re: #1 kerFuFFler

Teaching about evolution does not need to come across as indoctrination; I suspect that the overzealous characterization of evolution as “fact” does a great disservice to science education because that does come across as indoctrination. It is more accurate to describe evolution and natural selection as a theory and then explain what the scientific community thinks happened and why they think it.

Umm… no. Evolution happens. It’s a fact. We can even see it, as we’ve seen new species appear. So that is a scientific reality.

Next, you seem to be conflating “theory” with “hypothesis,” and in science, they’re not the same thing. A Theory is the “best available explanation of a wide range of observed facts.” We know that the Earth is several billion years old. We know that we don’t see complex animals in the fossil record until around two billion years have passed, and then we see an increase in complexity, including land animals. Given that we can see evolution happening now, it’s the best available explanation for what happened in the past. Otherwise, you have to chuck out chemistry, nuclear physics, astronomy, geology, and biology, and just say that an old book has the actual “facts.”