Evolution, Creationism, Templeton, Religion, Atheism, Dawkins, etc.

Nick Smyth in Yeah, OK, But Still:

Take, for example, the concern with teaching creationism in schools. This, no doubt, is an important issue. As many remind us, it is important because a society (trivially) needs good education for its children. Yet, if this value forms the rationale for the massive amount of debate over intelligent design, why do we not see a similar mountain of discussion over, say, racial inequalities in early education? Or rapidly declining funding for public schools? Surely, these two issues alone constitute major threats to the quality of education in this country.

By comparison, as if, as if the educational health of children depended in some vital way on their acceptance of Darwinian biology or Intelligent Design Theory. Any idiot, let alone anyone who knows anything about education, will tell you that the vast majority of educational value is realized from the ages of 5-12, long before any child is able to take in upper-level biological theory. Participants in this debate should not be worried about whether students will read Darwin. They should be worried about whether they will be able to read Darwin.

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