[9th Engineer]

I really couldn't care less about either the bitching or the fact that some people want it pulled. In a well operated public school system where students are being given a detailed, well rounded science education that deals more with actual information than general theories (drawing from my own experience) evolution can play a productive role. But that's not the case and the fault doesn't lie with one set of people. Kids are not getting a good grounding in science before being exposed to more advanced topics like evolution. Take, for instance, kids who are being taught principles of quantum mechanics such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle without knowing more atomic theory than being able to name the parts of an atom and the four basic forces of the universe. You end up with students who have bizzar and erroneous understandings like "the reason you cannot know both the position and momentum of a particle is that by measuring the state of the particle you change it's velocity by an amount proportional to the accuracy of the first reading". And those are the top 0.1% of the class. The teachers and school board proudly tell everyone what a great education the kids are getting with all this exposure to advanced ideas, but it's just a delusion to impress parents and make themselves out to be more than a glorified daycare.

My point is that the addition of evolution to the highschool cirriculum was not only pointless, but harmful because it displaced topics more vital at that low level (yes, highschool is only a low level of education meant as preparation for higher topics).

American science classes are already the laughing stock of developed countries, but it's not because some of them don't teach evolution. It's serving as a scapegoat for an already pitiful effort on the part of all but a few students and teachers. Learn to walk first (used metaphorically) then run.