Candidate questionnaire shows support for intelligent design
Candidate questionnaire shows support for intelligent design
BY JoANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star - 10/3/2006
See also Sioux City Journal
A candidate for the District 5 state Board of Education seat said in response to a political questionnaire that he would support the theory of intelligent design being discussed in science class.
But in a Journal Star interview, Alan Jacobsen of Denton said he is not an advocate for the theory, and it’s not an issue in his campaign. His opponent, incumbent Patricia Timm of Beatrice, said she does not foresee discussion of the theory becoming an issue for the board.
Jacobsen made his comments on intelligent design — which holds that life is so complex it must have been created by some kind of higher power — in response to a questionnaire compiled by voterinformation.org and linked to the Family First Web site.
The questionnaire touched on questions of political policies and “personal principles.” Other question topics included abortion, the Defense of Marriage Amendment, educational environment, life-styles, schools’ authority and repeal of LB126, a law passed in 2005 to force the merger of small Class I districts with neighboring K-12 districts.
In answering the questions, Jacobsen said he “definitely” supported intelligent design theory being discussed in science class and that he was concerned with teaching evolution as a fact.
“Prior to his death, Darwin himself saw the holes in his theory,” he wrote.
He also said schools should not force students to agree that all lifestyles, beliefs and values are equal.
“Forcing tolerance upon students strips them of their ability to think and their basic, fundamental rights,” he wrote.
Interviewed by the Journal Star, Jacobsen said intelligent design is not an issue in his campaign.
“I’ve been very clear on what’s important to me,” he said.
He is concentrating on issues that are actually up for debate, he said. Those issues include the cost of the state’s School-based, Teacher-led, Assessment Reporting System, or STARS, which allows individual districts to develop their own methods of assessing whether students are proficient in reading and mathematics standards.
Other issues he has focused on include expanding technology and Internet services in the schools, distance education and public accountability by the Department of Education and Commissioner Doug Christensen.
On Wednesday, Jacobsen pointed to a request by the Legislative Audit Committee for an attorney general’s opinion on whether the Department of Education could withhold information from the committee.
The audit committee, in looking into the question of whether the department’s academic testing standards and requirements complied with state and federal law, was denied a look at eight letters to the department from the attorney general’s office. The department claimed client-attorney privilege.
Jacobsen said he, too, has raised this question of accountability.
“That’s what this campaign is all about,” he said.
Timm said she chose not to answer the voterinformation.org questionnaire when it was sent to her and also this week when the Journal Star e-mailed her the questions from the voterinformation.org form.
“It is very concerning to me that we are not discussing the major policy issues of the state board, including essential education and quality teachers,” she said.
She said she was not aware of any organized effort statewide to get creationists on the board for the purposes of changing the state science standards and did not foresee it becoming an issue.
She has said she supports the STARS system of assessment and has focused on essential education — giving students across the state equal opportunities for education — and early childhood education.
Jacobsen said he has no ulterior motives in running for the board.
If the idea of including a discussion of intelligent design in science classes came before the board, and if he had to choose, he would prefer that intelligent design be incorporated into the standards, Jacobsen said.
But he is not, he said, “trying to make public schools parochial schools.”
Jacobsen said his faith has come up in various elections because other people have brought it up.
“Hopefully my faith makes me a better person,” he said. “It’s my moral base, but it does not mean I’m out to change people.”
The issue of adding non-scientific theories to the teaching of human origins in science class came before the Nebraska board in 1999. At that time, scientists, ministers, parents and educators testified before the board about whether to include alternatives to evolution in the standards. The board voted 5-3 to leave the standards as written.
The standards, which serve as guidelines for the state's public schools, call for students to develop an understanding of the theory of biological evolution. They also ask that students investigate and use the theory of biological evolution to explain diversity of life.
Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.