Suppose students in school were very interested in whether Anastasia the daughter of the last Tsar of Russia escaped. The topic is not central to the curriculum. . . but no good teacher would pass up the chance to use student interest to motivate a class. Suppose students came to science class with a keen interest in astrology. . . a good teacher would gear into their interest, even if it ended up attacking astrology, to build on a solid love of astronomy. How could she ignore it? Student questions would lead to teacher discussion. . . and if the teacher knows such questions are coming, in fact come every year, she would be a fool not to build it into the curriculum.
Whatever the merits of creationism OR intelligent design as science, and I find merits in both, the rulings by Courts that teachers cannot motivate a class, prepare for questions she knows she will get, or make this student interest part of the curriculum to spur discussion and, gasp, actual interest by “non-science” types in what is, after all, a general education requirement for all high schools students is bizarre. It is related to an irrational fear of religion (Asimov’s Armies of the Night) and a prejudice against religious ideas that is so pervasive in the upper echelons of science.
If we treated creationism or intelligent design the way any good teacher would want to teach it, then it would be part of the curriculum. Hostile teachers would roast it and I assume sympathetic teachers would (subtly) praise it. I trust teachers. Why don’t Darwinists?