[wintertime]

to teach such "alternatives" to local school districts. ( from the article)

There is only ONE reason why evolution is such a hot topic: GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS!

If we did not have compulsory attendance, compulsory tax payer funded government schools, the controversy over evolution would dry up like dew on grass on a hot summer morning.

Evolution has PROFOUND cultural, political, and religious consequences for all the children in the government school. Those who win the government school struggle over evolution or ID will influence the political, cultural, and religious worldview of the next generation of voters, politicians, judges, film makers, journalists, artists, and community leaders of all kinds. Is it any wonder that the fight is so bitter?

There is NO way that the government school can approach the topic of the origins of mankind without ESTABLISHING the worldview of some ( with political, cultural, and religious consequences) without actively working against and deliberately destroying the political, cultural, and religious belief systems of others. ( Hm?....don't our state and federal constitutions have something to say about "establishment"? )

Is evolution soooooooo important in the daily work and lives of ordinary people, that government should have the right to actively promote or destroy the religious, political, and cultural worldview of some children while establishing the worldview of others? I don't think so, and rational people will agree with me.

Please remember that government schools use the threat of police force to compel children to attend and to compel taxpayers to pay for the government school agenda. That is what government means. It means the threat of police force.

The solution: Begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 education. Parents, teachers, and principals should be deciding these matters privately in private schools.

By the way, evolution is merely one of HUNDREDS of curriculum and policy issues that have PROFOUND religious, cultural, and political consequences. Government must get out of the education business.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" There is only ONE reason why evolution is such a hot topic: GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS!"

[Alex Murphy]

If we did not have compulsory attendance, compulsory tax payer funded government schools, the controversy over evolution would dry up like dew on grass on a hot summer morning.

Excellent points in your post!

[dmz]

rational people will agree with me
____________

Well, allow me to be irrational, i.e., to disagree with you.

While you may have reached a logical conclusion based on the premises, it is those premises which I believe are faulty, thereby leading to an incorrect conclusion.

You state, as though it were fact, that teaching evolution in science class in a public school destroys the political, cultural, and religious belief systems of some of the students. You have not demonstrated this by providing an single iota of evidence to support your statement, though.

Were you exposed to evolution at any point during your education? Were your political, cultural, and religious belief systems destroyed as a result?

It seems not. Your boilerplate post is hyperbolic.

[Physicist]

Is evolution soooooooo important in the daily work and lives of ordinary people, that government should have the right to actively promote or destroy the religious, political, and cultural worldview of some children while establishing the worldview of others? I don't think so, and rational people will agree with me.

It's shamanism that is the bane of the Western Intellectual Tradition, not science.

[MissAmericanPie]

Well said. As a believer in intelligent design, I cannot understand the necessity of the scientific community to come down on either side of the question of evolution vs intelligent design.

Science is greatly limited regarding evidence for either position, and science is not the last word because science does not have all the evidence and can never attain it. What evidence they have, should be presented with no preconceived theory, or opinion of where the evidence they possess leads.

Christians and believers having read in Genesis that the world was created already old, that the chicken came first with the egg inside it, that the fruit tree was created mature with the fruit on the limbs and the seed inside the fruit, see scientists as two dimensional creatures blindly feeling their way around attempting to understand a three dimensional world.

It doesn't help when science says that when the earth was young, long before man arrived, that the earth was watered by a mist that rose from the ground, when Genesis says that from the time of Adam to the time of Noah, it had never rained, but the earth was watered by a mist that rose from the ground.

It does no good to point out that man and cockroaches have a common enzyme therefore it should indicate some branching off from each other during some period of evolution, when it would be ridiculous for an Intelligent Designer not to use the same needed chemicals in more than one creature to make that creature function as the designer wants it to. Why would an Intelligent Designer need to keep reinventing the wheel, when He already has on hand what He needs to plug in to make a creation tick?

I think science has come to a point where it becomes purely political to take a position either way. They can no longer simply write off Intelligent Design and only support the Theory of Evolution. Let science present what it does know and then let the individual study the evidence and make up his own mind without agenda creeping into it.

[Oztrich Boy]

If we did not have compulsory attendance, compulsory tax payer funded government schools, the controversy over evolution would dry up like dew on grass on a hot summer morning.

Other nations have "compulsory attendance, compulsory tax payer funded government schools," without getting all worked out about evolution.

If the US is the exception, then there is something about the US causing it- maybe it's the lack of a Established Church. I mean if the Governemnt declares it's not important to have a Religion, then maybe people become uneasy and insecure.

[KMJames]

...Evolution has PROFOUND cultural, political, and religious consequences for all the children in the government school. Those who win the government school struggle over evolution or ID will influence the political, cultural, and religious worldview of the next generation of voters, politicians, judges, film makers, journalists, artists, and community leaders of all kinds. Is it any wonder that the fight is so bitter?...

Well said. Though the worldview battle and its repercussions may not be acknowledged by the materialists, it most certainly explains the intensity of the struggle.

[editor-surveyor]

"Government must get out of the education business."

They've done such a wonderful job of it, after all...

Teaching cultural/philosophical issues like evolution is not education; it's indoctrination.