I was referring principally to how the ideas are presented to the public at large, not to school children specifically. To adults, they hear about evolution from scientists - who are generally less able to present the case in an appealing way to the lay person.
On the other hand, the spokespeople for ID and Creation are disproportionately lawyers and preachers and politicians and PR experts. People who are experts at shaping public opinion, basically.
Hence - if you judge purely on the presentation - ID and creationism wins.
Let's face it creation is not sponsered by tax dollars since it is not the official religion....even though you've been told all this rubbish about massive funding and PR for creationists, isn't it obvious that that can't be true relative to what evolutionists have at their disposal?
The biggest institute that 'defends' evolution is the NCSE. It has a budget of $700,000 pa last I heard. The biggest institute for ID has a budget of 5,000,000. Answers in Genesis, a Creationist organisation that attacks evolution has had a revenue of over $7,000,000. Their sales revenue alone is almost double that of the entire budge of NCSE. NCSE is not just dedicated to evolution either, they have other things to spend their money on.
So the money available for a public opinion campaign are significantly one sided. That's all I was saying.
There is no lack of content only content you don't really want to hear so you miss everything you don't feel like believing because you assume contradictory evidence is just propoganda when you should actually check it out and make sure of that.
You can certainly believe that if you want. However you have no evidence for that proposition, you just have to believe it otherwise how can you explain the evidence that otherwise intelligent people can reject ID?
Teach the controversy is just your opposition attempting to get the truth heard
Yes, it's a catchphrase they took from a liberal arts professor who believed the best way to learn about the arts is to learn about the history of disagreements over subjects so students have the relevant context to know how the current academic consensus came to be. I'm all for doing that, it is how I learned evolution. However, this is not what the Design Institute is proposing. They don't want students learning all about how the design hypothesis came to be rejected, they want to give the illusion that the design hypothesis is still valid.
When asked to demonstrate how they could do this, they have to redefine science in such a way as to include astrology (by their own admission). For consistency then, they should be proposing we teach astrology (and its geocentric views) as well as astronomy.
not by introducing ID or creationism into the classroom
Actually it was originally intended to introduce creationism into the classrooms, the courts shut that avenue down so they tried Intelligent Design. There is a direct link between the two ideas; the evidence is overwhelming. After the courts shot down Intelligent Design they invented 'Teach the controversy' and other such catchy phrases. However, the courts ruled that ID was just a negative argument against evolution and 'Teach the controversy' means teach a negative argument against evolution. The two are essentially the same concept - and that is why it shouldn't get into the classroom.
Why would this be so threatening?
I'm sure you would understand people getting upset if the proposal that we should teach the controversy over the holocaust was being seriously considered by school boards. Or if we should also teach the occult in general science class. How about teaching tarot card readings in business studies? Or shamanism in meteorology?
It's threatening precisely because the Wedge Strategy put forward is threatening. It is one root taken by the religious right (which heavily funds discrediting materialism, as the Wedge Strategy proposes), in an attempt to make the USA a more Christian nation and in some people's hopes and dreams: institute a theocracy.
That's a threat.
allowing the evidence against evolution to be taught alongside its so-called proofs.
There is no evidence against evolution. Otherwise I'd be happy for it to be presented. As it stands, there are things for which a complete explanation has not been developed or discovered - but that mirrors the rest of science. We could go into this in class, but it would mean sacrificing teaching other things, and if we had to go into it for all science equally - we'd barely have time to teach kids any science at all.
The mysteries and the unexplained are taught at university level, where people are being trained with an eye to solving the unexplained (ie., scientists).
They don't really want children to hear the downside just in case logic and truth takes hold of them and another potential evolutionist is lost.
When a downside is presented - I'm happy for it to be taught. As it stands, no downside has been presented - only pseudoscience. I would dearly love for children to get a better education than they do, but I am unable to create a system in which to do this. As it stands, each subject's teachers have to do what they can to teach the kids the current knowledge of the subject. If there is genuine controversy, by all means mention it. If the only controversy is one manufactured by groups with a idealogical intent (holocaust deniers, moon landing hoaxers, the evolution deniers), then that should not be taught.
I'm perfectly happy for a history teacher to advise the students that some people have come to denying the reality of the holocaust in spite of the evidence. That they look for gaps in knowledge to prove their ideas, and they have to use suspicious science based on faulty research. They exist kids, beware of them - their motivation is sinister.
Likewise with creationism and ID. People naturally conclude there was a designer, but evidence was acquired that showed that no designer was inherently necessary. No positive evidence for the designer, or any mechanism for how it implements the design have emerged. As the evidence grew and grew, and the predictions started coming in - scientists realized that evolution explained nature in a useful and coherent fashion. That no evidence exists that runs directly counter to the theory or the historical overview. Beware kids, creationist's motivations are sinister.
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