You know what... I do understand and respect a family's right to believe any idiotic nonsense they want to. Who knows; it's a seriously messed up universe we live in, they could even be right.

But whether or not they're factually right is not what matters most in my book (which is not a holy book). Rather... their theories are grounded in a larger belief system, which has at its core a moral and ethical code. Telling the children in absolute terms that their parents beliefs are wrong, understandably, undermines the whole system, which in turn undermines the code.

(I'm not saying American creationists have a great code. Those are often the same people who are racists, xenophobes, or quick to judge someone by the bank account. But it's built on a good stem of what Americans call "work ethic", and arguably, it's better than no code at all.)

At the root of the argument is, in fact, a completely different wrong, which is the one I actually wanted to address in this post. The problem actually does lie with the (majority of) science teachers, who fall for the trap I call "the religion of science".

Good, respectable scientists almost never talk about facts. A fact, or rather an absolute rule, is anathema to good science; the only facts useful to scientists are the results of their experiments, everything else is theory.

What about bad scientists? Oh, those are frequently 100% sure of obvious truths, like, "the atom is indivisible" and "heat is a fluid" and "there's no such a thing as a memristor". (They're particularly eager to label things "impossible".)

The pattern here is: an open mind is the first pre-requisite for science, even more important than genius.

But in school -- and not only America, but many other places -- you only start hearing this kind of talk in college, or if you're really lucky, high school. Basic science, the teachers who were supposed to be giving children the basics of science and awakening potential future scientists, generally fall for "the religion of science". They "teach" absolutes; this is so, because that is so. Which is specially funny since some things they teach in basic school are known to be untrue, like Newtonian physics.

We wouldn't be even having this argument if school science teachers could behave like good scientists and formulate their teachings like, "evidence suggests that..." and "it is believed that..." and "apparently, ..." and, often, "this and that evidence points to the conclusion that...".

What, actually teach creationism in schools? No, now you're pushing it. Come on, the other parents also have the right to keep their children safely away from your nonsensical idiocy.