The conservative view -- that of teaching intelligent design, or an alternative to Darwinism, is antithetical to science. In American public schools, religion may be taught about, but not taught. This means, religion may be presented as an historical or philosophical debate, as long as belief systems or spirituality are neither taught nor given predominance by the teacher. The idea of evolution is central to almost every biological and scientific paradigm in contemporary culture, and must be taught in order to students to be well informed. The idea of taking a non-scientific concept and presenting it as science does not make it science, regardless of how it is dressed up (Polkinghorne, 2006).

Indeed, the idea of presenting fairness in a classroom situation is untenable when trying to teach a religious-based concept next to a scientific-based set of principles. When we teach the Civil War, we do not typically teach the...
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