Article: Bush wants alternatives to Darwinism taught in school

Bush wants alternatives to Darwinism taught in school -- for once I agree with something that President Bush says: "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."

Profound, yet something that most schools don't do well. However, if you're going to open the schools up to different schools of thought, why stop at just adding Creationism to the curriculum? I see they're trying to call it "the" theory of Intelligent Design now, but what about other theories of intelligent design? Or maybe there are alternative evolutionary theories to Darwinism that we should discuss.

For example, what about aliens? I mean, couldn't aliens have created the universe as we know it? Isn't that "Intelligent Design"? Not exactly what Creationists are calling intelligent design, but worth considering. Shouldn't we tell our kids about that? How about a Human Endogenous Retrovirus (HERV) that punctuates evolution at times of stress in the population. This comes straight out of a series by Greg Bear, Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children. There is even talk in that book about intelligence in the system, nature as a neural network of sorts.

Now, these ideas may seem crazy, but no more crazy than evolving from monkeys (where's the missing link?) or being thought up by some omniscient and omnipotent being, affectionately known as God to most of the western world. These ideas are just as crazy to the other group. My point is that I agree, we should teach many different viewpoints, and maybe even have debates in high schools.

Provoking independent thought in children is so very important, because then they won't be corporate drones in the future. And maybe they'll think so much they'll actually vote someone good into the presidency.