[grey_whiskers]

If the atheistic god-hating minority doesn't want to have their children to hear about creation, they can start their own evolution only, no-God-allowed, private schools. They can homeschool. They can have their children opt out of the section in school that deals with creation. They don't have to sue to have it removed from public schools against the wishes of the rest of the parents just because THEY don't want their kids to hear it.

Nice reversal of the liberal "ghettoization of Christianity" argument.

The real issue, which I'm surprised CE2949BB hasn't brought up, is that many of the concepts and evidence for evolutionary models require at least a mid-college-level expertise to begin to grasp them, simply from the necessary background in science. Most elementary- and secondary-level teachers don't possess that knowledge, and certainly the students don't.

Not having the intellectual framework readily at hand, leaves one open to the "well if man evolved from the apes, how come there are still apes" questions which would be dismissed by the biologist with Wolfgang Pauli's famous line, "It's not even wrong" -- except that they don't have the tools to begin to describe why it is wrong (category error, complete misunderstanding of the description of what the process of evolution is *describing*.) So all they can do in the meantime is shout "Crimethink!" which plays well within the circle of those highly informed about the subject, and only reinforces the suspicions of those who are not scientifically literate.

There, have I cheesed off both sides pretty well now?

Cheers!

[metmom]

Most elementary- and secondary-level teachers don't possess that knowledge, and certainly the students don't.

No argument from me there.

Virtually all the high school students I've asked say that they spend a couple days on evolution only in 10th grade Bio.

If the evolutionists argue against the teaching of creation and religion in schools because it is likely to not be taught *properly*, then I fail to see why they would think that something like the ToE could not only be addressed adequately in the time frame most public schools give it, but also by the (more likely than not), underqualified public school teachers.

They expect us to believe that the public schools are incompetent in all areas EXCEPT when it comes to teaching science and evolution, even when the US ranks down near the bottom compared to the rest of the world academically, but especially in science and math.

And they expect us to believe that with public schools track record that they can teach this ONE area properly to the point of having it mandating through judicial fiat?

The inconsistency of that position is another reason that I don't believe that it's *just about science* rather than control.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Not having the intellectual framework readily at hand, leaves one open to the "well if man evolved from the apes, how come there are still apes" questions which would be dismissed by the biologist with Wolfgang Pauli's famous line, "It's not even wrong"

Actually this is an interesting question for a number of reasons. First, if it is so easy to dismiss, why do the responses to this objection almost invariably involve specious analogies with Great Britain and so on? I would like to see a response based on evolutionary science, not specious analogies. Next, Darwin did say that natural selection always preserves favorable variations and always destroys unfavorable variations. If that is so, we may not only wonder why there are still apes, we may also wonder how it came to be that there is more than one species on earth.