The Education Wonks
Why? Because the right wing, which has successfully bamboozled much of the country into ignoring economic reality, is hoping to score big by getting them to ignore scientific fact as well.
How else can they continue to seat union-busting, teacher-hating, middle-class eradicating elitists, and still convince the country the liberals, because they allegedly dring latte, are the source of their many woes?
why on earth is intelligent design being taught in the science classrooms?
Because the Christian right wants faith brought into public schools, and the only way to do that right now is to equate faith with science. Later, science itself can be questioned, and only faith will remain.
I'm not joking. As far as I can tell, that's their plan.
On one hand, I would never be willing to teach ID as a viable scientific belief. But on the other hand, I would hate to be told I cannot discuss it in the science classroom.
I have students who have made it to their senior year of high school without understanding why ID is not science. This is a gaping hole in their science education, and it happens because people don't want to mention ID at all.
One of the best ways to explain any theory and its historical significance is usually through contrast and comparison. We must explain what other beliefs exist to explain an observation, and why one is better than another, or why certain beliefs should not be considered scientific by the students. If you don’t tell them what “Intelligent Design” means, they won’t ever know why they should not believe it. I have found that to actually give more credibility to a belief - if you simply say "that's beyond the scope of this course", you do not challenge the weaknesses of the belief, and you do not show the student why the belief is not scientifically valid.
We have to let a student make the final evaluation on their own, but they cannot make that informed decision unless the facts are laid out for them to evaluate. If they are not given all of the information, they are not being taught science – they are being taught dogma, and they are being taught that dogma is just an alternative to science, as opposed to a hinderance.
Here here on the post's comments. It would be nice if the politicians from both the left, with their nurturing, cuddling and permissiveness; and the right with their insistence on meaningless standardized testing, rote ritual of saying the pledge or prayer, and coercive infusion of religion into the schools; to just let us get on with our job of trying to get the students to read, write, do mathematics, science, art and have a knowledge of history. Just like people who are childless always seem to know how best to raise a child, everyone who has never been a classroom a day seem to know how to improve our schools.
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