[Betaille]

"it does not help your mission."

You are missing the point. Nobody is forcing creationism to be taught as fact. People just don't want darwinism taught as fact either... darwinism was by Darwin's own admission merely "theory", not fact. Parents should not be forced to send their kids to school that are contrary to the morals parents teach their kids.

[SedVictaCatoni]

darwinism was by Darwin's own admission merely "theory", not fact. Parents should not be forced to send their kids to school that are contrary to the morals parents teach their kids.

Yeah! I don't want my kids taught the germ theory of disease, either - it might lead to dancing.

[John H K]

People just don't want darwinism taught as fact either... darwinism was by Darwin's own admission merely "theory", not fact.

But "theory" doesn't mean the same thing to scientists as it does the general public; the general public believes the term "theory" means what a scientist would call a "hypothesis."

[Pitchfork]

This is THE most idiotic line of reasoning we must endure from the anti-darwinists ..'It's just a theory'.

Well, 'price theory' is just a theory, should we teach economics students biblical economics? Relativity Theory is just a theory, should we teach our astronomy students that the earth is the center of the universe as the Catholic church claimed? Thermodynamics is just a theory, should we teach students an alternative bible-based version of the conservation of energy (perhaps we should inform scientists that if they are welcome to ignore these theories if they can somehow invoke Gods power but I'll let you decide if you want to fly in an aircraft designed by an engineer making such a claim.)

Fundamentalist religious fanatics like to take advantage of the predisposition of Scientists to avoid making unconditional truth statements (since scientists understand the Popperian concept of falsification). Scientist don't say things like 'X is a fact' they make probabilistic statements 'X has a high likelihood of being true'. Scientist posit logically based causal explanations for empirical observations -- these are called theories--but recognize these explanations may be disproved. The logically based causal explanations for empirical observations (or theories) that can withstand repeated attempts a falsification become the 'dominant paradigm' (to use Kuhn's term) or the 'accepted standard' approach within the discipline. The adherence to these paradigms, though sometimes stubborn, is not dogmatic and is sensitive to empirical evidence (witness the shift from Newtonian physics to Einstein's relativity following the famous Eclipse experiment).

Religious fundamentalists (who are not so averse to making unalloyed 'truth' claims when those claims are rooted in scripture) like to use the small opening left by normal scientific skepticism to argue that because the scientific world can't claim 'absolute certainty' then it must make room for their pet superstitions.

It is very ironic that while the forces of the west engage in a titanic struggle against Islamic fundamentalist forces that would subsume enlightenment reason to the doctrine of Islamic rule, we must endure attack on reason at home from equally intolerant Christian fundamentalist quarters.

I sure hope the forces of the secular scientific world can get their political act together before Christian and Islamic fundamentalist drive the whole world into a new dark ages.