7 'Controversies' That Are Total Bullsh*t
2. We Should Teach The Controversy
For those who didn't follow this one, the "Teach The Controversy" controversy, is a movement that pushes for creationism to be taught alongside evolution in science classrooms. The idea here is that the kids would be able to weigh up the evidence of both and decide which they want to believe.
This is an extension of the belief that "every opinion is as valid as every other opinion" which, at face value, sounds relatively reasonable, but it's just not true.
If I had a brain tumour, for example, the idea of getting an opinion from both a brain surgeon and a florist and then deciding which I, as somebody untrained in the field of brain tumours, liked the sound of best, is obviously absurd.
The idea that we should let our kids decide which they think is more scientifically valid is also flawed. The kids in that classroom will not weigh up the scientific merit (remember this is a science classroom) of each side and plump for the one that they believe offers the most satisfactory evidence, they will be influenced by the biases of their parents and their peers which is the very opposite of scientific ideals.
All of this, of course, skirts around the central issues, chief of these being that religion has no place in the science classroom. Creationism is not a scientific theory, it is faith based (as many of its proponents will tell you themselves) and not evidence based.
Secondly, there is no controversy about evolution within the scientific community, it exists in the religious and political spheres, teach it there.