Which I agree with fully.
My biggest contention, I guess, is the origin of the 'spark' of life. What started it all?
For thousands of years, people across the globe credited the existence of the world to a higher being (or beings).
Barely 150 years ago, Darwin started his theory of evolution and the argument began between the evolution / ID factions.
Scientific theory is supposed to become fact once proven....but 'proven' to who? How much evidence is enough? Who gets to decide?
Why can't it be accepted that something we cannot identify started *life*, then evolution took over from there?
Why can't school teach just the study of organisms without expounding on either theory to the originating *spark*?
Evolution has nothing to do with the originating "spark"...it's about the origin of SPECIES, not life.
And the way it's taught in schools has nothing in particular to do with the origin of life; it's simply teaching that over millions of years various species evolved from other species.
The most amazing thing about the whole debate is one entire side (the creationist/ID side) doesn't have the foggiest idea of what the debate is actually about.
Why can't it be accepted that something we cannot identify started *life*, then evolution took over from there?
Ironically, you've just put your finger on the source of much needless contention. Evolutionary theory does not attempt to identify what started life. Only, as you say, that it took over from there.
The Theory of Evolution does not make claims about the origin of life, just the origin of species. To ignore it in a science class means that we would be ignoring one of the central tenents of modern biology and no one is going to do that just to make the Discovery Institute happy.