In a sweeping effort to battle rampant scientific ignorance among young students, educators last week introduced new guidelines for public school curricula that would standardize teaching of climate science and evolution and remove creationism from middle school onward.

The new guidelines come in response to the growing controversy over public education driven by religious conservatives. While evolution is the most popular and approved scientific theory for the origin of human life and is an integral part of understanding biological science, some conservatives insist that intelligent design and other theistic ideas also be taught taught in public schools. A group called Citizens for Objective Public Education stated that the new curriculum would “take away the right of parents to direct the religious education of their children.”

This is where the problem lies — public schools should not be used as a vehicle for religious education. In an age where scientific progress is cutting-edge and often incontrovertible, we commit a grave disservice to our society by teaching a new generation of children that complex events are simply the result of a higher power that we cannot control. Creationism is a stagnant theory that has little to do with scientific reality and diametrically opposes rational thought and scientific analysis.

Faith can be important to the development of children in America, but that aspect of education should remain in individual households instead of being injected into public curricula.

Hardline conservatives must realize that in a public school, religion cannot be taught as a basis for scientific theory — only facts and empirical evidence can be. Students must learn how ideas are developed and tested in the scientific realm, how to determine if evidence is sufficient and how to make conclusions based on various pieces of information. These new guidelines will aim to make science in schools a process of discovery, rather than a rigid system where theories are not explored but taught as unquestionable truth.