"Neither intelligent design nor evolution should be taught in public schools. Neither are essential to a good education. I'm 47 and haven't used my highschool studies in evolution once since highschool, except in these posts. They aren't teaching the basics. Why are they taking on divisive subject matter like this which is not basic?"
"So the plan is what? Quit teaching science after 5th grade?"
Brilliant's point is right.
Evolution is *not* that important for science.
Did you learn Quantum Mechanics in 5th grade ? In *any* grade?
... yet it is more important to your daily life than evolution.
Evolution is taught because you can make whacked and phony analogies ... but you dont need tough math.
QM is far more important, but the math needed is college-level. So IMHO, we teach evolution to youngsters because it is EASY not because it is IMPORTANT.
Probably be better off getting into molecular cell biology than evolution. DNA etc.
How many kids actually know how a transistor, a laser or a radio works?
Every single day you interact with them.
I've yet to interact with a Dinosaur (jokes aside).
Nah, it's only the unifying principle of biology. That's not important.
Seriously, part of the purpose of high school education is to prepare kids for college. And they're not going to be prapared to take college-level biology if they do not understand evolution.
Besides, it's so simple, there's no reason not to teach it.
Probably be better off getting into molecular cell biology than evolution. DNA etc.
Problem is, once you get above fifth-grade science, all this stuff sort of hangs together - “molecular cell biology”, “DNA”, organic chemistry, genetics, “evolution” – if you have a smart student, it pretty quickly becomes clear to them that these are not isolated fields of study, but part of an organic whole. (That’s why more sophisticated creationists with scientific backgrounds often tend, eventually, to end up in the “God created the world so it looks as though “evolution” is occurring camp, and why ID is so attractive to some observers) . It’s just very, very difficult to try to conceive of “evolution” as a unique process outside of and excluded from the biological matrix in which it’s embedded, and equally difficult for imagine, once you start understanding that matrix, how it could operate without producing “evolution” going forward.
As for Quantum Mechanics, anyone uneasy with the absence of God’s guidance in the process of “random evolution” ought to be outraged by the existence tunnel diodes – even Einstein couldn’t continence a God who plays dice in an indeterminate universe, but that's what QM is ALL ABOUT.
In this sense the Mullahs in Tehran (who at one point banned the teaching of statistics on similiar grounds) understood the threat of indeterminacy to extra-scientific opinion on such matters better than most Christian creationists.