This House believes Creationism is not a productive form of education in public schools (

To fix a problem you must first understand what the problem is. John Stewart Mill once argued that the conflict of ideas will always result in a more productive society. Because I fundamentally agree with his stance, I will oppose this resolution. My opponent delineates four areas in which he does not believe that teaching creationism is productive. These areas are primary schools, secondary schools, public colleges, and public universities. In order to oppose the resolution I will argue that teaching creationism is productive in public colleges and universities. I will also take productive to mean, "net beneficial for the well being of society". ******************************************************************************** My Arguments: 1. Brainwashing Bad: The problem with not ever teaching creationism occurs through the lack of conflict that children/students experience. For many people, we'll take christians as an example, growing up did not involve an education in contradictory viewpoints. A childhood education on the topic of "where do we come from" might involve church once a week, some filler from the parents, and a glossed over unit on evolution in 7th grade. My opponent points out, rightfully so, that there is very little verifiable evidence supporting the Christian view of creationism. However, as a child who is continually fed that viewpoint from authority figures, it is difficult to recognize the logical fallacies behind creationism. To counter this trend Universities and public colleges ought to offer courses on creationism, or which feature creationism. This allows a conflict of ideas to occur within each classroom. It inevitably promotes a discussion in which conflicting viewpoints are exchanged, and it circulates new ideas throughout the populace. From this type of education students are better able to make more educated decisions on what they believe. And, as a bonus, they become more aware of how other people think about the issues (more on this later). My opponent, who points out that he is an atheist in the comments, has doubtlessly already considered the logical fallacies inherent in creationism. But that doesn't mean his experience is generally applicable to everyone. For many, an education on the topic, and the conflict of idea it incurs are invaluable novel viewpoints. 2. Cultural Understanding Good: The second point I will pursue is that cultural understanding is beneficial towards mitigating violence. Since creationism makes up a large part of American Culture (see: churches) it is useful to understand the concept. Insight into the teaching of creationism allows our politicians to gauge how people will react to legislation. Cultural insight tells us how people will react and often why. Understanding creationism allows religious education majors to distinguish the differences between core values of societies. With this knowledge, they can act as advisors to christian world leaders who must negotiate with non-christian world leaders on a weekly basis. Such knowledge helps mitigate core value misunderstandings, and better fosters international peace. It can be used to stem misunderstandings and ultimately prevent violence. ******************************************************************************** My Opponents Arguments: 1. Creationism Promotes Discrimination >>It definitely does. And so does every other root belief that societies hold. People have a problem with concepts they don't understand, that they perceive as different, and they that otherize. But under that logic we ought to ban all root belief concepts from schools. We should stop teaching cultural education for all cultures. We should stop teaching economic doctrines (wouldn't want those Keynesians fighting the Austrians). We shouldn't teach principles of the democratic or republican party (because they might discriminate against the people who believe in the other party). In the future we'll steer clear of english language education, because promoting that might ostracize people who were raised with a different first language. We'll just make sure conflict doesn't exist in school anymore. But the thing is, creationism is still going to exist in society, even if we take it away from school. It will exist because over 75% of Americans attend church. And so the question becomes, how do we mitigate the discrimination which creationism promotes? Since discrimination is caused by a lack of understanding, the best way fight it is by fostering understanding. If we teach creationism in schools we promote a discussion between people who believe and don't believe in the doctrine. And even if, at the end of the day, people still don't agree with each other at least they know the logic behind the other beliefs. The world without creationism being taught in schools is one where that gap is never bridged. It is a society in which people continue to discriminate against each other because they do not understand each other. But the world where creationism is taught, at least promotes some level of understanding between disparate groups. 2. Unsubstantiated Conclusions >>Creationism certainly does include a variety of unsubstantiated conclusions. However, teaching creationism does not necessitate that schools mandate students belief in the doctrine. Like any good school curriculum, creationist teaching should include overviews of the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the doctrine. Let's run a quick analogy... In present day society we teach that around 1564 people believed the galaxy was heliocentric (revolving around the sun). However, this curriculum provides a brief synopsis on how Galileo Galilei countered the prevailing thought. So while we presently teach about an unsubstantiated claim, we also point out that it is unsubstantiated. This is true of many facets of our public education. Much of economic theory includes disparate opinions that are unsubstantiated. Philosophy is an even more extreme case, Plato would have us believe in the forms. Ultimately teaching unsubstantiated doctrines is useful because it lets us, as a society, examine the faults. We can use the knowledge of unsubstantiated doctrines to create more substantiated doctrines. Without teaching about them, such a conflict never occurs, and so we stagnate with the spotty ideas we have. 3. Misc Fallacies >>I want to point out that teaching creationism does not preclude teaching other religious forms of thought. For instance, when teaching a collegiate religious education class, the professor is not banned from teaching Islam if he/she has previously taught about creationism. ******************************************************************************** My Opponents Burden: 1. As per the resolution my opponent is going to have to make a compelling case against teaching creationism in K-12 schools, public universities, and public colleges. I'm betting it will be very difficult to make a compelling argument for why religious education majors should be deprived an education of this doctrine.