But they made it so that Kansas schoolchildren would no longer have to display any knowledge of macroevolution, large-scale evolutionary change, on a state exam. Local school boards were left to decide how this aspect of evolution would be taught in their schools.

On the surface, the vote didn't cause too massive of a change. Only a few questions would be removed from the state exam and local school districts still had to prepare their students for a medley of other standardized tests which would require teaching evolution. Most vowed that they would continue teaching the subject in its entirety anyway, no matter what the school board decided.

So while people around the world chuckled, shook their heads and made doomsday predictions about the future of science in Kansas, they were somewhat misinformed. There was plenty of room for outcry, for heated debate and discussion, but not for the hysterics that went on throughout the globe.

What was alarming wasn't so much the vote itself, but what it represented, how large an issue evolution had become, how powerful its opponents had grown and, most importantly, how the debate was not as simple as many made it seem.

The truth is, the school board vote was not simply a matter of reason versus religion, good guys versus bad. The conservatives weren't crazy, Bible-toting fundamentalists spouting scripture. They were highly organized and researched. They brought in their own scientists and their own theories. They claimed that their ideas had scientific basis and were not dependent on the Bible. They were convinced that the way evolution was being taught in Kansas science classes was wrong. And, like everyone else, they claimed to want the best for the students.

Maybe the conservatives were way off the mark, their theories flimsy and easily defeated by modern science. Maybe they did have an ulterior agenda whose main goal was to bring God back into the classroom. But the world did everyone a disservice when it painted them as stupid.

There is a major breakdown in communication between the right and left in this country. And most debate simply degenerates into childish name-calling. But the conservatives grow in power when they are dismissed as crazy. Evolution will be back when the new moderate members take office, but grumbling beneath the surface will continue and the conservatives still will be able to say that the only reason they lost was because their actions were skewed by the national media. They were misunderstood.