Happy Wonderer

You are both right!

HW

Albion

It should fall way down on the list of our priorities, should it? How low a priority should it actually be for a scientist to know that the likes of Ken Ham are going around churches giving talks to congregations about evolution being an atheist lie and that scientists are falsifying results to support evilution because they can't stand the thought that there might be a god and they're trying to turn others away from the Path of Truth and Righteousness? Would you just shrug off an accusation that you and your friends, family, and collueagues were commiting criminal fraud with taxpayer money because you all wanted to corrupt little children? And do you know where that sort of mistrust of scientists leads? I know a biology professor who has received death threats for teaching evolution - sufficiently serious threats to be turned over to the FBI, along with threats to some of her colleagues. And you're saying this should be a low priority? In your dreams.

GALI

If thoughtful people do not stand up and challenge the religious right on this issue, the creationists will be successful in bringing society down to their level by the way our children are educated. Having moved to Kansas last year, it is very scary the way the State School Board can manipulate the curriculum to force the teaching of the "creationism theory" as if it is a sound scientific explanation. They clearly do not even know what the word theory means in a scientific context.
So yes, it is incredibly important that people are educated well enough to distinguish between reasoned scientific principles and simple myths.