with long-term education efforts for high-school teachers — the next phase of activism by Kansas Citizens for Science.