This is an issue I'll unfortunately be coming back to again and again: you cannot teach children false information and expect them to grow up and be well-rounded, contributing members of society. There are currently eight different states --Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, the usual suspects-- that have anti-evolution bills in their legislatures. As a refresher, the infamous Scopes Trial of 1925 and the equally as important Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in 2005 that ruled intelligent design is not science (and is simply creationism in disguise).
Currently, Florida has Senate Bill 1854 on the table which in part states: "The instructional staff of a public school [is required to] teach a thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution." Ahh, you might say, critical analysis is certainly important for any aspiring intellectual. Which would be quite true, if that's actually what we were talking about. However, in this case it's just more coded language to add doubt to the theory of evolution and support for ideas like creationism and intelligent design. A common argument I've heard from those that support this so-called "teach the alternatives" is that if you give kids the facts, they'll make their own decision about what is right. Really? Because I'm pretty sure if you told a kid dinosaurs were still around, he'd believe you. And you know what? That wouldn't be fair, would it? That stupid kid would grow up thinking dinosaurs were out there somewhere just like leprechauns and Santa Claus. And his poor little heart is going to be broken when he either finds out he's wrong or is made fun of for the rest of his life for sticking to his deluded little guns.
So why would anyone want to teach kids a false narrative? Because it fuels doubt. It adds to the supposed controversy (oh and hey, for anyone not in the science community, that controversy is as fictional as unicorns). And eventually those kids might grow up to be card-carrying Republicans that are making our laws (please refer to the below video). While laws about science may not seem that important, remember that we're currently dealing with issues on stem cell use, vaccines, oil pollution, and global warming.
This attack on science education falls in line with the recent outcries against "elitism," "intellectualism," and those there damn fancy college-educated folk. I've read multiple interviews with science educators where they say they're basically afraid to get mired in any sort of controversy, so they glaze over the sections on evolution. If science teachers are afraid to do their jobs, these kids we supposedly care so much about are not learning facts. They're learning half-truths and then they may just end up like this:
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