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  3. Evangelical Christians, buoyed by the re-election of President Bush, are turning American schools into a battleground over wheth

Evangelical Christians, buoyed by the re-election of President Bush, are turning American schools into a battleground over wheth

admin2010-01-15  36
问题      Evangelical Christians, buoyed by the re-election of President Bush, are turning American schools into a battleground over whether evolution explains the origins of life or whether nature was designed by an all-powerful force. In at least 18 states, campaigns have begun to make public schools teach "intelligent design" --a theory that nature is so complex it could only have been created by design——alongside Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
     "It’s pretty clear that there is a religious movement behind intelligent design," said Steve Case, chairman of the Science Standards Committee, a group of educators that advises the Kansas Board of Education. The board will decide later this year whether to include intelligent design in biology classes.
     Some scientists who espouse the theory say intelligent design does not question that evolution occurred, but how it occurred: They believe more was at play than random mutation and natural se-lection. The theory, they insist, does not support the religious concept of a creator. Those who advocate giving it equal treatment in schools have a different interpretation. "Intelligent design pro-motes a rational basis for belief in God," said John Calvert, managing director of the Kansas-based advocacy group Intelligent Design Network Inc.
     Americans’ resistance to evolution is nothing new.
     In 1925, Tennessee high school biology teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution in violation of a state law favoring creationism, in one of the most celebrated trials in U. S. history. Scopes was convicted and fined $100, but the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the verdict on a technicality.
     Critics, civil-liberties groups and many biology teachers see intelligent design being used as a version of creationism--the theory that God created the world as described in Genesis. The U. S. Supreme Court barred public school teaching of creationism in the 1980s for violating the separation of church and state.
     They say the push for intelligent design in America’s schools comes from evangelical Christians, a group key to Bush winning a second term last November.
The word "espouse" in the third paragraph, line one, probably means _______.
选项 A、list
B、escape
C、oppose
D、support
答案D
解析 词汇题。文章第三段中Some scientists who espouse the theory say intelligent design does not question that evolution occurred，but how it occurred的意思是：一些支持这个理论的科学家认为intelligence design不是怀疑进化是否发生，而是怀疑进化是如何发生。选项A“列出”，选项B“逃跑”和选项C“反对”都不符合句义，所以正确答案是D。
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