Unless I read this wrong, the Ohio fracas will put conflicting hypotheses in the science classrooms of the high schools, certainly, and possibly the middle schools, too. Biology is the obvious target. I wonder how long it will take to bleed into cosmology and geology.

Scott, your suggestion of open debate is a very good exercise in critical thought only if one other condition has been met first: that the children in elementary school have an excellent -- and I mean excellent -- grounding in scientific method and logical argument.

Without this training, one theory will be just as good as another in the minds of the students, and science class will become an exercise in what people are more comfortable with rather than a search for an organized and logical pattern supported by physical evidence. The plebicite model will rule the day.

I admire the work of people who want to make sure we teach science in the science classrooms of our high schools. I wish they would pay more attention to teaching laboratory science at all in our elementary schools, complete with measuring results, tabulating statistics and drawing conclusions. Then the high school issues wouldn't be nearly as explosive and subject to influences of theology. The students could, as you point out, see for themselves, and could ask not "Is this a valid hypothesis?" (anything can be an hypothesis, of course), but "Is this science?".

Regards--
Mary Anne