Creationism in science classrooms (an argument for)

If the state taught that Treasure Island is true but War and Peace is fiction, that would not be neutral. If it teaches that both are fiction, that is neutral.Similarly, teaching that Genesis is fiction - i.e. it doesn't match our observations of the real world - is not a breach of neutrality.Neutrality means not treating one book differently from all of the others. That isn't really what you want, is it?

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

We were talking about neutrality. You claimed that the state is not being neutral if it teaches that Genesis is false. I said that it is being neutral if it treats all falsehoods the same. It isn't illegal to teach that Genesis is false - i.e. that it doesn't match observed reality. It isn't illegal to teach that Genesis is true either (although it could be seen as fraud). It's illegal to teach only Genesis above other religious writings.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

Yes, I may have oversimplified the legal niceties of exactly who can say what and where and at what time. I meant to emphasize that what's actually forbidden is singling out Genesis or any specific interpretation of Genesis.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

Again, the law excludes all religious viewpoints equally. If scientists discover that Genesis - or any other book - is untruthful, the law doesn't ban those discoveries from the classroom.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

The point of the Establishment Clause is to prevent the doctrines of one sect from being placed above the doctrines of other sects - equality of religion. The application of that clause by the courts excludes all religious doctrines from public schools.Science itself tries to exclude falsehoods from the science classroom, regardless of whether those falsehoods are Christian doctrines or not.What we're talking about here is an attempt by some Christian sects to have their doctrines taught as science, excluding the opinions/doctrines of other Christian and non-Christian sects. That is what violates the Establishment Clause.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

Science class certainly should be about the process of science, just like driver education should be about the process of driving. Legality aside, creationism has little scope in the science classroom because it has no process. It's like teaching telekinesis in driver education.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

That's what I said. Exactly. The schools are trying to teach the truth. If the truth is contrary to some sect's beliefs, that isn't the schools' fault.Rebuttal is not being banned. Religionists are welcome to rebut all they want in their own venues. The reason we have courts is because no law can anticipate every eventuality. The courts apply the law appropriately to changing conditions, like the introduction of state-sponsored schools.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate