"Teach the Strengths and Weaknesses of Evolution?"

First of all, hat tip to Ed Brayton and his Dispatches from the Culture Wars blog. In reference to the State of Texas school board's position on the theory of evolution:

I have to wonder--is it appropriate to teach the "strengths and weaknesses of evolution" to high school students? Truly? Really? The finer points of the theory of evolution are appropriate for graduate school courses in biology. Can a high school student understand and appreciate where the current theory is, in terms that make sense given their really limited exposure? In a word, no.

So, I'm trying to parse this statement in a way that makes sense. Of course, I know the agenda behind it, and it's really a thinly veiled attempt to insert Christian faith/belief into the science curriculum. A place, I might add, where it firmly must not be. I wouldn't want Islamic faith taught as science, either.

I am a rationalist. My "faith" is not based on superstitions or stories. The theory of evolution has been researched and experimented against by thousands of scientists for more than 100 years. It's not a faith, and it does stand up to rational, scientific scrutiny. The same scrutiny and rigor that, for example, sent us to the moon. A scientist continually tries to prove that they're wrong. The only way to verify some hypothesis is to build experiments that are intended to disprove it. Because only when an hypothesis stands up to repeated, stringent attempts to disprove it, does it become a scientific theory. Theories change as we learn more, but no one would suggest that not knowing everything would, in fact, mean a theory is weak.

We do not know everything; we probably never will. Knowledge isn't a destination; it's a journey. As for how life began, how the universe began, what caused it all ... I don't know the answers, and I'm all right not knowing. If someone wants to believe that a supernatural god did all this (and we call this faith), then that's OK with me. It's just an hypothesis that, unfortunately, hasn't really been tested. We can infer its validity in the face of unknowns, but we have not tested this idea against the physical universe. For all I know it could be true, but my intuition tells me it's not.

There doesn't have to be a reason for all this--everything. That it is, is good enough for me. Because the real question is: what are you going to do with what you have? The meaning of life is to see it perpetuated, and that is all. We have minds that thirst for the answers, so in addition to perpetuating our life in this universe, we also explore the nature of the reality we sense. Perfectly OK. Not a waste of time.

I'd suggest if you've been sitting around waiting for the afterlife that you get up off your ass and get busy. You ain't got eternity to accomplish something. There's no time like now; no one better than you. Or me.