I think there's an argument that not knowing anything about, say, dinosaurs, is probably fine. But "knowing" very wrong things about the age of the earth or evolution being real can lead to people making decisions that are terrible for everyone. Think antibiotic resistant bacteria as a simple example. And there's a real cost to society if there's some fraction of society that don't believe climate change could possible be real.

> Think antibiotic resistant bacteria as a simple example.

That is why I explicitly wrote "macroevolution" and not "evolution". The emergence antibiotic-resilient bacteria is a phenomenon of microevolution, which is, as far as I am aware, much less controversial in evangelical Christian circles.

The distinction between macroevolution and microevolution sounds like nonsense. There's too much evidence for me to believe that evolution doesn't happen, at any scale. Evolution is clearly observable and foundational to biology.

Whereas Christian creation stories always felt like mythology, sounds human centric and made up. I read stuff like the Epic of Gilgamesh and realized that some stories in the bibles are based on older iterations written by ancient people.

> The distinction between macroevolution and microevolution sounds like nonsense.

It is nonsense through the lens of biology, but it's nonsense that's very ideologically convenient to certain demographics, which (perhaps paradoxically) means that terms to talk about the distinction become useful in some sociopolitical or anthropological contexts. For what it's worth, the very particular term for the religiously-motivated typology that accepts microevolution while rejecting macroevolution is baraminology.

Now I am reminded of the YouTube clickbait I loved, something like, “evolutionists will hate this video.” I thought I would, but in fact I saw a lot of great biology and science and was glad that they were teaching how life can change over time…

> The distinction between macroevolution and microevolution sounds like nonsense.

Even from a biological perspective this distinction is not nonsense: couldn't there exist an additional mechanism that is not arbitrary mutation and survival/selection of the fittest, which could be an additionally important for the formation of species and macroevolution?

Candidates for such possible additional mechanisms have been proposed from biologists, such as Lamarckism or epigenetics (though the mainstream view in biology is these either could not be observed (Lamarckism) or are not considered to be important for macroevolution (epigenetics)).

This "couldn't there exist..." is doing a lot of work that I don't understand.

"Couldn't there exist different laws of gravity for big things like planets and small things like rocks, which explains why I've never seen rocks attracted to each other?"

Yes, there could in some alternative universe, but not in this one that we know of, and it's not necessary to explain why you don't notice rocks being attracted to each other.

There could exist some difference between "microevolution" and "macroevolution," but not in this universe that we know of, and it's not necessary to explain species.

The entire concept was made up by creationists to try to add a patina of science to their deeply-unscientific beliefs. And the problem with an unscientific world view is that science will never change your mind about things, you'll just decide what science to accept and which to not accept.

> "Couldn't there exist different laws of gravity for big things like planets and small things like rocks, which explains why I've never seen rocks attracted to each other?"

Something very related is a topic that is seriously discussed among physicists:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics

The problem with the existing theories of gravitation which seem to work quite well on the scale of solar systems is that there does seem to exist evidence that some observed data on the scale of galaxies might not be well-explainable by these theories. See

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics#Ob...

Very recently new evidence for MOND came up:

> https://phys.org/news/2023-08-smoking-gun-evidence-gravity-g...

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37051241

See also:

> https://tritonstation.com/2023/08/02/is-ngc-1277-a-problem-f...

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37009037

That's why I deliberately said "planets" vs "small rocks," for which this does not apply.

You should know and have a framework of understanding what is real, what is faith and what we don’t know.

That’s why education aspires to be more well rounded in most places.

All of this paternalism and hostility towards civil authority isn’t an expression of faith or aspirations towards the divine; it’s a means to exert control on earth to men.

I just have a problem with parents closing doors for their kids. A lot of early education is about kids finding their interests and passions. It's also about making for a well rounded society.

I don't care so much of a kid is like "I hate this dinosaur garbage" or whatever, but I feel awful for the kid that could have been a great paleontologist or biologist only to have that opportunity snuffed.

Sort of the same reason I'd hate for the kids to never be able to read. Sure, maybe there are jobs and people that live full lives never really needing to read anything. However, so much of the world is completely closed off to an illiterate person.

It's not that I'm trying to be a missionary per say, but rather that I believe that sparking knowledge in people is pretty much always a good thing.

> Sort of the same reason I'd hate for the kids to never be able to read.

Written text is of course something that occurs very often in daily life.

> but rather that I believe that sparking knowledge in people is pretty much always a good thing.

Interestingly, many people who argue this way are very hesitant to apply this argument to sparking knowledge about evangelical Christian theology.

> Interestingly, many people who argue this way are very hesitant to apply this argument to sparking knowledge about evangelical Christian theology.

I'm absolutely not hesitant for kids to be taught about evangelical christian theology. I don't think kids should be proselytized to by the state.

That is, I'm more than fine if kids study the bible as part of class. I'm less fine if kids are taught "The bible is the word of god and if you don't believe it you are going to hell".

To put it in another context, I'm perfectly fine if there was a class teaching about Hinduism in high school. I'm far less fine (and I'd think most people would be) if that class involved calling Christians heathens and requiring participation in Satsang.

> That is, I'm more than fine if kids study the bible as part of class. I'm less fine if kids are taught "The bible is the word of god and if you don't believe it you are going to hell".

> To put it in another context, I'm perfectly fine if there was a class teaching about Hinduism in high school. I'm far less fine (and I'd think most people would be) if that class involved calling Christians heathens and requiring participation in Satsang.

To play the devil's advocate: what you described in the last paragraph is exactly how I imagine that classes about evolutionary biology or earth history feel to evangelical Christians. :-)

> To play the devil's advocate: what you described in the last paragraph is exactly how I imagine that classes about evolutionary biology or earth history feel to evangelical Christians. :-)

Teaching a kid about evolutionary biology does not force them to believe it. Just the same as teaching a kid about Hinduism doesn't turn them into a Hindu. Or more extreme, just like teaching kids about harry potter doesn't turn them into wizards.

The more extreme evangelical christian (which to be clear, isn't broadly held) position is that "if my kids learn about this, they might reject the faith therefore they shouldn't learn about it." But that's a silly position. Just like it's silly to say "If kids learn about electricity they might reject Zeus".

Withholding information because it might damage faith is toxic.

You aren't playing the devil's advocate, you literally are the metaphorical devil. You are the person he is talking to.

The chief difference between evolution and intelligent design is that one actually happened.

> However, so much of the world is completely closed off to an illiterate person.

> It's not that I'm trying to be a missionary per say

Spoken - or rather, written - like someone who doesn't read much.

I'd be a lot more worried about the lack of sex education. That's often when a child first realizes they are being sexually abused.

That makes sense! Has implications for the age at which some, limited, sex ed should be introduced.

Wondering why I haven't seen this consideration raised before, in mainstream press. Nor read of any specific cases of abuse being exposed that way. Would be interested in references.

Here's some references I dug up. I've also read anecdotal reports about little girls and boys as young as 5 pointing at a sex education book (one that was banned in Florida) saying "my dad does this to me", here's one I was able to find: https://bookriot.com/sex-ed-books-protect-kids/ (ctrl-f This is me)

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/apr/16/sexual-abu...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6283686/

https://info.primarycare.hms.harvard.edu/review/sexual-educa...

Even China started pushing comprehensive sex education nationwide due to high rates of rural child sex abuse: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9406756/

I am just wishing for a day when someone will say to me "Earth is 6000 years old" with a straight face. I'll cherish that day forever in my mind.

As a human person you have a right to education, regardless of whatever your parents might happen to think. School is there, in part, to ensure kids are exposed to thoughts, experiences, people, even those that parents might find objectionable.

A daughter of fundamentalist Muslim parents has the right to have an education, even if they think girls should not be educated.

A girl whose parents are "anti woke liberal gender ideology" still nonetheless has the right to learn how her own body works, how to protect herself, among a thousand other things.

Etc etc.