I was reading a post on Steve Gilliard's blog regarding homeschooling, and noticed that some of the articles were talking about the fundamentalists' "war on science," and it got me thinking about how much influence it really has on public education.
It occurs to me that I don't really know enough to say what's going on--and I'd love to hear from any Kossacks who have heard more about this.
As an engineer, much of my work in HS and college was in mathematics and the physical sciences. To someone like me, I can't see how there's anything taught in HS--other than maybe the two weeks we spent discussing evolution in ninth-grade biology, and again later in AP biology--that could be considered "offensive" to fundamentalists.
Is there really a war on Newton's laws of motion? Do they really have significant issues with valence theory and reaction equilibria? Is L'Hôpital's rule an insult to their value system?
Also, are there other areas of the curriculum where they're trying to have an impact? I suppose learning about "non-Western" cultures--and teaching the beliefs of other world religions--raises their cackles. But have they tried to change HS reading lists? What are their objections? And have they succeeded?
Finally, I don't want this to be just another exercise in "fundamentalist bashing"; if there are instances where fundamentalists are rejecting attempts at takeovers of local curricula, I'd love to know about those, too.