Monday, November 27, 2006

Creationism being taught in schools...

Please click here to read the article that appears on the front page of todays Guardian. I'm no scientist, and don't want to get into a debate here about what I believe or don't believe regarding creation etc. However it does worry me that MP's, the government and certain scientists are taking lines like this as to what can and can't be taught in schools. Surely it's only right that children should be introduced to different viewpoints and theories, helped to understand the evidence for and against them and the respective positives and negatives, and allowed to come to their own conclusions? Any comments / thoughts on this would be appreciated.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice controversial subject, Simon. My reading of the article is that the government and everyone else who object to teaching intelligent design is not that they object to it per se but when taught as science of the same statue and validity as Darwinism, which is how the 50 odd schools seem to be using the Truth in Science stuff. Declaring my hand, I am a life scientist. Evolution comes from a hypothesis which has been subjected to and stood up to scientific rigour as being the most likely explanation we have of the process of the development of life on this world. Intelligent design has not. I think that you can mention, and discuss, IT in teaching the sciences but it should not be presented as scientifically validated, because it is not. Perhaps it is a bit like angels - which people of faith and no faith choose to believe exist. The nul hypothesis that angels do not exist has not been disproved.
And you can, of course, say the same thing about God...