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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (92568)	12/28/2004 1:24:56 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793955

We are already performing poorly in science and math in this country; I think it would be a disaster to make things even worse- and if people cannot tell the difference between belief and science, and if they get mingled in the minds of youngsters, then we have a huge problem. We already have a huge problem. We've kept creationism out of the public schools but we nowl have sixty percent of us believing in it. I don't disagree with any of your arguments about why it doesn't belong there. I'm just questioning whether more of the same strategy will be fruitful. What has been specified is: "The school district policy mandates that Dover public schools treat "intelligent design" as a bona fide scientific theory competing with the scientific theory of evolution in order to develop a balanced science curriculum. Teachers are also required to read a statement to students in ninth grade biology classes that includes the following language: 'Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People is available for students to see if they would like to explore this view in an effort to gain an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves. As is true with any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind.' " While it has problems, it doesn't seem that onerous to me if it satisfies them and gets us past this particular war. I discovered in my travels that Pandas does not mention any dates so it doesn't directly challenge the age of the earth. As long as science teachers teach the age of the earth from the evolution model without direct challenge, maybe that should be considered a win. So a few kids are inclined to plow through Pandas on their own time. No big deal, perhaps.