British rule creationism out of science lessons

Posted 9 December 2006 by Matt Young

I hate to give my English brother-in-law something to crow about, but a December 7 article in the Guardian, "Ministers to ban creationist teaching aids in science lessons," by James Randerson, gives him ample opportunity. According to the article,

The government is to write to schools telling them that controversial teaching materials promoting creationism should not be used in science lessons. The packs include DVDs and written materials promoting intelligent design, a creationist alternative to Darwinism, that were sent to every school in the country by the privately-funded group Truth in Science. Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Last week, the Guardian revealed that 59 schools had told Truth in Science the materials were a "useful classroom resource".

For more details, check here http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1965987,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8 and for a sardonic comment, check here http://redstaterabble.blogspot.com/2006/12/uk-plays-whack-mole.html

16 Comments

PvM · 9 December 2006

Thank God

Darmok · 9 December 2006

I agree; if America is going to slide backwards, at least we can hope it won't take Europe with it.

David B. Benson · 9 December 2006

PvM writes "Thank God".

I get a good chuckle from that.

Thank you, I needed it...

Dean Morrison · 9 December 2006

It's about time too -

More background here:

http://www.justscience.org.uk/tikiwiki-1.9.5/tiki-index.php

Peter Henderson · 10 December 2006

Anyone else in the UK catch today's Sunday sequence:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/radioulster/programmepages/sundaysequence.shtml

JohnK · 10 December 2006

UK folk can observe the recent deep insights of one Peter Hitchens, columnist in The (Daily) Mail on Sunday http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2006/11/fanatics_in_the.html
accelerating to
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2006/12/intelligence_an.html
The damn thing isn't (yet) owned by Murdoch, but Lord Rothdemort doesn't give up much to Digger.

brightmoon · 10 December 2006

oh i was we'd do that here

Darth Robo · 11 December 2006

Good news to wake up to on a monday morning. Now I'm happy. :)

Popper's Ghost · 11 December 2006

Now if only those 59 schools would see fit to fire their headmasters for incompetence.

Peter Henderson · 11 December 2006

Good news to wake up to on a monday morning. Now I'm happy. :)

This will definitely make you happy Darth: http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/radioulster/programmepages/sundaysequence.shtml The director of TIS (a YEC)was actually embarrassed to say how old he thought the Earth was ! William Crawley had to ask Andy McIntosh this question four times before he reluctantly admitted that he believed the Earth was only 6,000 years old. Naturally, Richard Dawkins had a field day, much of it at McIntosh's expense !

Mark Studduck, FCD · 12 December 2006

What if High School students were shown the very best hour length documentary on evolution and its overwhelming evidence, then given a short time to ask questions and such and then shown the best hour length documentary of the proposal of intelligent design?

Would it not be a good study for highschool students to partake in?

Would it not solve many of our problems?

The students would invariablly see just how incredibly evidenced the evolutionary model is and how plainly irrational the ID model is. I mean think about it... Evolution is TRUE! and ID is FALSE! And it is so plain to see. All organisms on this planet are connected on a great bush of life! They all got here by the process of Evolution by a combination of its various mechanisms. Intelligence was not necessary at any point along the way. Nature screams this fact! Everything and anything that you see is evidence for evolution no matter what you say about it, or how it is packaged.

When the kiddies take a look at the bacterial flagellum or the animated inner workings of the cell. They'll tune out all that rubbish about complexity, and ireducibility and specification, and think only, "Wow look what Nature made!"

When the IDiots argue from all those anthropic coincidences and the our earth's position in the galaxy and it's relation to other celestial bodies, they will only think to themselves, "Man were we lucky."

Fellas, there's nothing to worry about. The ID documentaries couldn't convince a monkey. So let's remove the ban on ID and let the world see how truly silly it all is. Whose with me?

Darth Robo · 12 December 2006

Thanks again Peter! I'll definately be getting my internet fixed this week. :)

Torbjörn Larsson · 12 December 2006

Mark:

Religious views have nothing to do in science classes whatsoever, so you won't get any takers.

But it would be a good idea for television.

Peter Henderson · 12 December 2006

What if High School students were shown the very best hour length documentary on evolution and its overwhelming evidence, then given a short time to ask questions and such and then shown the best hour length documentary of the proposal of intelligent design?

The best documentary on this subject, in my opinion Mark, is Earth story with Professor Aubrey Manning. It's just been released in the UK on DVD (I've just bought a copy). It links biology with geology and presents excellent evidence for both evolution and the antiquity of the Earth. Incidentally, one of the advisors on the series is geologist Simon Lamb. His book "Devil in the mountain" was reviewed a while back by Carl Zimmer on "The Loom"

stevaroni · 12 December 2006

Andy McIntosh ... reluctantly admitted that he believed the Earth was only 6,000 years old.

I'm endlessly stunned that this foolishness can get any traction in the British Isles. Here in the States, our sense of history goes back maybe 400 years to Plymouth Rock. Native american history is almost exclusively taught in the context of interaction with europen settlement, and most Americans would be hard-pressed to name any event predating Columbus. But over there, you can't dig up your backyard without finding tangible relics that go back to the bronze age. You'd think in a land where Stonehenge and Newgrange are an hour's drive outside the capitol cities people would look at YEC types and chuckle in pity at their self-delusion.

shiva · 12 December 2006

Looks like the clueless crowd in Seattle is just discovering British nononsens'ism. Stupidity gets the short shrift in the 'Isles. People don't waste their time pretending there is a debate when there ain't one! Wonder how the Brit on the clueless team from Seattle (Meyer right?) forgot to warn these comics. Andy Macintosh can't be so naive to think that people would take him seriously. Did he think that people would hear his YEC with a straight face in a land that has lent its language and place names to geology, the epochs and ages, Devonian and Cambrian etc! The demolition of IDiocy in UK is going to be great fun to watch. Imagine what fun it would be to watch Billy Boy making a spectacle of himself in LSE or Imperial College or Cambridge facing those raucous unions. Well maybe Billy Boy in true valourous fashion will send out his chief flunky Dave Gravity is the strongest force Scott to stand in for him!