Not all beliefs are of relative worth.

I'm sorry they just aren't. Belief in god and a "creation myth" as you call it may let you sleep well at night, but it won't make any sense of the vast body of evidence that comprises evolutionary theory. It may even get in the way of being able to see and comprehend that there IS such a vast body of evidence. Like your friend with the blinkers on. He is actually trying to weigh the tiny body of ineffably silly "scholarship" that is "intelligent design" against the vast and complicated and empirical ocean of evidence that is all of biology, equally. Children that learn young earth creationism will be severely handicapped if they want a career in the sciences unless they give up these beliefs and it is child abuse to tell them that you're teaching them something that's well understood and true when its just based on faith and wishful thinking. They won't stand a chance. Every now and again a creationist becomes a scientist and its always big news, because usually these beliefs preclude them from getting any valid work done. Those who do are masters of compartmentalization. For they have learned to do what their teachers could not. They have learned to keep their religion out of the lab. I don't think any teacher has the right to limit their students like that. You can't teach faith as empiricism because they are fundamentally opposed states of mind and guides of human behavior. Science may philosophically (if you're an anti-realist) operate on faith, but our computers, space program, and antibiotics, beg to differ. If those were used because someone had faith that they would (alone) we'd be drowning in lawsuits and riding horses in to town still.

Our children would be dying of tuberculosis. Which is something that people have faith have let happen before.

That is insane, but people of faith are prone do doing insane things based on blind belief. Atheists are not "fundamentalists" about much, just this faith thing, it bothers us. We don't have it, we don't trust it, because we think it lies. We don't have faith that we are right, we have empirical science and falsification to show us when we are right and when we are wrong. This is part of why we get so angry. Faith is a totally worthless concept to us and to others it seems to mean everything.

Empiricism = evidence

Faith = no evidence

Not all beliefs are equal. Not all things are relative.

The schedules of vaccination, antibiotics, are both based on evolutionary theory. There is no creationist explanation of these things, Where evolution offers answers and evidence, creationism so far has only managed to say (very loudly) "OH REALLY?" There is nothing to it other than an objection. It is just a "well how can you be so sure, the bible for instance, says something different, I think we should read that instead."

Tell him to call a biologist at a research university and to ask that person what he or she thinks about intelligent design and what a student who believes that will encounter when they get to college. Then you'll see why its child abuse to bring religion in to the classroom.

to vercingetorix - Yes theoretically you would increase the risk as you increase the sample size, but the pattern of markers they use have a 1 in 1 trillion chance of being shared by anyone else, if you take one of the markers BY ITSELF you get a 1 in 15 chance of a particular race. If you look up the case of Josiah Sutton who was wrongfully convicted on DNA evidence you can see a really clear example of what can go wrong when crime labs tailor their results to police expectations. A simple venn diagram sorted out the test results really fast on appeal. BUT, Sutton nearly didn't GET an appeal because nobody wanted to question his case because he was convicted on DNA evidence. Thats where the orwellian part comes in. When DNA is done right it is an incredibly useful tool for identification. When its done wrong or badly, when it isn't reviewed or questioned, "because the innocent have nothing to fear", that's the point of failure. The larger sample size is not.

As for PTSD. I have PTSD, and I've noticed over the years I have become less and less hypervigillant, less and less bellicose. I have become less attached to the idea of manditory hospitalization for the mentally ill and more sympathetic to their situation. (I was held hostage by a violent schizophrenic.)

It would be a mistake for anyone to say that PTSD does not affect your world-view, your decisions, and your arguments.

But it would also be a mistake to say that people with PTSD are all the same, or are in the same place of healing at the same time. I may be hypervigillant in some ways, but that false sense of security you walk around with is false. And I, the victim, am the bearer of this bad news.

It would be a mistake to leave us out of the public debate. But it would also be a mistake to let them dominate it.