Washblog

What I want taught is how science regards it. That's what I would want taught, is what is the full measure of support and opposition to these ideas, because I want students to have broad minds. I want students to have available to them all the different theories that could be. I want them to be fully informed about different views or comparative support or lack of support.

Unfortunately, Mike! doesn't seem to understand how a science curriculum works.  From the Superintendent of Instruction's website:

1. Systems: The student knows and applies scientific concepts and principles to understand the properties, structures and changes in physical, earth/space, and living systems.
The system concept includes inputs, outputs, and transfers of matter and energy, and information to understand how the natural universe functions. Systems of the Natural World can be understood in terms of the following three components of physical, earth /space and living systems:
1.1 Properties: Understand how properties are used to identify, describe, and categorize substances, materials, and objects; and how characteristics are used to categorize living things.
1.2 Structures: Understand how components, structures, organizations, and interconnections describe systems.
1.3 Changes: Understand how interactions within and among systems cause changes in matter and energy.
Students develop an understanding of the scientific concepts and principles in the contexts of physical, earth/space, and living systems that can be applied to solve human problems.

2. Inquiry: The student knows and applies the scientific ideas, skills, processes of investigation, and the nature of science.
Inquiry describes the skills necessary to investigate systems and asks students to understand the nature of science which gives integrity to scientific investigations. Inquiry represents the application of science concepts and principles to the scientific investigative processes that aims to answer scientific questions about the natural world. These concepts, principles, and processes are expressed in two components:

Oh, my.  That's a lot of words.  What could it mean?  I certainly don't see anything in there about learning "how science regards" things, or controversy, or support or opposition.  Instead, I see teachable things called systems.  Understanding of how thing A works with thing B in the context of thing C using scientific tools that id specifically avoids such as: testing, critical thinking, actual physical evidence, etc.  I also see the words "nature" and "natural" coming up quite a bit - what I don't see are the words "mystical", "unseen", "creator", "purposive" or "supernatural".  

Mike! makes the same mistake that all id proponents make - assuming that evolution claims to provide us with an origin of life.  Rather, science and the study of evolution strive to show how life works.  You know, in nature.  (btw, just took a break to read several articles from Discovery Institute's website about id.  First, I feel yucky.  Second, I've never heard of a scientific "theory" that would write such dense articles, yet never actually reach a conclusion or openly state its point.  These papers do nothing but list a series of actual testable scientific theories and opine about why they might not be the right answer.  At least one of them had the balls to come out and suggest that perhaps the origin of life might not be natural in the author's opinion, but mostly they go to great lengths to conceal what they're trying to get across.  They seem to exist only to try and cast a blanket of doubt around actual science.)  You know, by observing things as they happen and analyzing what actually happens.

sigh  Well, hopefully Mike! wouldn't try to undermine the state's goal of providing these things:

All students, regardless of gender, cultural or ethnic background, physical or learning disabilities, aspirations, or interest and motivation in science, should have the opportunity to attain scientific literacy.
All students should have access to effective and appropriate teaching from well trained teachers who are supported with high quality instructional resources.

If you're curious about what our children are actually required to learn and be able to demonstrate in the sciences, you can read it here (pdf; adobe required).

For what it's worth, Mike!, I do hope He touches you on the campaign trail with His Noodly Appendage.