Kline changes his story

Peter Slevin, author of two recent articles on Kansas, profiles Phill Kline as A Kansan With Conviction. It's not as laudatory as the title implies.

Kline said he discussed education funding and the issue of evolution in both meetings. He said board members -- intent on changing how evolution is taught in public schools -- asked him if it would be constitutional to affix a sticker to textbooks saying evolution is a theory, not a fact. A federal judge in Cobb County, Ga., recently ordered such stickers removed.

"Yeah, it's constitutional. It is theory. I know the difference between scientific law, scientific theory, scientific hypothesis," Kline said in the interview.

Although evolution is commonly termed a theory, most scientists consider the evidence, accumulated over 150-plus years, to be overwhelming, and they say opponents misuse language to mislead the public.

(My emphasis.) His standard claim, and one that DA Hecht hung his whitewash on, was that he wanted to discuss the stickers, not that they wanted too. Is he changing his story?

I'll dig into this.