Hi Pam,
everything you said is pretty much true. But Riper has a point, I think. Or he reminded me of a point.
The big reason that educational organizations cannot educate children about the fundementals of biology (aka, evolution) is that
critical thinking is required. The teachers don't have it and cannot defend teaching evolution. The parents don't have it and are free to use any substitute for critical thinking they have at hand. For example, appeals to authority ("my preacher says the Bible tells us..."), anecdotal evidence, ("I heard that one of them evolutionists at a college openly condemned the Bible as garbage..."), urban myths ("those human and dinosaur footprints they found right here in Texas proves that..."), falsified facts ("My church showed that when college kids believe in evolution, they're twice as likely to have oral sex with..."), stupid pseudo-facts ("Those evolutionists can't even agree among themselves, so the whole thing must be bogus..."), and on and on and on.
And there's nobody there to refute this STUFF. Everybody nods their head. Yup. Makes sense to me.
Unfortunately, teaching critical thinking skills is a prerequisite for teaching evolution. Or for teaching history itself, or for teaching any other history-like science.
And they don't teach critical thinking in Texas.
