Creationism and ID

Picture from www.defaithed.com.

This reminds me of the young man who phoned BBC Radio Suffolk after I was interviewed recently. He said that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, but God chose baby dinosaurs, otherwise there wouldn't have been room.

A few of the stories that have caught my eye on the Interweb this week:

* As an antidote to the depressing news that a significant proportion of British people think that creationism ought to be included in school science lessons, we can celebrate a development in education. Evolution will be in the national curriculum for primary schools when the new version is published soon. Andrew Copson from the BHA wrote in the Guardian:

The new primary curriculum, together with the 2007 government guidance that prohibits the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in science lessons, should put English schools in the forefront of education about evolution. Coming in the month which marks the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, and at a point when good science education is a matter of urgency, it could not be more timely.

* We will have to remain vigilant, however, when loonies of all sorts seek access to our classrooms. The Times Educational Supplement reported a couple of days ago that ...

A school initiative that trains children in “energy therapy” has been criticised as unscientific by two senior academics.

The discussion about creationism in school science lessons on BBC Radio Suffolk is now online.

It's on James Hazell's programme, 26th October, about 35 minutes in. You have 7 days to listen.

I was on BBC Radio Suffolk today, talking about the MORI poll that shows 54% of Britons think creationism & ID should be taught in school science lessons.

You can listen again via the website. It's on the James Hazell programme, from about 10.10am. The other contributor was Prof. Michael Reiss, who resigned from his role as the Royal Society's director of Education over the issue.

Listen to the phone-in after the interviews.

54% of Britons think creationism and intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in school science lessons, according to a MORI poll commissioned by the British Council, which suggests that those 54% didn't pay much attention to their own science lessons, or weren't taught well.

If the school curriculum was determined by parental choice, ignorance would be perpetuated ad infinitum.

We might like to imagine that all the funny Creationists are over the other side of the Pond, but we know that’s not true. However, it’s unlikely they’d be allowed to get away with this sort of daftness over here.

Bill Nye, the harmless children's edu-tainer known as "The Science Guy," managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.

Some idiots refused to listen, because they think that God makes the moon shine by magic and it’s made of cheese. No, sorry, I made that up about the cheese.

Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D, is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and a member of both the Committee on Genetics and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology. He wrote “Why Evolution is True”, a book that many ignorant Britons ought to read. Now Jerry has a blog.