"Do you think creationism or intelligent design should be taught in science classes in secondary public schools as a competing scientific theory to evolution?"
I voted YES, and I have trouble imagining how even a true believing evolutionist would vote no.
An evolutionist could very well attribute popular acceptance of ID & creationism to poor scientific education. If students go through school learning lightweight "uncontested" evidence for evolution and then grow up and read posts by DaveLoneRanger, what are they going think? "Hey my teachers implied this was undisputed evidence. They lied, and it’s probably all lies." or "I don't care what anybody says about my belief in evolution, blind faith in it is good enough." Either way, not only did they not learn enough about the subject of evolution, they didn't even learn enough to think about science. No idea can stand strong without being hotly contested, so how does anyone expect evolution to stand in the minds of students without adequate debate?
I ended my lifetime subscription to National Geographic because of a recent cover story on evolution. They pretended to cover both sides of the debate by presenting weak religious arguments and lightweight scientific questions and then proceeded to present some of the heaviest evidence for evolution I had read up to that point with no more room for debate. Later I see all that evidence hotly debated on FreeRepublic and I realize National Geographic merely spoon fed me a one-sided argument and called it objective journalism. Whether I believe creation or evolution, I should be pissed.
I've learned more about evolution in a few months on FreeRepublic than I have from years of biology and zoology, decades of National Geographic; a hundred hours of nature documentaries; and full bookshelf of natural history, because it was debated at FreeRepublic, and that made it both informative and interesting. I feel like everything else I've heard, seen, and read on the topic was just a bunch biologists patting each other on the butt for a fun baseball practice.
If the science taught in schools can't even stand up to debate, then it's not worth teaching at all. Science doesn't answer tough questions if they're not asked. The irony is that the people who are afraid that ID or creationism will make students “unscientific”, would rob students of the greater gift of critical thinking that could develop regardless of which origin world view they adopted.
Of course this works to a creationist’s advantage because they believe there is a debate and could be more prepared for one, whereas a biology student wouldn’t even know where to begin if they met DaveLoneRanger. Likewise, maybe this works to evolution supporters’ advantage as well, since everyone coming out of high school will be completely dependent on them to defend their doctrine.
Prime ...
People who oppose the teaching of creationism and "intelligent design" in science classes are not idolators. We do "true believers" in evolution. This is rather insulting.
If the science taught in schools can't even stand up to debate, then it's not worth teaching at all.
The purpose of science class at the secondary school level is not to debate science, and more than the purpose of math class is to debate math.
As most schools are operated as college prep, the purpose of science class is to prepare students with the material as they will need to know it when they continue at university.