No one knows for certain that we evolved from micro-organisms. There is no certainty that micro-to-man evolution occurred. And if it did occur, no one knows for certain that God had nothing to do with it.
It's not Establishment of a religion to note those facts in a public building.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that vouchers become the norm, the public schools close down, and everyone sends their kids to a private school. Half the public sends their kids to private schools that teach evolution, the other half to private schools that teach both evolution and ID.
What do you think would be the response of the two sides in this battle? My guess is that the ID side would leave the pro-evolution schools alone. But the evolutionists would try every trick in the book to force the schools that teach both to adopt "evolution only" education. They'd insist that vouchers are aid to the school. They'd insist that the public services the school receives (mail delivery, garbage collection) constitute government participation in the school's activities. They'd constantly nitpick at those schools with lawsuits and demands of government intervention until they either found a court to shut them down or bankrupted them with legal fees.
They'd never allow half the kids in the country to hear an alternative in school, because to them evolution is a religion...THEIR religion....and they demand a theocracy on this issue.
It is as certain as any other well-substantiated theory in science.
And if it did occur, no one knows for certain that God had nothing to do with it.
I agree, and no mainstream biology text I know of makes such a claim.
It's not Establishment of a religion to note those facts in a public building.
I agree (with regard to the second fact, the first one is false), but that's not what ID is about. ID, as presented in the Pandas and People textbook, is the scientifically false claim that certain biological entities could not have evolved in a Darwinian manner.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that vouchers become the norm, the public schools close down, and everyone sends their kids to a private school. Half the public sends their kids to private schools that teach evolution, the other half to private schools that teach both evolution and ID.
I would have no constitutional objection to this.
What do you think would be the response of the two sides in this battle? My guess is that the ID side would leave the pro-evolution schools alone. But the evolutionists would try every trick in the book to force the schools that teach both to adopt "evolution only" education.
I certainly would oppose giving vouchers to schools that teach ID in biology class as an alternative to evolution, but I would not do it in the courts. I would lobby the state education boards and/or accredidation organizations to deny vouchers to schools that teach any pseudoscience, ID included. Giving vouchers to such schools is bad education policy. However, so long as parents have a choice to use their voucher at a school that does teach sound science, I can't see how such a policy, bad and harmful as it may be, would violate the establishment clause.