How to debate the "Evolution Should NOT be taught in public schools" perspective?

First for clarification... is it that evo should not be taught at all, or just not alone?

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

Well you have a hard assignment. Saying it shouldn't be taught at all crosses legal as well as practical lines. Here's what I would do...I'd argue that public education is a place for developing practical knowledge and skills for students. While science is important, including biology, there are subjects within biology that do not necessarily get mentioned or fleshed out in detail. Thus we can see that it is not "all biological theory" or none.Given the contentious nature of evolutionary theory in the public, and its less immediate applicability to students, there is no necessity for its instruction. Indeed given the rising importance of environmental/conservation issues, as well as diseases, it is arguably more important to spend time discussing how living beings function right now. Classification, anatomy, virology, ecology, even genetics. We can discuss these issues without having to theorize where it all began, and have students ready to deal with present challenges to the lives they are going to lead today.Someone else has mentioned methods, and that could definitely be taught more in depth as well. Learn skills of contemporary biologists fighting real world problems like cancer, or HIV.The one problem I see with this is it doesn't take into account what teachers are supposed to do if the question is raised by a student. Its sort of hard to suggest that teachers can't say anything or must lie about it. I guess suggest that students be told that evo is not part of the scope of their biology instruction, that they can learn more about it themselves by visiting museums and the library, and that they can research that later when they reach college and move into more theoretical issues for biology.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

Man what a dumbass you are. You should check out the more recent thread for much more well reasoned arguments. How exactly do they research this without an evolutionary construct, huh smart guy?Oh... wait.Edited by Silent H, : a

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

As noted already, I was making a joke at my own expense.The thing is while I stated (in your thread) that there was no way to write anything on why ToE should NOT be taught, within this much older thread I had actually come up with something.While I pointed out some of the problems in that original post (the one I am replying to), I mention another oversight in the reply.So I'm the dumbass, not you.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Even if there are no Xians in the classroom, no teacher should be mocking Xianity while on the public payroll.As other have asked, do you feel teaching evolution is mocking your faith? If that is true, then they cannot teach evolution according to your rules.But evolution does not mock any religion. And while it does include "Darwinism", it does not advocate humanism. I would also point out that biology science teachers don't "want" to teach evolution, they want to teach science. In order to do that they MUST teach evolutionary theory. Otherwise they are mocking science and the intelligence of students in the classroom.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard