The teaching of creationism in public schools in the US is justifiable

Thank you for responding so quickly! To begin, your thesis, while technically a valid point, does not quite fit within the parameters of this debate. The reason I say that is that we're not debating evolution. If the choice is to present both or neither, I would not hesitate to say neither. However, even if we were debating evolution, evolution is scientific and creationism is not. "Creationism is a theory like any other theory and there is no reason to avoid teaching it." I would like to respectfully disagree with that point, and to explain why, I will defer to Merriam-Webster. In the context of Evolution, a theory is a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena. While creationism does explain a phenomenon, it is not really plausible or scientifically acceptable. While you could argue that some find it to be plausible, it is rejected by nearly all scientists, especially those in relevant fields. Even in 1987, just .15% of American earth and life scientists believed creationism to be true [1]. since 99.85% of scientists do not believe creationism to be true, then we can say that it is the scientific consensus that it's not true. When teaching something as science, it's generally a bad idea to teach something that essentially all related scientists believe to be false. "There is no real harm in teaching anything unless the instructor is asking their students to accept it as fact or teaching it as fact." But it is being taught as fact, and it would be exceedingly difficult not to. "When staying clear of indoctrination, biased interpretations, falsities, extreme irrelevance and extremely inappropriate subject matter, it is justifiable to teach just about any theory." Are you familiar with Bobby Henderson or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? In a nutshell, Mr. Henderson was unhappy with the Kansas school board's decision to require schools to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution, so he wrote a letter. This letter can be found here [2], but it basically says that there are multiple theories of intelligent design, and he is concerned that the students will only be hearing the Judeo-Christian viewpoint, and therefore Henderson was worried that they won't learn other viewpoints, such as his own (satirical) belief that life was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He explains that it technically has equal validity as the Judeo-Christian perspective, so it needs to be taught just as much as the other view. For the record, the Kansas school board ultimately decided to not teach evolution or creation. "I believe the burden of proof mostly lies with con, showing us why it is not justifiable to teach creationism when considering most Americans believe in it." While a plurality of Americans do believe in creation, I would like to repeat the point that virtually all scientists reject creation as a legitimate theory, and that's what matters. To push that idea a little further, think about this. If you wanted to know what the best technique is to brush your teeth, would you be better off taking a poll of all your neighbors, or going to a few dentist's offices and asking them? Of course you would get a better answer from dentists. It's the same idea with creationism. You could ask a bunch of random Americans who have probably never studied the matter, or you could talk to those who have studied it extensively. Of course you're going to get a more reliable result from the scientists, and their voice is extremely consistent, and they say that creationism is not a viable scientific theory. You, being an atheist, should understand that point quite well. I am looking forward to your response! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.venganza.org...