AiG's Paul Taylor on BBC Radio Wales

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15June Faith and creationism

Scientists have just described a new dinosaur species which they claim lived 210 million years ago. That will not have impressed the owners of the Creation Museum opened recently in Kentucky. They reckon the earth is a mere 6,000 years old.

To promote their understanding of the way the world was made, they invite visitors to wander in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, to smell the freshly-cut timbers being used in the building of the ark, to sense the sounds and smells inside that floating menagerie... and then to sample a sandwich and salad at Noah's café.

This particular front in the battle for creationism against evolution is costing $27 million. It's a conflict which has seen many legal struggles in the United State; and here in Britain there's been fierce controversy over the desire of some Christian schools to teach creationism and intelligent design alongside evolution.

In All Things Considered this week (Sunday 17 June at 8.30am), we ask why does this issue matter? What difference does it make if the universe is indeed just 6,000 years old - or 4.5 billion, as most scientists seem to affirm? And what are the implications for people of faith?

Roy Jenkins is joined by two former teachers: Paul Taylor, Head of Media & Publications, for the organisation Answers in Genesis, which works closely with the owners of the Creation Museum; and Clyde Briggs, Chairman of the Association of Christian Teachers in Wales.

With him also are The Rev Dr Simon Oliver, Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology at the University of Wales Lampeter; and The Rev Dr Ernest Lucas, who changed course from biochemistry to theology at Oxford, and holds doctorates in both disciplines: he's now vice principal of Bristol Baptist College."

Also of interest: Are We Alone: 11 June Religion and Science: Deity Meets Data

Science, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism

Professor Denied Grant Over Evolution

AGENCY wants proof Darwin is correct; But McGill says committee's reasoning is faulty
PEGGY CURRAN and RANDY BOSWELL, The Gazette; CanWest News Service

A clash between McGill University and the key federal agency that funds social science research in the country is sparking a scholarly debate in Canada about the theory of evolution.

McGill University says the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council made a "factual error" when it denied Professor Brian Alters a $40,000 grant on the grounds that he'd failed to provide the panel with ample evidence that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.

Jennifer Robinson, McGill's associate vice-principal for communications, said the university has asked the SSHRC to review its decision to reject Alters's request for money to study how the rising popularity in the United States of "intelligent design" - a controversial creationist theory of life - is eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada.

The planned project, submitted last year to the council, is titled Detrimental effects of popularizing anti-evolution's intelligent design theory on Canadian students, teachers, parents, administrators and policymakers.

Alters, director of McGill's Evolution Education Research Centre, told CanWest News Service yesterday he was shocked at SSHRC's response and that it offers "ironic" proof that his premise about intelligent design gaining a foothold in Canada is correct.

Alters said he read the letter at a public lecture last week in Montreal and there were "audible gasps" from the large audience.

"Evolution is not an assumption and intelligent design is pseudo-science," Alters said.

"I think SSHRC should come out and state that evolution is a scientific fact and that intelligent design is not."

"There are all kinds of reasons to deny a grant proposal," Robinson said. "We don't want to assume anything." But she said McGill is obviously concerned by what it sees as a mistake in the committee's reasoning.

In its decision to deny the grant, the SSHRC panel said Alters had not supplied "adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent design theory, was correct."

"McGill considers this a factual error," Robinson said.

"The theory of evolution is well-established science, while intelligent design is a form of religious belief."

Janet Halliwell, the SSHRC's executive vice-president and a chemist by training, acknowledged that the "framing" of the committee's comments to Alters left the letter "open to misinterpretation."

Halliwell said confidentiality obligations made it difficult for her to discuss Alters's case in detail, but she argued that the professor had taken one line in the letter "out of context" and the rejection of his application should not indicate that SSHRC was expressing "doubts about the theory of evolution."

However, Halliwell added there are phenomena that "may not be easily explained by current theories of evolution" and that the scientific world's understanding of life "is not static. There's an evolution in the theory of evolution."

Intelligent design - the idea that life on Earth was shaped by the guiding actions of some intelligent force rather than through natural selection - has become the latest battleground, particularly in the United States, between creationists and advocates of the theory of evolution championed by Darwin.

[Read More]

Blair Sells Kids' Brains To Car Dealer

Blair Sells Kids' Brains To Car Dealer

Although Britons might be just waking up to the idea that their army is firing faith based bullets at Iraqis, many have been concerned for some time that their children's education is being handed over to Blair's evangelical friends. This threat to British kids' brains can, indeed, be found in the Labour Manifesto. Page 37 contains the innocuous seeming...

"We strongly support the new Academies movement. Seventeen of these independent non-selective schools are now open within the state system; their results are improving sharply, and 50 more are in the pipeline. Within the existing allocation of resources our aim is that at least 200 Academies will be established by 2010 in communities where low aspirations and low performance are entrenched."

Now for those unfamiliar with Academies (or "City Academies" as they were originally called), they are an innovation of New Labour's education reforms and they work something like this. If you are an individual, charity or miscellaneous organisation with couple of million quid in your pocket, you can invest in a "failing" state school somewhere in urban Britain. In return for your, relatively, modest contribution the state will supply tens of millions of pounds to knock down the old school buildings and replace them with a state-of-the-art shiny new "Academy". You then get to choose which teachers to employ and which kids to teach. Crucially, unlike your state school neighbours, you won't be burdened with having to stick to the national curriculum and can use alternatives like the American import: Accelerated Christian Education (ACE).

Enter Peter Vardy, Christian fundamentalist former car dealer, educational entrepreneur and friend of Tony Blair. His Emmanuel Trust already runs several schools in the North of England and is just itching to get its hands on more "failing" schools and turn them into places where every teacher is a "full-time Christan worker". The people behind the Emmanuel Trust believe, for instance, that "homosexuality is against God's design" and that religious "truths" should be given equal weight alongside scientific fact.

[Read More]

Parliamentary answer on the science curriculum

Thanks to 'Blackshadow for this (www.creationism.co.uk):

Creationism has no place in science lessons

http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/newsarticleview.asp?article=2154

On 27th February, Jacqui Smith answered a parliamentary question
tabled by MP Keith Vaz.

His question was: `To ask the Secretary of State for Education and
Skills what her policy is on the teaching of creationism as a
subject in schools; and if she will make a statement.'

In her reply, the minister said that pupils should "be taught
about "how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of
interpreting empirical evidence". Also, the biblical view of
creation can be taught in RE lessons, where pupils are taught to
consider opposing theories and come to their own, reasoned
conclusions. Therefore, although creationism and intelligent design
are not part of the national curriculum, they could be covered in
these contexts."

Click here for her full answer.

The BHA has written to DfES ministers Jacqui Smith and Lord Adonis
asking whether the Government really considers "that creationism
and `intelligent design' are examples of scientific theories based
on empirical evidence within the meaning of the national
curriculum."

The letter explains that this is the BHA's specific concern in Ms
Smith's written answer:

"Our specific concern is your interpretation of the phrase `how
scientific controversies can arise from different ways of
interpreting empirical evidence' in the national curriculum
programme of study for science at key stage 4. You say that
creationism and `intelligent design' "could be covered in these
contexts.

"From discussions with science teachers, the BHA had understood that
the controversies covered under this section over evolution
specifically were only those with some claim to being genuinely
scientific, such as the discredited Lamarckian theory. We are
concerned, therefore, to hear the government endorsing the view of
religious extremists that, firstly, a scientific controversy to do
with creationism actually exists, and secondly that it could be
taught in a state-funded school."

For the full letter click here.

Andrew Copson, education officer at the BHA said, "It seems
inconceivable that the government should give even tacit approval to
the teaching of creationism as a scientific theory. That they should
approve its teaching within the national curriculum for science is
outrageous."

Science, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism

The Hidden Dangers of Fundamentalism

The Hidden Dangers of Fundamentalism

A connection exists between disease outbreaks and extreme religious practice
By Jack Woodall

Religious fundamentalism is bad for your health. There are, of course, the ill effects suffered by suicide bombers and their innocent victims. Consider also the sarin gas attacks by the Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) sect, which killed 12 people in the Tokyo subway in 1995, and sickened 1,000 more. (Yes, I know the media reported 5,000 casualties, but 80% of them were the "worried well" who sought hospital emergency departments because of contact with victims, or consequent anxiety attacks).

What concerns me, however, is infectious disease. Consider these case histories:

» The last outbreak of polio in Canada and the United States, in 1978–1979, was the result of travel from the Netherlands, where an outbreak was ongoing, to Canada by members of the Reformed Netherlands Congregation, a religious group that refused vaccinations.

» In Uganda in 1998, an outbreak of cholera killed 83, and the resurgence of the disease was blamed on members of a sect in Soono Parish who hid patients from medical patrols. The sect was called Red Cross (not to be confused with the international relief organization), a group that collects dead bodies in the belief that resurrection is imminent.

[Read More]

Science, Education, Intelligent Design, Creationism

Their Own Version of a Big Bang

Science, Just Science - News

From the L.A. Times:

Their Own Version of a Big Bang

By Stephanie Simon
L.A.Times Staff Writer
February 11 2006

Those who believe in creationism -- children and adults -- are being taught to challenge evolution's tenets in an in-your-face way.

WAYNE, N.J. — Evangelist Ken Ham smiled at the 2,300 elementary students packed into pews, their faces rapt. With dinosaur puppets and silly cartoons, he was training them to reject much of geology, palaeontology and evolutionary biology as a sinister tangle of lies.

"Boys and girls," Ham said. If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, "you put your hand up and you say, 'Excuse me, were you there?' Can you remember that?"
The children roared their assent.

"Sometimes people will answer, 'No, but you weren't there either,'" Ham told them. "Then you say, 'No, I wasn't, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.'" He waved his Bible in the air.

"Who's the only one who's always been there?" Ham asked.

"God!" the boys and girls shouted.
"Who's the only one who knows everything?"
"God!"

"So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?"

The children answered with a thundering: "God!"

A former high-school biology teacher, Ham travels the nation training children as young as 5 to challenge science orthodoxy. He doesn't engage in the political and legal fights that have erupted over the teaching of evolution. His strategy is more subtle: He aims to give people who trust the biblical account of creation the confidence to defend their views — aggressively.

He urges students to offer creationist critiques of their textbooks, parents to take on science museum docents, professionals to raise the subject with colleagues. If Ham has done his job well, his acolytes will ask enough pointed questions — and set forth enough persuasive arguments — to shake the doctrine of Darwin.

......

Read The Full Article

Science, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism

How evolution can save lives

Times Online - Junk medicine: creationism
by Mark Henderson

How evolution can save lives

The creationist movement, and its cloak of “intelligent design” theory, is usually seen in Britain as a peculiarly American phenomenon. Most of us are relieved that our schools have not had to fight off a lobby seeking to deny the facts of evolution and enforce teaching of theocratic dogma in its place.

A recent poll for the BBC’s Horizon programme, however, suggests that Britons of a scientific bent would be unwise to be complacent. A surprising four people in ten, it found, think that religiously inspired alternatives to evolution should be taught in the science classroom.

The survey probably overestimates support for creationism, but on the eve of Darwin Day — the 197th anniversary of the great man’s birth is tomorrow — it is a reminder that Britain is not immune. Whether it is city academies adding God to science lessons, or columns pushing intelligent design in The Daily Telegraph, creationism is seeking to establish a British foothold.

This must be resisted, chiefly because introducing faith to science, a discipline based on experiment and evidence, undermines the critical thinking that education should promote. But the practical consequences of evolution denial are worth considering, too. Prominent among them is the effect it has on health. It is impossible to understand biology, and therefore medicine, without a good grasp of evolution.

Science, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism

Royal Society Lecture on Creationism

The Royal Society are organising a free lecture by Prof Steve Jones on:

"Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right"

- on April 11th in London - details here:

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/event.asp?id=4140

Science, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism

Churches Urged to Back Evolution

Science, Just Science - News

It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other

Gilbert Omenn
AAAS president

BBC: Churches Urged To Back Evolution

US scientists have called on mainstream religious communities to help them fight policies that undermine the teaching of evolution.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hit out at the "intelligent design" movement at its annual meeting in Missouri.

Teaching the idea threatens scientific literacy among schoolchildren, it said.

Its proponents argue life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own.

As the name suggests, intelligent design is a concept invoking the hand of a designer in nature.

There have been several attempts across the US by anti-evolutionists to get intelligent design taught in school science lessons.

At the meeting in St Louis, the AAAS issued a statement strongly condemning the moves.

"Such veiled attempts to wedge religion - actually just one kind of religion - into science classrooms is a disservice to students, parents, teachers and taxpayers," said AAAS president Gilbert Omenn.

"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other.

"They can and do co-exist in the context of most people's lives. Just not in science classrooms, lest we confuse our children."

Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design on BBC Radio

The subject of 'Intelligent Design' has cropped up a couple of times on the BBC recently. Firstly on the 'Today' programme - you can listen again here

and for us insomniacs on 'Up all night' on Radio 5. (you'll have to use the fast forward buttons to navigate 1 hour and 5 mins into the broadcast)


Science, Evolution, Intelligent Design