The highlight of my high school biology class was the fetal pig organ fight.

I really don't remember if we discussed evolution or not. Probably not. The class annoyed me, as it was mostly a bunch of memorization.

High school conscientious objector here. No dissection of anything for me.

My alternative service was to run the ditto machine in the counseling office (foreshadowing? perhaps!). I skived off AND got woozy from the mimeo-fluid.

It was sweet!

My biology class wasn't hideous because of the material, I should say. I probably would have liked it a lot with a different teacher.

But we had an anorexic woman who, in a 45 minute class period, spent about 30 minutes discussing quotes of the day (not biology related, more Oprah-esque) and her diet, alternating with a succession of subs. It's a miracle I know any biology at all.

I don't remember formally learning evolution, but where I come from, it is just taken as a given. If I were asked to prove it, I would just turn on ESPN during a basketball game, or something.

I don't remember ever being taught specifically about evolution in school (maybe a single hour's nod to Darwin in first-semester bio and again in European history), but I do remember both textbooks and teachers making mention of it in ways that clearly indicated that this was background info we were expected to already have some grasp of.

My bookshelves at home were lined with things like kid-theology New Testament storybooks and kid-science explanations of the Big Bang and everything that happened since, and I honestly don't think it was until I was in college that I realized that there are Christians out there in the world right now who object to evolution. The Scopes Monkey Trial, Inherit the Wind and all that, but right this very minute? It caused me to boggle.

I was taught that there was no way that birds could have descended from dinosaurs, because the bible says right there that God created them on Day whatever.

I stormed home pissed to my mother. But I was a fervently "There is no God but Science" child (I'd have wanted to be a scientist, but what was there left to do? They knew EVERYTHING). None of the schools past that point (I was about five at the time) contradicted evolution.

Evolution was described most thoroughly in my "Man and His Environment" class in 7th grade. (Jr. high in CA) We learned about the various stages of 'man'...(my teacher was a very cool feminist who constantly chafed under the 'man' title, bless her) My strongest memory is of the project where we were sent out to make out own tools.

My stone ax was pretty awesome until the woven grasses I used as last dried out enough to become brittle. In one demonstration, I swung the ax up, over my shoulder and swung down with only the branched twig handle.

At the time 'Seventeen' magazine has a 'was my face red' feature. I considered submitting the ax incident.

I honestly don't think it was until I was in college that I realized that there are Christians out there in the world right now who object to evolution.

Yup. In school, we learned about the Scopes trial as if it had been the end of that particular debate. The notion of schools not teaching evolution was one of those craxxy things people in the past did.

(Which isn't to say that I went to a bad high school -- I didn't. Socially, it couldn't have been a worse fit for me, but from a learning/life preparation perspective, it was fantastic. Just...hopeful, I guess.)

I still don't personally know many Christians who reject evolution, at least not wholesale. I know Christians who object to the way in which they believe it is taught. Ben has not had enough science for me to object to the manner in which it (any kind of science) is being taught. I'm more concerned over how little science he's getting. Evolution doesn't run counter to my understanding of Genesis, even though I hold the Bible as divinely inspired.

I'm probably missing something, but it all works for me that way, so shhhhh.

This reminds me, I need to clip my fingernails. You don't happen to live in the Kansas City area Kate?

Hm. I was about to offer my services if you needed any help wiring up the spaceship, but maybe I won't tell you that I'll be there later this week.