Public schools in Texas are busy teaching creationism in the science classes. The official state education standards allow public schools to teach “alternatives to evolution,” and plenty are.
An understanding of evolution is a crucial part of biology, which in turn is fundamental to medicine. Texas basically is mis-educating a whole bunch of potential doctors, who’d need to have a good grasp of biology, not to mention an understanding of how, for example, superbugs develop.
The ability to distinguish between solid, evidence-based scientific theories – which are not the same thing as hypotheses - and ideas based on faith but little else is also vital for all scientists. America needs scientists, engineers and technicians to remain competitive with other countries, making decent science education in schools essential.
These skills would not hurt the general population either. Teaching kids that religious ideas are as, if not more, valid than established science is doing nothing more than encouraging scientific illiteracy.
There might be a place for creationism in schools, but that place is theology classes. It is not science lessons.
Tell Texas to stop spending taxpayers’ money on teaching religion as science.
We the undersigned ask that you take definitive action to keep creationism and other faith-based ideas out of science lessons in publicly funded schools.
Creationism is not science and should not be treated as such. Doing so does nothing more than foster science illiteracy in the population, something that will not benefit Texas or the rest of the US. The country needs doctors, scientists and engineers to remain competitive with the likes of India and China, and the standards of science education in schools must be raised, not lowered for ideological reasons.
Moreover, promoting one religious idea at the expense of others signals the beginning of a theocracy, the very thing America was established to avoid.
Please keep religion and religious ideas in theology classes where they belong.
Thank you for your attention.
