This is a classic example of the poor thinking that is evidenced outside science (and mathematics, for that matter).

2+2=4 works when using pebbles because 2 pebbles plus 2 pebbles = 4 pebbles. It’s using things that are the SAME.

However, your example of 2 scoops of powder + 2 scoops of milk is not analogous – this uses things that are NOT the same – and it is equivalent to saying 2x + 2y = 4 (wait, that can’t be!).

At which point you don’t teach chemistry, you teach ALGEBRA!

I’ll say for now that I agree that ID and Creationism are different, but the difference is only in degree, not in kind. Both are essentially different from science in that they look at the world with the preconception that some being, this designer, exists. Science has no preconceptions, and it can not have preconceptions. The body of scientific theories was developed painstakingly based on observation, is constantly tested and changed if enough evidence presents itself. How can we have this process if we must include things that can not be tested in our theories? That’s not science. Period.

This works fine for children until they start making their own chocolate milk. 2 scoops of powder and 2 scoops of milk make … wait, that can’t be! Their faith in math now crumbles. Then we have to teach them about chemistry, as our initial belief is often not exactly true.

I am not redefining faith; faith is trust in something you’ve chosen to believe. The issue is not what faith is, but what kind of evidence you are looking for. You remind me of the story of the man adrift at sea who prays and believes that God will miraculously save him. A man in a sailboat comes by and offers to rescue him, but the man insists that God will save him, and he waves the boat on. A few days later a helicopter flies over and drops a ladder, but again the main waves him on. Days later in desperation, the man cries out to God, “Why don’t you save me?” A voice from Heaven replies, “I sent you a boat and a helicopter; what more do you want?”

Again, the question is not faith, the question is what you accept as evidence.

1. In dealing with their denial of naturalistic evolution, they use the same methods, denial of fact and evidence, misuses of probability and goal-post shifting.
2. They don’t do any science, and yet claim to understand science better than the people who do. Witness Casey Luskin on the tiktaalik telling Schubin he was wrong.
3. John C. West has been caught deliberately quote-mining Darwin to try to prove that Darwinism is responsible for eugenics.
4. Michael Behe is deliberately mis-stating the development of malaria and human response to it.
5. They aren’t doing science. They are conducting a culture war.

I’m not so concerned about what their religious beliefs are. I can co-exist. Their purpose is to weaken the process of teaching science, which you correctly point out is weak enough all ready. There are DI fingerprints all over the new Louisiana Law.

You are twisting the concept of faith to suit your purposes. The faith that you talk about in your 2+2=4 is quite different than the faith in a being that no one has ever touched, tasted, felt or tested. I can test 2+2=4 with pebbles, over and over and over again finding the same answer every time. How is this the same concept as faith in God?