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Nearly two-thirds of Americans support teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools, according to a new poll, but there is far less agreement over who gets to decide what is taught.

About 64 percent support teaching both evolution and creationism, according to a poll of 2,000 adults July 7-17 by the Pew pollsters and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, released August 30.

The state education board in Kansas has tentatively approved new guidelines supported by some Christians that encourage public schools to teach a variety of theories about the origins of life, downgrading the centrality of the theory of evolution. On a 6-4 vote August 10 the Kansas Board of Education approved a draft of new standards that call for teachers to explore a variety of theories about the biological origins of life.