I remember why I don't do the whole forum thing. I'm too lazy to type an opinion -- if you don't know why I think it's your loss.

However, since I've gotten started:

Have some faith in the kids, man. It's not like just because some teacher proclaims ID as a creation theory they'll make the connection that this is a indirect attack on science and, as a result, abandon their belief that sceince must be supported by evidence. In fact, if they're intelligent they'll consider the facts and just decide that ID is bunk.

Personally I grew up in a Christian home, was homeschooled two years, went to a private, Christian, middle school, and wasn't exposed to evolution as anything except wacked out heresy[0] until my junior year in high school (I think). That being said, and so that my bias is known, I'm a creationist (in the classical, Genesis is literal, sense [1]).

Oh, and yea, this doesn't belong in public schools -- I'm not arguing that point... I'm just saying kids aren't stupid and teaching ID doesn't destroy the scientific foundations we're trying to instill. Tangentially, if you're worried about teaching the skills they need ID doesn't seem the biggest threat - for me the lack of basic math and problem solving skills or the inability to interact without resorting to profanity and violence coupled with intolerence of others are our big winners.

Anyway, just my two cents -- it's probably best ignored as I quit caring a long time ago about the science of creation... and I think theres at least one person here that will vouch for my lack-of-blinding-stupidity.

[0] - maybe not those exact terms, but those are more fun.
[1] - My opinion is faith is something that is supposed to transcend evidence -- what good is faith if you have hard evidence, ya know? I mean, faith is belief in something that cannot be seen and as long as we're beliving in something that can't be seen it seems somewhat... fake to twist it into something that is eaiser to swallow.

I think we have agreement. :) Here's why having this in schools worries me. The foundation for science at its most basic level is "question everything." I think that concept is incompatible the foundation of religion which is "belief." One asks questions, the other does not. Are they mutually exclusive? I wouldn't go that far, but I don't have a place for "God" in the natural world, anymore than I have room for science in the spiritual.

ID and creationism are places where one group's belief is intruding on nature, and I find that ANY intrusion of the spritual into the natural is a problem. Science is not going to show up one morning with God's phone number. It will also never satisfy the desire to hope that there is something more to this world than what we can see. That's really what defines the spiritual world. I can't see it, have no way to prove it, but believe it is there anyway.

What I AM worried about is when religion interjects into science, it does so to the purpose of stopping the questions. ID says "This is what happened. End of Story." Creationism says the same thing. Both of those stifle growth.

Genesis may well be the word of god, but it was copied down by us dumb humans, and you know what, as demonstrated in one of the othere memes popular on here right now (English as she is spoke) we're really bad at that sort of thing.

RE: CNN.com - Bush: Schools should teach 'intelligent design' - Aug 2, 2005