[Ichneumon]

"so to allow criticism of that would be to criticize who they are and what they're about. That's one of the issues."

No, it isn't. The issue is that if you want to try to criticize a scientific viewpoint, do it in the peer-reviewed science journals where it belongs. Don't try to make science classrooms your battleground -- schoolkids don't have the background to be the jury on that debate, which is probably why creationists are trying to drag their challenge there instead of doing it in front of actual scientists.

[Remedy]

See media bias link in post#1

[staytrue]

schoolkids don't have the background to be the jury on that debate

You get a major mega dittos here. It is hard enough to teach Newtonian mechanics without telling the student the disclaimer that "all the physics we teach you is an approximation that ignores relativistic and quantum effects"

[jennyp]

The issue is that if you want to try to criticize a scientific viewpoint, do it in the peer-reviewed science journals where it belongs. Don't try to make science classrooms your battleground -- schoolkids don't have the background to be the jury on that debate, which is probably why creationists are trying to drag their challenge there instead of doing it in front of actual scientists.

BINGO!

Why should ID supporters allow the Darwinian establishment to indoctrinate students at the high school level, only to divert some of the brightest to becoming supporters of a mechanistic account of evolution, when by presenting ID at the high school level some of these same students would go on to careers trying to develop ID as a positive research program? If ID is going to succeed as a research program, it will need workers, and these are best recruited at a young age. The Darwinists undestand this. So do the ID proponents. There is a sociological dimension to science and to the prospering of scientific theories, and this cannot be ignored if ID is going to become a thriving research program.
Wm. Dembski, Then and Only Then -- A Reply to Mike Gene, ARN discussion board, 7/26/2002

This is laughable. Dembski doesn't think ID can survive unless they get to them in High School, right when they're starting to learn the basics of mainstream biology. He thinks that by the time they become grad students they'll have been thoroughly brainwashed by mainstream theories and utterly unable to conceive of new ideas that go against the grain.

Ah, but it doesn't even begin there! Dembski has visions of ID being taught even earlier...

Building a design curriculum is educational in the broadest sense. It includes not just textbooks, but everything from research monographs for professors and graduate students to coloring books for preschoolers. It needs to take full advantage of the technologies and media at our disposal -- CD ROMs, Videos, DVDs, computer animation, e-learning, and more. The videos Unlocking the Mystery of Life's Origin and Icons of Evolution are exemplary in this regard. So too is the cartoon book What's Darwin Got to Do with It?, which provides a perfect lead-in for students about to study high school biology.
Wm. Dembski, Becoming a Disciplined Science, RAPID Conference speech, 2002

[CobaltBlue]

>>schoolkids don't have the background to be the jury on that debate, which is probably why creationists are trying to drag their challenge there instead of doing it in front of actual scientists.<<

Excellent point. Get 'em when they're young and you have a good chance of keeping them for life.

[gore3000]

do it in the peer-reviewed science journals where it belongs.

Yup, do it in the closed circuit where no dissent from evolution is allowed that way your views will not be heard. Well, tell you what - the argument against evolution is out there and it is being heard. Further, it is being discussed and taken seriously by scientists. For example the bacterial flagellum has received numerous scientific articles and discussions, many attempting to challenge its irreducible complexity and all of them failing. Behe's book has been read by millions - including scientists. No one can deny that the argument has not been made and laid out for criticism. It has been laid out much more forcefully and much more publicly than if it had been published in a stupid science journal which people put unread on their bookshelves to make others think that they know what is going on in their field.

The points against evolution are out there, if evolutionists fail to refute them it is not because they have not heard them.

[fabian]

You are underestimating the intelligence of students. The many holes in evolution theory should never be hidden from them. That is what's being done and it is called brainwashing.