advising that the science standards do "not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design." This was touted by the Discovery Institute as a significant victory. By February 2006 the Ohio Board of Education voted 11–4 to delete the science standard and correlating lesson plan adopted in 2002. The board also rejected a competing plan from the institute to request a legal opinion from the state attorney general on the constitutionality of the science standards. Intelligent design proponents pledged to force another vote on the issue. 2005 Kansas evolution hearings: A series of hearings instigated by the institute held in Topeka, Kansas May 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education to review changes how the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school science classes. The hearings were boycotted by the scientific community, and views expressed represented largely those of intelligent design advocates. The result of the hearings was the adoption of new science standards by the Republican-dominated board in defiance of the State Board Science Hearing Committee that relied upon the institute's Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan and adopted the institute's Teach the Controversy approach. In August 2006 conservative Republicans lost their majority on the board in a primary election. The moderate Republican and Democrats gaining seats vowed to overturn the 2005 school science standards and adopt those recommended by a State Board Science Hearing Committee that were rejected by the previous board. 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District: Eleven parents of students in the school district of Dover, Pennsylvania, sued the Dover Area School District over a statement that the school board required to be read aloud in ninth-grade science classes when evolution was taught endorsing intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. The plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board policy thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In December, 2005 United States federal court judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science and is essentially religious in nature. Criticism The theory of evolution is accepted by the vast majority of biologists and by the scientific community in general, in such overwhelming numbers that the theory of evolution is viewed as having scientific consensus. Over 70 scientific societies, institutions, and other professional groups representing tens of thousands of individual scientists have issued policy statements supporting