Hey Governor, Step Away from the Pipe

i drink cherry coke? anybody got a problem with that? cause i will throw DOWN. (of course i mean fountain cherry cokes, not the plastic botted stuff, ok?)

The question now is: When did flavored coffee become a character insult?!?!? I laughed when I read that bit. Why does that matter? and it made the other person need to explain that they don't drink their coffee that way, as though it's a terrible thing...OK, now back to the real issue...

I don't understand why intelligent design always gets lumped in with the far right and christian thought (or anti-thought). There are many respected scientists who hate jesus, christianity and the church who have still arrived at a "conclusion" of intelligent design with no agenda.


intelligent design and darwinism aren't even mutually exclusive, anyways.


and to dogmatically teach that there is no design in the universe takes us out of the realm of pure science and enters into philosophy, ontology and possibly even morality.


i suppose in general we should be leery of any sort of thought police saying that something can or cannot be taught or learned. let people use their brains.

People, this is a no-brainer. It's not about Darwin or evolution or intelligent design. It's all about the flying spaghetti monster. Now that's what they should be talkin' about in the classroom! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

Lisa. I don't drink mocha lattes and I don't have a blackberry. :) I do, however, sometimes drink fair-trade coffee. Got a problem with that. ;)

"Teach the debate" doesn't fly with me. There are many debates in the scientific world that don't get tought in science classes because there isn't time to discuss all of them. Saying that the ID debate should be tought in a science class gives more scientific merit to ID than it deserves. And please note - I'm only talking about *science* classes.

I restate that I am all for the ID *debate* being tought in *political science*, *philosophy*, *history* or *current events* type classes. I stand firmly by the the stand that is has absolutely zero place in a *science* class.

I do believe that science classes should be completely sanitized of faith. However, I never asserted that *all* discussions should be sanitized of faith or that our lives shoud.

As for faith being taught in schools? Well, they teach Economics and Political “Science”, right? Well then. That’s probably all the faith-based education any average high schooler can handle anyway.

oh, indeed. then we can all go ridinig unicorns off into the sunset made of pure honey.

Kayvaan wrote: "We have to have some criteria of what we choose to teach as science. We, as a society, have chosen to use the scientific method to evaluate hypothesis and develop theories."

My point is that we not only teach students what the scientific method is but also show them how to use it. Because I have this wacky idea that education isn't just about teaching kids a bunch of facts that they can spit out on command but about equipping them to use information, to think and evaluate and reach reasonable, intelligent conclusions. In my original response I did not say that we should present creationism or intelligent design as equally valid as Darwin's theory. I said that we can acknowledge the debate and use that debate as a means to teach the thinking skills that students will need well beyond high school to evaluate issues that actually matter.

I also would argue that the divide between faith and science is largely an academic construct of wishful thinking. Most people in the United States routinely balance faith and science in their lives. Treating them as mutually exclusive denies reality. Now, before you go spewing your low-fat, half-calf fair trade mocha latte all over your Blackberry---I'm not saying that schools or any other government institution should advocate for a particular religion or start teaching morality (although an ethics class wouldn't be a bad idea). What I'm saying is that sanitizing faith from every discussion is futile and unrealistic. When these students get out into the real world, they are going to be confronted by a host of issues that touch both faith and science and they are going to get hit with information from both faith and science. So let's prepare them for that. As much as you may want for science to be science and faith to be faith and never the two shall meet, that's not how it works most of the time.

Let's teach them how to sort the wheat from the chaff and make intelligent, well-reasoned decisions.

They should go ahead and teach christianity in schools. Given the bang-up job they're doing for math and science I say let 'em have it. Kids will learn to hate the bible and totally suck at religion in no time.

Lisa - with all due respect - there is a difference between teaching students to think independently and presenting ideas that have NO scientific foundation as an "alternate theory" in *science* classes. I believe that the role of *public* education in our society is to teach well-founded scientific theory. Although intelligente design may be an alternative *opinion* in some people's minds, it has no scientific basis.

If you accept the notion that science classes should present alternative *opinions*, then maybe we should also present the assertions of scientology in sciences classes. After all, many people believe that aliens visited the earth thousands of years ago.

You see where that leads us? We have to have some criteria of what we choose to teach as science. We, as a society, have chosen to use the scientific method to evaluate hypothesis and develop theories.

The only place intelligent design belongs is in religion classes, maybe philosophy classes and maybe classes on current events.

of course there flaws in some of darwin's theory, but at least it is science. and the difference between creationism and intelligent design is basically just semantics. if people want to take philosophy/morality courses, fine. science is science, though and this intelligent design thing has no scientific underpinings. therefore it is something based on faith. faith is not a secular idea. so go to church school if you want to talk about those things.

As with most things, I'm going to come down in the middle: Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the most commonly accepted and most scientifically valid explanation for life in its current form, and it should be included in the curriculum. That said, I don't see the harm in acknowledging that there are areas of dispute and uncertainty within Darwin's theory and that there are other ideas (creationism, intelligent design, etc.) and maybe even---and I know this is going to throw both sides for a loop---encouraging students to question all the theories, think critically about the evidence, and make up their own minds about what they think is the best theory.

But, then again, that's dangerous because if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that we don't want people to start thinking for themselves.

I thought that's what church is for. Sunday school is where kids go to learn about make-believe theory. And if people really want this stuff in public schools then it should be an elective class that the kids can opt to take along with required regular science classes. Then let the fights begin on why art, music and drama get dropped from the school budget, but not intelligent design because that would surely happen.

Hell to the no.