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the alternative is to give students no training in critical thinking at all

I'd say the alternative is to find a subject which will be interesting to students, but with regard to which you don't have an appreciable percentage of teachers who will have an ax to grind or an ox to gore. That shouldn't be hard. There are plenty of controversies within the history of science that would be highly engaging (upon resurrecting the richness of their forgotten details) but which won't evoke particularistic passions.

There are plenty of controversies within the history of science that would be highly engaging (upon resurrecting the richness of their forgotten details) but which won't evoke particularistic passions.

Right. They should teach about Galileo's difficulties over his solar system theory. That one should help the kiddies when they encounter the evolution issue.

"I'd say the alternative is to find a subject which will be interesting to students, but with regard to which you don't have an appreciable percentage of teachers who will have an ax to grind or an ox to gore. That shouldn't be hard. There are plenty of controversies within the history of science that would be highly engaging (upon resurrecting the richness of their forgotten details) but which won't evoke particularistic passions."

The first thing I want to say is that I do not propose the development of a course on Critical Thinking as an antidote to the Creationist/ID/Evolution controversy. There is no such thing. My real goal is to, well, advance an understanding of Critical Thinking, which has now become an important part of college placement and entrance exams. If it is going to be required for entrance into college, then it must be taught. It is just that I view such a course as a perfect forum within which to introduce the controversy.

Stultis, obviously your distrust of the Creationist/Intelligent Design crowd is quite great. May I say that I share your distrust? Let's face it, if any change is made to a high school curriculum to permit any discussion of Creationism and/or Intelligent Design those guys and gals are going to go right to the school board and demand that the discussion be made on their terms. You and I, and I suspect ml1954 as well, all know it. And we'll be right back at war with them again. But I submit that the potential damage from such a war is far less than the war over getting it into a science class. Do you guys realize that there are university level Biology courses that deal with this controversy? Just Google all the appropriate keywords to view the syllabi of freshman biology courses and you'll see it. It is my opinion that we are losing the struggle to keep religion out of science class if it has to be dealt with at the college level. We need to reevaluate how to do that.