Do you think science classes should stick to teaching science?

I agree schools need to have some basic agreement on curricula for each field. Schools need an organizational framework that introduces the language of science and encourages a level of comfort with exact sciences like math, physics and biology.

Students need to learn more than the history of science and what facts have accumulated they need to learn the principles of research and how to communicate with technical accuracy. There is a lot of material to be covered yet still nurture the individual's facility of skepticism & critical analysis. So give the children the tools to learn to question material and teach the critical basics for the sciences.

Science isn't like other areas there is an enormous amount of material to establish the factual basis of our current level of understanding plus the technical grammar to communicate it. The lack of this background in our school system is clear when someone can actually state there is no evidence or worse yet less evidence in support of evolutionary change in populations than there was in 1859.

If classes are also expected to take the time to debunk any and all pseudoscience little time will be left in class to cover the useful facts needed for a good foundation to what must yet be learned. Time is a rate limiting factor in education so it should not be wasted. Students can and should be encouraged to pursue material for extra credit or as personal areas of concentration in addition to the basic material required to establish the foundation of facts needed to understand modern science. If they do choose to look at a specific area of alternate hypotheses they further demonstrate their ability to pursue a question, gather the relevant published facts and assemble a consistent argument to support their papers position. But first they must learn what a fact is and use the correct language and grammar to describe the phenomena.

Biology uses terms that are derivatives of greek or latin so students must become facile with a large and ‘remote’ vocabulary. They must be taught to understand the typical methods of diagramming reactions and biological pathways to understand the precision in communicating the technical aspects of science. While doing this they must also learn the overarching principles that link the discrete concepts. That there is a connection between the cellular basis of life and the rabbit it is organized into. Given a solid foundation they can then evaluate all situations with a common logic or choose to retain conceptual barriers and apply separate rules of evaluation in different areas of their life. Many people are left with situation dependent reasoning because schools are forced to test just for facts learned not whether students have learned logic standards for rational cognition. Students deserve to be pointed towards advance reasoning more than they deserve yet more details about alternative pseudosciences.

I believe logic and the philosophy of science should still be taught as specific fields in school. So I have voted.

I have a serious issue with it, in that it mandates higher level classes from a specific corporation for ALL students. Not only can not every student handle AP level classes, but it seems to be a bad idea to force AP on schools specifically when there are so many alternatives, such as IB or partnership credit from a local college. (a local highschool did this as a cheaper alternative to the usual practices)

I would write the dean of the college, the class is most likely there because of a donor or a very influential person. Unfortunately college courses are dictated by money as much as or more than actual scholastic merit. As a last resort I would maybe involve a class action suit, maybe contact the ACLU to see what can be done.

I disagree with your purpose. Science examines ALL of the possibilities and then selects the best choice. Fundamentalist creationism when taught side by side with evolutionary theory doesn't make any sense. When taught together the fundamentalists lose. When you allow fundamentalists to present their case (at home, in church, etc,) and then try to argue Evolution at a different time and place the closed minds will remain closed,but when you acknowledge their position and then (while they are listening) present the contradictions you may change some minds. Your request:"Please vote and send this to others you think would support it" is very unscientific and has a potential to drastically prejudice your results. I agree that jklemon has a closed mind, But protecting the "integrity of science" means looking at everything then selecting the best choice, not choosing only the things that agree with your theory or hypothesis.

America has fallen far behind the rest of the world in science because of the religious nutcases. Religion needs to stay in the church where they can all go and pretend all they like.

No, of course not.

I firmly believe that science classes should also have "nonsense," "claptrap," "twaddle," "snake oil," "frauds and hoaxes" in the curriculum, so that students will be able to recognize this cr-p for what it is later in life.

There is no need to waste valuable teaching time on pseudosciences that are characterized by aversion to critical reasoning.

Yes!

If schools should stick to teaching fact-based science, then evolution must be thrown out. The so-called "theory" has even less proof than when it was first hypothesized.