I'll just go ahead and jump on the bandwagon here and say that in no way shape or form would I constitue ID as classroom worthy science. I would calssify it as more of a religion...or a joke. Go flying spaghetti monster!
On a different note, I'd like to ask JB why the "gaping holes" in the theory of evolution are so terrible. The periodic table, which I seem to recall you saying you would never question, had about 70% of the spaces blank when it was first designed. When Mendeleev first drew the table, it was missing a tremendous number of elements. But he rightly concluded that scienctists had yet to discover the missing links. He didn't simply assume that science was wrong because it didn't immediately have the answers or because most of his table was missing (which seems to be what you're doing with the Theory of Evolution). Instead, he used basic scientific and mathematic principles to infer (he did this correctly, for the most part) the general physical properties of the missing elements (which seems to be what the dreaded SCIENCE does with evolution - that's why it is a theory and not a law - there isn't enough scientific proof). Infact, it was Mendeleev's speculation with the table that led to the discovery of several more elements as chemists and physicists quested to fill those gaps. Incidentally, as a side note, I'd direct you to the Webster's definitions of "theory" and ask how one, if not all of them, doesn't apply to science's "THEORY" of evolution.
I maintain that you have a surprisingly narrow and uneducated view of what science is and how it works based upon your posts. You are suprisingly quick to point out a vacuum in scientific knowledge for someone so dedicated to the idea that a great, big invisible man created everything in 6 days. I hold your devotion to religion and criticisms of science to be hypocritical in the most fundamental of senses; you find fault with the gaps in science and label them as something to be frowned upon while you embrace gaps in religious theory as a testament to your faith. Further, I would think that you ignore a tremendous amount of evidence by simply writing off the idea of evolution because you find it to not coexist with what you read in the Bible. I would argue that there is sufficient evidence for a THEORY of evolution and that, from that aspect, the THEORY should be taught in schools as it is a fairly good modern means by which students can begin to see how to try to fit data together to begin to answer very complex and intricate questions. My elemental science class in high school spent several days putting together a periodic table based on the data that Mendeleev had (the periodic table was only a theory when he did it) and I don't see why the same couldn't be done with evolution. It is a theory that can be debated both ways and the ability to look at a problem from every possible angle and discount nothing until it is proven wrong is an essential quality that any pursuer of "science" must possess. I think there is an excellent parallel between the development of the periodic table and that of the theory of evolution. Perhaps, in time, science will fill those gaps with evidence, much as the gaps in the periodic table were filled.
