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This is a great article and I can see from the comments that it can quickly add fuel to the debate. I am in a very conservative area and most in my homeschool group only teach creation. We teach creation too, but we also add evolution. The main reason for this: I believe you cannot stand for anything unless you know what you stand against. You have to know both view points to understand where you are at and to voice your opinion. I feel that it would be a great disservice to your children to send them into the world and never be able to share their beliefs because they are not able to communicate with the other side. As for Santa Clause, I have to add this as it just recently came up to my oldest daughter. A friend was bashing belief is Santa Clause - "the great parental lie." My daughter's response was it teaches children to believe in something they cannot see; it is not about presents, but a lesson in faith.
Thanks Lee, for another great topic!

Joan,
Creationism aligns with true scientific research and is compatible with science. Science is merely observing things and offering explanations for those things and then testing those explanations to see if the evidence supports or refutes those explanations. All scientists are biased and sometimes evidence can be explained in a biased way. Teach your children to recognize good statistics and good scientific research design and how it differs from poor research design and statistical analysis. Darwin's own material does not explain nor account for the origin of the elements from which he claimed life spontaneously generated (or magically appeared from nothing.) Darwin gave us a good thing when he showed that species were not immutable, but his explanation went much too far. Darwinism is itself a faith-based philosophy rather than science since no one has ever seen any incontrovertible intermediate forms or fossilized evidence of transitional forms. While you may be thinking that "evolution" means that things merely adapt to their environment, a concept known as microevolution and which is perfectly compatible with creationism, the strict dogma of Darwin, macroevolution, that a species can become a different species through random natural selection or random minute changes over extremely long periods of time has never been observed nor proven. In fact, genetic mutations almost always result in death or abnormalities in organisms rather than advantages. When we speak of "belief and faith," please note that evolutionists cannot explain the Cambrian explosion. When you speak of Santa Claus, who is in fact a myth based on a real person, St. Nicholas, let us also mention that much of the scientific mythology propagated in our current textbooks as true were deliberate attempts to deceive such as Haeckel's embryos. Stanley Miller was also a fraud. Darwin's Tree of Life has no evidential support. "Survival of the fittest" cannot explain altruism nor love nor the highest of human behaviors nor can random chance explain vision in the eye or the mechanism of blood clotting nor a whole host of other intricacies in the simplest of cells, so truly perhaps it is you and those who only teach Darwin's view who are opposed to true science and are truly doing a great disservice to our children. Those of us who honestly value science want all explanations on the table with the ability to test their validity. Evolutionists, however, seem doggedly determined to censor evidence as well as what can be taught to our children. If you believe that the language of DNA arose out of chance, you actually disagree with many noted scientists who recognize that the encyclopedic volume of information which exists inside the cell arising by mere chance is the equivalent of saying all the letters in an encyclopedia just spontaneously lined themselves up into words and coherent instructions all at once just by chance. Why do you think their view of the need for an intelligent origin is less valid than your belief in something originating from nothing? Your belief in spontaneous generation is as old as those who followed Aristotle who believed maggots came from nothing and spontaneously appeared and refused to believe in the unseen eggs of flies because of their worship of Aristotle's reputation. Science cannot truly prove anything--it simply supports or refutes things with evidence, but it is always "discovering" new things such as the fact that Pluto is no longer a planet. Give Darwin his credit, but recognize the limits of his theory and allow those with new evidence a place in the discussion. Who is really being closed-minded here? You might want to broaden your reading by seeing books by Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Charles Hodge, Stephen Meyer, Francis Crick, etc. So much of what is taught regarding evolution is incorrect. Perhaps a larger discussion will lead to better knowledge and a more effective rhetoric rather than seeking to eliminate debate which is the point of the article by the author above. Our children deserve the chance to see all sides and evidence and only then make their decision regarding which "faith" follows science more closely.

Don't you need to teach a child the difference between belief and science? Belief has no place in this discussion since the only fact is that you believe it to be true. What a great disservice you do suggesting that creationism has any basis In facts. Would you say that a belief in Santa Clause is equal to belief that people buy your presents?

I also recommend Answers in Genesis. Very solid and informative on both sides. FYI - it's from a young earth viewpoint. http://www.answersingenesis.org/

I just heard Ken Ham speak at a homeschool conference. Answers in Genesis has a full curriculum for children, middle schoolers, and high schoolers available in this subject, but it relates closely to apologetics. Many individual books (the Answers Books, vol 1-3) and DVDs are also available.

Hi Theresa,
You can find some interesting books at an adult level here:
http://www.discovery.org/csc/essentialReadings.php
My son used to work for the company - Discovery Institute. These are scientifically minded references, not based on scripture. Interesting - and not at all babyish.
Blessings,
Lee
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Thanks, Lee, for the great advice. Do you have any suggestions on what material to use to cover the topic more in depth?