*Juli Berwald is a freelance science writer living in Austin, Texas. Her Ph.D. in Ocean Science is from the University of Southern California. On March 25, she presented her testimony before the Texas State Board of Education in its final public hearing regarding revisions to the state's science education standards. The final vote took place two days later. The words "strengths and weaknesses" were dropped, but language **was adopted that *questions evidence for evolution in the fossil record and challenges the Big Bang. Just hours before the Texas State Board of Education held its final hearings on the science education standards that would be put in place for the next decade, I set my kitchen timer for three minutes. I practiced my testimony among open jars of peanut butter and jelly strewn about from making kids' lunches. Ding. I still had my conclusion to read. What could I cut?

For months I had been slinking around the controversy in Texas. I had gone to every public hearing, sitting on the floor in the back of the packed room. Behind rows of folding chairs, I had gotten to know the voices, if not the faces, of the board members.

At issue was the wording of a science standard that states students must be taught the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. Since Kansas passed similar legislation in 2005 and Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2006, scientists have viewed these three words as a means for inserting the creationist theology that goes under the name "intelligent design" into science classes.

The language has never persisted. Federal Courts have struck down teaching of supernatural explanations of the origin of the species, citing separation of church and state. Still, scientists see those words as a serious affront to the teaching of rigorous science.

I handed 35 copies of my written testimony to the clerk and clutched a version in my sweaty palms. I listened as a fifth and sixth grade teacher with 35 years of experience said that denying the teaching of weaknesses in evolution was akin to shutting down creative inquiry.

The 15 board members were seated in an oval, the state seal of Texas emblazoned into the leather chair backs just above their heads. I looked around the oval, knowing that seven members would never agree with me.

"Thank you to the Board of Education for taking my testimony," I began. "For the last decade I have worked in the textbook publishing industry: writing, editing and developing curricula for science textbooks. While I am certain of my expertise writing scientific text, I don't want, nor should you want me to have, the responsibility for writing textbooks containing information that is not scientific fact."

I concluded with the paragraph that hadn't fit when I practiced in my kitchen. "I urge you to uphold language that supports the rigorous teaching of evolution to our students. I wouldn't want students to read fiction in a history book and try to determine which part of their text is historical fact. Why would you want students to read non-scientific ideas in a science book?"

Questions followed. "If the language 'strengths and weaknesses' were included in the standard, would you feel the need to include weaknesses of evolution in your text?"

My voice was tight and throaty. "It's really hard to come up with scientifically based weaknesses to evolution." The intelligent-design supporters exploded in protest.

The chairman banged his gavel repeatedly. "I will not have that kind of outburst in this room. If it happens again, I'll clear the room and we'll only have the testifiers in here. I'll do it!"

Next question. "If the language 'analyze and evaluate' were included in the standard would you feel an onus to include weaknesses of evolution in your text?"

My mind raced. Is there any way 'analyze and evaluate,' which seems like reasonable language, might be just another way to say 'strengths and weaknesses?'

"Not an onus." I finally squeaked.

What makes this debate so heated? In the hearing room, when creationists bring up weaknesses in evolution, scientists are baffled. When evolutionists say that nothing in biology makes sense without evolution, creationists are baffled.

Science is about explaining the how of the natural world: how the universe began, how life originated, how the diversity of species occurred. Scientists feel no need for their work to answer why the universe exists, why we are here. For scientists, those are questions better left to philosophy, religion and after-work hours.

Perhaps creationists find theories that only answer how to be completely unsatisfactory. Maybe for creationists, any theory that doesn't answer why contains weaknesses.

Is this discrepancy the reason the "weaknesses" of evolution that creationists speak of so passionately are so casually dismissed by scientists? Gaps in the fossil record, the geologically fast explosion of species in the Cambrian, and the complexity of the bacterial flagella are issues that are not fully understood. But scientists insist that given tools, time and the fundamental ideas of evolution, they will be solved.

Even if science could give creationists solutions to some of these issues, evolution is never going to answer their most pressing questions: Why are we here? Why were we given consciousness? What is the meaning of life? Only alternative, supernatural explanations of the natural world, the type espoused by intelligent design, can answer those questions.

Maybe evolutionists and creationists can't find common ground because they really aren't even having the same argument. Scientists are fighting to preserve their ability to answer how unimpeded by why. Creationists are fighting to have answers to why, unthreatened by answers to how.

As I walked away from the podium, a man approached me holding a magazine with a tree of life strewn across the cover. "Have you heard about lateral gene transfer? Don't you think it proves evolution isn't real?"

"No." I snapped. "It doesn't prove it at all." I hurried toward the back of the room and sat down in my comfortable spot on the floor.

\– by Juli Berwald for Wired.com

Listen to audio of the hearings

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Image: Board Members (center) and Patricia Hardy talk with science advisor Ronald Wetherington during a meeting of the Texas State Board of Education Thursday, March 26, 2009. AP Photo/Harry Cabluck