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So maybe you could do me a favour and answer the question asked in my last post.
Since you are leaving I would prefer to give you the last word. But if you insist:
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I don't know much about US high school education but swallowing that such students can form anything other than pseudo-objective decisions about evolution (be it true or not) by being introduced to some basic concepts that would eventually be applied in direct study of its inner workings, is proving a tad difficult for me.
And I don't know much about Irish high schools students, but I find it difficult to swallow the idea that they can form anything other than pseudo-objective decisions about the composition and state of the earth's core, how the sun is powered, or whether the Second Punic War took place.
It is true that high school students (and most other people) do not have access to the actual seismic data, the actual spectroscopic data, or the actual historical documents, the training to critically examine them and determine their reliability, or the ability to put them into context with other data and to properly interpret them.
One can argue that no one can be certain of anything outside of a very small bubble of direct experience. It is an interesting problem when one first confronts basic epistemological questions; however, most people don't let themselves become paralized by it (well, okay, I did) and eventually move on to other interesting questions.
However, you do not seem to be saying that no one can be certain of anything outside of a very small bubble of direct experience. You seem to mostly have a problem with one particular model that contradicts a literal account of a particular religious sect's sacred scriptures. Theories and beliefs that are consistent with those scriptures seem to get a pass from you; in fact, you don't seem to apply the same skepticism to the tenets held by that religious sect.
That is why it is hard to take seriously the concerns about "evolutionary brainwashing" or the "uncritical acceptance of the dogma of evolutionist 'experts'". Those raising these concerns only seem to raise them when it comes to protecting their own idiosyncratic beliefs; in fact, here in the US those pushing these concerns have shown themselves quite happy with the uncritical acceptance of dogma as long as it is their own religious and political dogma that is being accepted.
Now a general discussion of epistemological questions might be interesting indeed; however, you haven't really given a good reason why the focus should be narrowed to the theory of evolution.
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If I don't talk to you again here then goodbye for now.
I am sincerely sorry to see you go. However I understand; I had to go AWOL for a few months, and one's interests do change over time. As others have said, I hope to see again from time to time.
"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt
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