As the hearings on the state’s science standards for K-12 students approach, a panel of University of Kansas students and faculty, along with other experts and scientists said changes devaluing evolution in the standards could harm the state’s economy.

Several members of the panel, which met yesterday, said this was a response to what they said was the Kansas Board of Education’s agenda to make intelligent design part of the science curriculum. They said that the bioscience industry would not want to come to a state that did not value science and that people would not move to a state with a educational system that was perceived as backward.

Sitting at the front of the sanctuary of Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vermont St., the panelists discussed their unhappiness with the necessity of the meeting.

“I can’t express pleasure to be here because it feels like we’re in a time machine going back to the 1700s,” Leonard Krishtalka, director of the KU Natural History Museum, said.

Each of the seven members of the panel spoke briefly on an area that the board’s final decision could affect. Effects on the state’s economy and education were two subjects discussed the most.

Because the state legislature passed the Kansas Bioscience Initiative in 2004, Charles Decedue, executive director of the Higuchi Biosciences Center, said it was critical that the quality of science education stay high.

The initiative involves spending $500 million dollars to attract companies to the state and make it a leader in bioscience industry and research, Decedue said. Twenty-thousand jobs could result from the initiative.

In his opening remarks, John Burch, Plymouth church member, said that the panel would attempt to answer the questions the board should be asking before they made their decision in May.

“The question is whether K-12 students will qualify for those 20,000 bioscience jobs,” he said.

Students and faculty commented on how downplaying evolution in the classroom would affect education.

Andrew Stangl said his school didn’t teach evolution as a result of the board’s science standards changes in 2001.

He learned about evolution because he took the time outside of school to learn it, said the Andover sophomore and president of the KU chapter of the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics.

Rachel Robson, Lawrence medical student, will graduate this August. She said she would like to stay in Kansas to work but was concerned that jobs in the bioscience industry could be scarce.

“There are native Kansans that want to stay but may have nowhere to [work],” she said.

Panelists also answered questions from the audience of about 50 people.