PD: Including creationism in public school curriculum part of well-rounded education. [View all]

[HughBeaumont]

The joke is I'm not kidding. The Plain Dealer actually published this on their website, from a "guest columnist" with Baptist University credentials.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/01/post_276.html#incart_opinion

Further, naturalism and evolutionary theory are the reigning paradigms within the scientific community. Even so, there is still a role for an explanation and exploration of the minority report. Indeed, proponents of both intelligent design and creationism argue that their understanding of science and the relevant data is coherent and corresponds to reality. If a theory has the most explanatory power and best accounts for the evidence on offer, then at the very least alternative and opposing viewpoints and perspectives should be considered on their own terms.

So, for example, including the spectrum of opinion on the origins and significance of irreducibly complex organisms would only enhance a student's understanding of the world. Even if the prevailing paradigm is naturalism, these phenomena should still be investigated.

This kind of interdisciplinary dialogue is not only appropriate but necessary to equip students to think carefully and critically about the knowledge they are receiving. Just as a curriculum that excluded an explanation of naturalism and evolutionary theory would be inappropriate for public schools, so too, one devoid of the options of intelligent design or creationism.

The world around us teems with life, breath-taking mystery, and terrifying intrigue. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do the natural processes that we can observe and study continue to function in the way that they do? What keeps the cosmos intact and the biosphere contained?

Simply stunning.

Creationism: It takes not so much a leap of faith, but rather a giant tumble down Mount Dumbass.