re: #421 Perpetua

Hi Charles,
I do want the children of the USA to have the best science education. And I am not a creationist. However, I am concerned that parents will just pull their children out of the public schools if the parents feel their religious beliefs are being disrespected. So then we will wind up with a lot of children educated in horrible science programs. Isn’t there a way to gently mollify the religious parents with some show of respect while giving their children a really strong science education? I mean, what benefit do we gain if we have the very best public school science programs but a large number of parents won’t let their children attend the public schools?

Mollification won’t work. There people want oxymoronic ‘religious science’ taught in public schools, and that means creationism. We can’t be a little bit pregnant on this issue; either public high school science classes are polluted by sectarian religious dogmas, or they aren’t. Let those who cannot stand for their children to be taught genuine science in public high school science class go ahead and homeschool them, or place them in private schools that will fill their naive young minds with that garbage; the science education of other peoples’ children should not be held hostage to their anti-science religious bigotry.