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.

My middle school bio teacher made some comment at the get go over the furor in certain religious circles but taught it without any other commentary. If I'm remembering correctly, she belonged to a faith that rejected evolution, but I'm not certain if she did (she was a student teacher at the same time as my mom, which is how I know anything about her religious practices.)

My high school biology teacher began every year with a roof-raising lecture whose main point was the biggest environmental issue is overpopulation . Even his chemistry class. In any case, he had no problems pounding evolution into even the thickest of heads.

A guy here who describes himself as real techsavvy/cool just mistook a Shuffle for an iPod remote control.

Har. Granted, I keep calling the Shuffle "mini" (but it IS mini!!), but at least I describe myself as techloser.

I liked bio so much in HS that I took three years and planned on majoring in it. (until I actually got to college. It did not work out.).

I had that with math. Alas.

I started reading about hominids back when I was 11 or so (the 1977 National Geographic article by Donald Johanson describing Lucy and the First Family was pivotal for me), so I still have a hard time understanding creationists. I couldn't believe it when my sophomore (high school) biology teacher asked us, as an informal survey, to write down our beliefs on creationism vs. evolution on the back of our first test. When he announced the next day that over half of the students were in favor of creationism, I was appalled. These were all girls in a college-prep Catholic school, and we were all very smart 15 year olds. I couldn't believe that they had bought the fundamentalists' fairy tales (as I saw them).

Heck, even in my CCD (Sunday school) classes in 8th grade, the lay teacher taught us that the Bible was being metaphorical, not literal, in Genesis.

I can actually believe in the bible as more literal than you might think, given that things are in pretty much the right order, and the idea that god's time doesn't run like people's time. I guess that makes the day/night part metaphorical. Which is not to say I don't believe in evolution.

I guess that makes the day/night part metaphorical.

This seems so straightforward to me. I mean, then everything works.