"When you don't know, you don't know. Teach both sides, the truth will someday be known"
If you don't require any evidence to teach something then there are not two sides but thousands.
That's why science prefers teach the stuff that's backed up by evidence.
This is actually a pretty political issue...
"Science" doesn't "prefer" to do anything. It's a descriptive word, not a person. Perhaps much of the alleged problem has to do with attempts to anthropomorphize an entire discipline into some sort of political interest group -- which in many cases it is.
Further, those who claim to speak for "science" tend to be an arrogant lot who, again, seem to be awfully political.
If there's a "hostility" toward science, I suspect it's not really toward "science" per se, but rather a class of scientists who rub people the wrong way by relegating non-scientists to the lower echelons of humanity.
Add to that an antipathy toward the old ideal of "progress" that has been growing over the past 40 years or so. It used to be the idea that progress=good, and that science=hope were unquestioned. But the advance of science has led to a lot of unpleasant side-effects, too -- and people tend to focus on such things.
And of course, there's the whole ID debate, which is really what this article's about. The fact of the matter is that most people are nowhere near as impressed by "evolution-only" arguments, because most people believe in God, and they are logical enough to understand that belief in God confers legitimacy on the idea of "design."
Yes, science can report observations and patterns of observations. But, science can't explain "why" or even as much as Genesis 1:1 explains.
The problem with "Science" - what many in the US have been hostile to for more than a hundred years is the representation of science as omnipotent and omniscient. And of course "science" is neither. *Scientists* most certainly are neither.
As long as those who work in science and would teach the patterns they find in science anthropomorphize "Science" as all knowing, all powerful and not to be questioned- or when legitimate seekers of pattern allow the media to do so, as in this article - then no one should be surprised that there is "hostility."