We, as humans, are curious about where we came from and why we're here. That's a perfectly natural curiosity, and I would argue that a lot of religion stems from trying to answer these questions. A few thousand years ago, an omnipotent man in the sky really wasn't a bad guess, given what we knew about the universe (i.e. not much). However, a few millenia has thankfully been rather enlightening, and we now have some alternate "how we got here" explanations.
Just like you learn the technology adoption curve in business class, there seems to be a similar curve for adoption of new ideas into society, however rational they may seem to be. Not all of society is yet on board with the concept of evolution, and a subset of the "laggards" are really upset that it is being taught in science class. They've tried to force creationism, or "intelligent design" into the classroom, arguing that it is an equally legitimate explanation of how we got here.
Intelligent Design (ID) is a legitimate explanation for the origin of life (legitimate in the sense that it answers the question), but the problem with teaching it in science class is that it is not a scientifically legitimate theory. When I say scientifically legitimate, I mean that it can be proved or disproved. A scientific theory isn't just a way of explaining a phenomenon, it's a very specific way of explaining it that details how it can be tested. The problem with creationism as a scientific theory is that I have yet to hear of a creationist talk about how it can be tested, and specifically how it could be disproved (which is the most important part of a scientific theory - the provision for what evidence would constitute a disproval). As far as I know, creationism has no way to be disproven, meaning that it is not scientific, and I would argue that this disqualifies it from the science curriculum along with homeopathy and astrology.
This does not mean that creationism cannot be taught in schools, just that it cannot legitimately be taught in a science class. There are lots of schools that have religious studies classes, and creationism, as a religious idea, is more than suited to the curriculum. This is similar to the way that the philosophical idea that we are all just minds with bodies floating in some abyss of mutual consciousness is better suited to philosophy class than to science class. It is also an explanation of how we exist, but cannot be proven or disproven, similar to creationism.
There is the tangential debate about how teaching evolution as a mandatory topic will interfere with political and religious freedom. I argue that this is preposterous. In my (mandatory) class on US Government, I learned about Roe v. Wade and how it essentially legalised abortion nation-wide. Never was I told whether or not abortion was ethical or moral, or whether or not it should be legal, because that would be a debate for an ethics or philosophy class. I was, however, required to know the facts of the case and the outcome. The purpose of the class on US Government was to teach me the state of the US Government, just like the purpose of science class is to teach students about scientific thinking and the state of science. Scientists, and the field of science in general, almost universally accept evolution as the explanation for life on Earth, which is why it belongs in science class (and students are never required to believe in evolution, only to be able to recite and process the scientific facts). Should there be some radical discovery that disproved evolution (and remember, since evolution is a scientific theory, it can always be disproved), it would stop belonging in science class and start belonging in science history class. But since evolution is the current thinking in the field of science, it should continue being taught in the same way that major supreme court decisions should continue being taught despite the major political battles raging surrounding them.
If people want creationism taught in schools, start campaigning to have religious studies classes offered at more schools, but for the love of Evolution, leave our science classes alone.
They proponents of ID won't campaign to "have religious studies classes offered at more schools" because they realize that might expose their brainwashed offspring to studies about religion that doesn't include their narrow, hypocritical, inconsistent worldview.
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