The battle over the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) has flared up in a new state—Kansas.

The NGSS standards are a nationwide attempt to improve science education in the US, and they have been backed by organizations such as the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. But because they include the mainstream, science-based views on evolution and climate change, the standards faced public opposition in Kentucky that forced the governor to intervene to get them approved.

A handful of other states have adopted the standards. The most surprising is Kansas, which has an awkward past when it comes to science education. The state booted evolution from its science standards at least twice in the last few decades. But Kansas' approval of the NGSS standards may have been the calm before the storm. Since that, the state Republican Party has called for their withdrawal, and now a lawsuit has been filed that claims the standards' focus on natural causes will violate students' religious freedom.

Earlier this month, the state's Republicans passed a series of resolutions regarding education. In general, these resolutions (which targeted basic literacy and math education in addition to science) focused on the loss of local control involved in adopting standards that were developed by national organizations and meant for widespread use. In fact, the GOP would like to "prohibit adoption of any standards that require the state to cede any measure of control over their drafting and revision." These mention the NGSS standards by name, and the Lawrence Journal-World notes that "the standards were opposed by some because they treat evolution of species as a fact and offer no discussion of religious-based theories such as creationism or intelligent design."

Meanwhile, adopting the standards has gotten the Kansas State Board of Education and the state's Department of Education embroiled in a lawsuit. A group calling itself the Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE), along with a collection of parents and taxpayers, filed the lawsuit against the two government agencies, claiming that the new science standards are a form of religious indoctrination.

At issue is science's focus on identifying natural causes for past and present phenomena. This methodological naturalism developed in part as a result of scientists' inability to evaluate the probability of a miracle or compare that likelihood to a well-defined natural mechanism (plus, miracles don't suggest any obvious follow-up experiments). In the view of COPE and the other plaintiffs, this focus on methodological naturalism is an orthodoxy that will violate the constitutional prohibition on the establishment of religion.

According to the suit, questions of origins—of the Universe, our planet, and life itself—are inherently religious in nature. Given that, the suit claims "the state may not take a position as to whether a particular view of origins is or is not valid." Yet in the filing group's view, the standards do just that. "The F&S [Framework and Standards] take impressionable children, beginning in Kindergarten, into the religious sphere by leading them to ask ultimate religious questions like what is the cause and nature of life and the Universe." According to the suit, the standards are little more than an attempt to indoctrinate students with the stifling orthodoxy imposed by methodological naturalism.

It's a pretty novel legal argument, given that courts have shown little inclination to find that science education is religiously problematic.

It's not the only argument the suit makes. One of the lawyers who filed the suit is John Calvert, a long-time supporter of the intelligent design movement who has been involved in many past fights over science education in the state. And the suit itself includes the claim that teleological (goal-oriented) ideas about origins are just as valid as the mainstream scientific view. These arguments, however, turn out to be little more than a rehash of standard creationist claims: information in DNA must require a designer, and rapid speciation events are beyond the capacity of evolution to explain, for example.

The suit is unlikely to get very far, but it may end up having unintended consequences. The Dover decision on intelligent design technically only applies to the district in which it was decided, yet the decision was written so comprehensively and definitively that no other school districts have officially endorsed intelligent design since. There's always a chance this case could trigger an equally comprehensive decision that will banish some other creationist arguments from the legal sphere.

If you're interested in a firsthand look, the National Center for Science Education is hosting a copy of the suit.

Listing image by Flickr user: J. Stephen Conn