wyndhy,

In support of some, and hopefully without enraging others, I’d like to revisit two sticking points in this debate.

The first is that I am under the impression that school boards have directed teachers to present Intelligent Design and Creationism as scientific theories. The second is that the Theory of Evolution, as initially popularized by Charles Darwin, is “only” a theory.

I get a general sense from the other posts in the thread, that here at Pixies people generally support the presentation of as wide a range of views as possible. Another post alluded to the context issue. I’m pretty comfortable that everyone would agree that it would be silly to present theories of fluid dynamics in a Poetry course. No one would think of introducing the principles of the calculus in a History class. It is foolish to suggest that a discussion on optics lends value to a Physical Education curriculum. Why then present “alternative theories” which are not scientific in a Science class? Permit me to emphasize that I have no problem with – indeed, I think it useful to pursue for the reasons you list – a discussion of the subject. But I also suggest that the domain lies outside of that of Science.

The noun “theory”, when used to describe the measurable phenomena using formal scientific techniques, is a pretty robust word. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution has withstood a great deal of careful scrutiny for more than a hundred years. This isn’t “jseal’s personal belief about Evolution”, nor is it “osuche’s private musings about Evolution”. There is a large amount of corroborating evidence to support the principles.

Keep in mind that the base descriptions of Physics, from the largest, Einstein’s Special and General Relativity Theories, down to the smallest, Quantum Theory, all contain the same word. These theories predict unintuitive phenomena, from the trivial time dilation of Special Relativity, through the singularities of Black Holes, and the spontaneous creation (and destruction) of matter predicted by Quantum Mechanics. Interestingly, these theories are granted legitimacy not extended to Evolution.