In response to Democracy Lover's comments, I offer the following points.
1) You want to argue that I am not addressing the central issue - viz., whether children are "endangered" by the teaching that evolution is not only wrong but evil - by bringing up questions of what constitutes scientific "truth". My point is that such a question gets to the heart of the issue. It is one thing to argue that, by failing to provide a proper scientific educatino for their children, parents are doing demonstrable harm to their children, and that it is encumbent upon the state to intervene for the sake of the children. This position, however, begs the questions which I shall raise again, concerning (a) the precise definition and general understanding of science, and the status of scientific findings as truth; (b) which theoretical and practical scientific truths are given sanction and which are not, and are therefore liable for state intervention; (c) what occurs when there are changes not only in theory but in scientific practice that falsify previously held scientific "truths". For all practical purposes, these are issues that would have to be decided upon before any kind of serious state intervention could be undertaken.
2) You argue that science has a "method" that arrives as truth, while religion does not. You argue that science changes and religion does not. Both of these statements are demonstrably false for a variety of reasons. Just for one instance, as you seem to vent your anger at fundamentalism, it is important to udnerstand that it is a very, very recent development in the history of Christianity, only codified towards the end of the 19th century, and set forth definitively in the first decade of the 20th. There is no monolithic "Christianity", not even a monolithic "evangelicalism". Christianity is as varied and variegated as there are times and places, societies, cultures, languages, and ways of thought. Surviving documents from 8th century China show a vigorous Christian community in the Middle Kingdom that discussed Christian theology in terms far different from the Platonic-Aristotelianism of the Mediterranean. Coptic and Syriac Christianity is still vastly different from either Roman Catholocism or the various Orthodox churches. I have not even begun to mention all the nuance of the various Protestant churches.
As for what we currently call the scientific method, it is just the latest development - hardly a timeless truth - in an ongoing process of trying to figure out a way of describing the world around us that is open to as many people as possible. It is in fashion, and has been so for a century or so, not because the teachings of science correspond to the way the world "really is", but because it works well. When it fails to work, when it no longer provides descirptions of the world that work, it will be replpaced by something else that does. Medieval science was just that; ancient science was just that. Simply because it is different from what we today commonly call science in no way justifies us dismissing it as not science. It was science because it was a way people used to try and figure out the world around them, and it worked for them. That's it, and that's all.
3) In the 1920's, as he was solidifying his hold on the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin declared that Darwinian evolution was antithetical to Marxist teachings, because it did not account for the possibility of "revolutionary" change. Darwin's books were banned, and Lamarckian evolution through the inheritance of acquired characteristics replaced it. Those who taught Darwin were arrested. Ther results, as history has shown, were catastrophic from a humanitarian point of view.
I bring this up to make the following point. One can argue that the Soviet agricultural disaster was a result of ignoring the "truth" of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Darwin, however, did not discount the possibility of inheriting acquired characteristics. Rather, he argued that change occurred slowly, over a vast expanse of time. He had no idea of genetics, the actual bio-chemical mechanism of biological change; nor did he articulate clearly what became more clear in the mid-60's "synthesis" Ernst Mayr and others worked out between genetics and evolutionary theory (it is forgotten that the two theories, Darwinian evolution and Mendellian genetics were theoretically incompatible until this synthesis occurred, changing both evolutionary theory and genetics) that evolution occurs both within individuals and within whole populations. Darwin was also an avowed racist (read The Voyage of the Beagle, a gossipy mid-Victorian travelogue chock full of horrid tidbits about our brown and black brothers and sisters), and a grand supporter of eugenics. In other words, Darwin was as wrong as he was right, and it has been constant scrutiny and questioning that has created our current evolutionary theory that uses certain Darwinian terms but is far from the original teaching in On the Origin of Species Through Natural Selection.
By refusing to remain open to any and all possibilities, by adhering to a strict scientific orthodoxy based upon previously held political and social commitments, Stalin doomed millions of Ukrainians and Russians to death by starvation. It was not because he chose the "wrong" science, but because this commitment was a small part of a much larger totalitarian scheme that stifled political, social, and intellectual life. My objection to your argument in your post, DL, is not based upon a disagreement over the question of creationism versus evolution, but the insistence that the state enforce conformity to any orthodoxy of any kind - political, religious, social, or scientific. That road is far too dangerous a road down which to travel.
To quote Arthur C. Clarke, I do not care what scientific perversions people practice in their own homes, as long as they do not force others to accept them through the power of the state (from a collection of non-fiction essays entitled Spring, 1984). I am appalled at the poor level of scientific education in this country, and the constant interference local school districts face when attempting to teach things like geology and biology from people whose religious sensibilities are offended. I would much rather school boards gained spines and told these people to yank their little kiddies out and home-school them if they don't like science being taught, but otherwise to please chut up and go away.
This does not mean, however, I would countenance the school board, the local municipality, or any other state agency move to restrict the way these children are taught outside the school room, because that is as unwarranted an interference as the other, and much more dangerous, not for the children, but for our whole society.
