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To: cracker
"My basic thoughts are that you team them both or you don't teach either one."

Actually, this is not that far from what I think -- though I doubt this board member shares my views. I think the best way is to include both -- that is, teach evolution, and debunk intelligent design/creationism. (I think RadioAstronomer first described this possibility.) Exploring the problems with the alternatives helps emphasize the explanatory power of evolution, IMO.

On the other hand, some folks would see ID-debunking as a gratuitous attack on Christianity, no matter how carefully the faculty avoided it.

1,399 posted on 03/04/2002 7:39:09 AM PST by Iota
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To: Iota
I think the best way is to include both -- that is, teach evolution, and debunk intelligent design/creationism. (I think RadioAstronomer first described this possibility.) Exploring the problems with the alternatives helps emphasize the explanatory power of evolution, IMO.

At first blush, this seems like a reasonable way to go, but on further reflection, it raises a concern. My concern is that education is about teaching what we know (to the best of our knowledge), not debunking bad ideas.

If we start down the that road by debunking ID in the classroom, where does it stop? Do we need to set aside class time to debunk the Flat Earth Theory in geography class?

Do we set aside time in Math Class to debunk Numerology?

Do we stop in the middle of Astonomy to debunk Astrology and to explain why the Moon is NOT made of Green Cheese?

Do we halt chemistry students in mid-experiment to explain how Alchemy is folly?

Education is faced with the task to teaching a large volume of information in a very finite period of time. It is a zero-sum game in the sense that every minute taken to debunk a bad theory is a minute that is NOT available to explain the ones that work.

It is time to stop coddling and humoring the Creationists and their kissing cousin ID theorists; neither of them is a scientific Theory, let alone one accepted by the scientific community. It must be at least one if not both before it has any business in the science curriculum.

1,400 posted on 03/04/2002 8:03:54 AM PST by longshadow
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