Part One--Thoughts sprouted from the Scopes trial

In school, we just read about the Scopes trial and this morning I read the history notes about it and it got my brain working. I apologize profusely, but you're about to get the results. :-D

How should Evolution be taught in schools? It's not fair NOT to teach it, and it's not fair to teach it more than other theories of the way the world was started. But there's so much of it, that it would be extremely difficult to give an equal amount of time to Creation--not to mention every other religion and culture's ideas and stories of how the world began. However, it's also not fair to teach it as truth. It's still just a theory, and a flawed one, as many theories are. Evolutionists should be willing to teach the evidence for and against evolution. And then of course it would be nice if they taught evidence for and against Christianity. I don't mind putting "and against" in italics for Christianity because I've heard the evidence for the Bible's truth and I've heard some evidence against it; I think it can hold its own.

I know it's impossible to have a totally fair teacher--everyone has their own opinions, and those will sway the way you teach and think and write. But couldn't it be possible to have some Christian and Evolutionist scientists write a textbook that would be fair?

People shouldn't be taught blindly, "This is what you should think, anything else is wrong." That doesn't happen often--or as far as I've seen (and I'll tell you right now, my view of the world is probably a little warped from only seeing a tiny bit of it. At least, my view of what all those people out there think and do.) But I get the idea that what does happen is you aren't given alternative views to evaluate and choose for yourself. The ideal utopian school would teach all the views possible and have all the evidence in the light--even evidence against or for other certain pieces of evidence. That would never happen, human nature doesn't take being wrong kindly, and I can imagine that people presenting their side of the story could get nasty in defense--or offense, as happened at the Scopes trial. Embarrassing questions will always be asked in a debate.

Individual people are much more likely to discover the truth if they look for it thoroughly, instead of just having everything handed to them on a silver platter for them to sort through. The trick is then looking for it thoroughly, and making sure that all the evidence stays out there. As long as all sides of the story are open to anyone willing to look for them, and people are encouraged to find out the truth for themselves--that's democratic enough for me. It doesn't solve how evolution should be taught in a classroom, but I'm no rocket scientist!