You make a good point, Holden. And I believe there's more than one quote of his floating around out there about his belief that there must be a God.
But Science class....
I remember saying about Math class (as I'm sure everyone did....) "This is a bunch of bull! Who cares about this stuff and AS IF there'll ever come a time when I'll need to know how to do it!"
The answer was invariably: "It's not important that you'll never need to know how to do this again, because Math isn't so much about the answers to the questions, but the ability to work through the questions. It's a process. It's about problem solving."
Which brings us back to Science class (which I hated too, btw...)
It never even occured to me that it was teaching some philosophy about how the world evolved. At least I never took it like that. It was about the scientific method, and proof. Using observable laws of nature to.... damn I dunno, cut frogs up. Or something.
In essence, I guess, it was about taking what we know to be true (like gravity and fossils etc.) and by looking backwards and forwards, making assumptions based on those things. Fair enough, aint it? Like Math, it's a method... or system... of working through unknowns. Assumptions are made, corrected, updated and.... using this scientific method, and based on an ever expanding knowledge base - continually evolving.
Intelligent Design aint nothing like that. It's a fully formed idea. It has nothing to do with problem solving. Through it, you wouldn't be teaching kids how to observe, research, and learn... you would simply be telling them: "This is how it is."
Ladies and gentlemen - that aint a school. That's a church.
It's ridiculous.
Like Einstein, there may very well be a time when the scientific community reaches a consensus that there must be a god.
But let them get there in the way that they know how. Simply saying "It is so" just doesn't cut it - and kids shouldn't be spoon fed in this way.
Oh, how satisfying it would be if in, say, 500 hundred years, Scientists finally stumbled upon the verifyable and undeniable proof of God's existence. Imagine it.
But by mandating Intelligent Design, it's as if you'd want to render mankind incapable of that.