(June 4, 2015 at 9:54 am)robvalue Wrote: The problem with beliefs is that they can't usually be proven. So someone could, in theory, understand evolution perfectly well, and teach it well, but secretly not believe in it. There's not much you can do about that.
But say in the above example they found out the guy doesn't believe in it, yet continues to teach it at a good level and doesn't bring his beliefs into the classroom, what would be the opinion of that?
That would be as far as I would go as "splitting the baby". If you can leave your personal bias at the door, that is one thing. As soon as you try to mix it in a method that is independent of your personal desires, at that point you have no business teaching a class or being in a lab.
The problem with this unfortunately is far to many "religious scientists" don't do that. Liberty University's biology professors attach the bible to science. And again, you can find scientists in Iran and in Saudi Arabia too, but that same biologist wouldn't suddenly believe in Allah because their scientists do.
There simply is no fair way to include religion in a science class, on top of it being unnecessary. Scientific method has always been independent of religion. It works everywhere and is why computers and planes work no matter where in the world they are used.
