One third of British teachers think ID or creationism okay

In The Daily Telegraph, Martin Beckford tells us "One in three teachers says teach creationism alongside evolution" (07 N0v 2008).

The poll found that 31 per cent of teachers agree that creationism or intelligent design – the theory that the universe shows signs of having been designed rather than evolving – should be given the same status as evolution in the classroom, including 18 per cent of science teachers.

Half of those questioned agreed that excluding the alternative to evolution would alienate religious pupils, and almost nine out of 10 believed they should be allowed to discuss creationism if pupils bring it up.

Mr Bethell said: "Although over half of teachers either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the idea that creationism should be given the same status as evolution, there is a significant minority who believe that it should be given equal weight.

"Nearly half of teachers also agreed with Professor Michael Reiss' sentiment that excluding alternative explanations to evolution is counter-productive and alienates pupils from science.

No surprise here, except, were I advising those teachers, I would tell them to keep quiet about their doubts for now. The people who fired Michael Reiss are perfectly capable of a purge, and indeed, a purge has already been threatened.

The elite Darwinist materialists will then - par for the course - replace experienced teachers with their stooges - signally free of either brains or guts, and likely to resolve evidence-based doubts by an orgy of compulsory communal Darwin worship.

Arthur Jones, chair of the British Association of Christian Teachers, writes to say,

If you want to watch what TeachersTV in the UK is producing for teachers and schools, promoting Darwin and attacking creationism and intelligent design, then go here.

It is dreadful, but it does illustrate a stark divide - scientists agitating for dogmatism and indoctrination and educationists and teachers feeling that discussion and argument are better.

I say it was dreadful because at no point does it explain what creationists or ID proponents actually believe, nor how they handle the evidence. Almost none of the 'evidence' mentioned in the programme discriminates between the positions. Adam Rutherford, the presenter, is, in relation to the issue he was addressing, plain ignorant (and that's being generous!)

However there are some good omens in the UK - growing instances of the atheists having to face the hard questions that their control of the UK media has hitherto enabled them to avoid (e.g. Justin Brierley's interview of Richard Dawkins after his last debate with John Lennox in Oxford on 21 October - you can listen to it on the Premier website here ).

Actually, Dawkins - who told Ben Stein that, given a choice, he is willing to believe space aliens created life rather than that God did - should long ago have been discredited as a public figure. The fact that he hasn't been tells you how bad things are in Britain.

So British teachers, read as much as you can about design and teach those alert students with whom you can safely share information to remain quiet about what they know for now. And wait for the signal.

See also: Can we all just spell out together "U-S-E-F-U-L I-D-I-O-T-S" and have done with it?

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

How angry is the Brit god of science? - pretty angry, it seems ...

Following up on the USA Today fantasy: All is well in Britain between faith and science ... scientists holler for Jesus in pulpits ...

In case anyone wonders how angry the angry god of British science is - against anyone who believes in the existence of another God - read on:

In "Blinded by a divine light" (Guardian, September 28, 2008), Harry Kroto, a 1996 Nobelist and part of a cabal who went after sinner Michael Reiss explained,

I do not have a particularly big problem with scientists who may have some personal mystical beliefs – for all I know the President of the Royal Society may be religious. However, I, and many of my Royal Society colleagues, do have a problem with an ordained minister as Director of Science Education – this is a totally different matter. An ordained minister must have accepted that there was a creator (presumably more intelligent than he is?) thus many of us (maybe 90% of FRSs) cannot see how such a person can pontificate on how to tackle this fundamentally unresolvable conflict at the science/religion interface. Reiss cannot have his religious cake in church and eat the scientific one in the classroom. This is where the intellectual integrity issue arises – and it is the crucial issue in the Reiss affair.

I have had numerous reasons over the years for thinking that "theistic evolutionists" like Michael Reiss are mostly the well-meaning useful idiots of a political church, Soviet-style, but his career ruin surely makes that clear.

Intelligent design and popular culture: The BBC spin on British creationism

In an article at the BBC News online (September 15, 2008), "Who are the British creationists?", Julian Joyce beautifully demonstrates why legacy media, online or not, are media sources that are best taken with a big bag of sidewalk salt.

He starts with a creation museum in England:

At first glance the Genesis Expo museum, in the naval town of Portsmouth, looks like any other repository of natural history exhibits: fossils of dinosaurs and unusual rock formations.

But focus on the narrative of the information panels alongside them, and you start to realise this is a museum with a difference - one dedicated to the theory of creationism.

As I said when the much glitzier American creation museum opened in Kentucky, it is legal to have a private museum about anything one wishes to. That only shows that one lives in a liberal democracy or constitutional monarchy.

He then informs us,

The revelation that US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin says creationism should be taught in schools, alongside that of evolutionary theory, has raised few eyebrows in the US. ...

Actually, that is a canard put out by anti-Palin commentators. But Joyce can count on his British readers not to know that.

We are also told that, "And while the Church of England this week issues a formal apology to Charles Darwin, ... " - in fact, there was no formal apology. A church bureaucrat had literally thunk the idea up on his own initiative.

And in a classic display of believing whatever confirms one's prejudices, we read that there is "growing support" for "literal six-day" creationism. The evidence? Get a load of this:

Growing support

Justin Thacker, head of theology for the Evangelical Alliance, says research in 1998 found one third of the Alliance church members were "literal six-day creationists." The other two thirds embraced evolutionary theory to a "greater or lesser degree" he says.

"Since that survey was done, I'd say fewer of our members are out-and-out creationists - it has become more acceptable to embrace some form of Darwinism," he says.

But Keith Porteous Wood of the Secular Society is unconvinced.

"There is no question that creationism is growing," he says. "It is increasingly well funded, and well organised."

In short, creationism is not growing in Britain but both Wood and Joyce need to believe it is - Wood for his fundraising letters and Joyce for his scare story.

Unless ... Joyce really means that Muslim creationism is growing. That is a safe bet because, given that the Muslim population of Britain is growing, any point of view accepted by Muslims might well be growing in consequence. But Joyce does not say that.

He handles this topic by implying that Christian and Muslim creationists are somehow "uniting":

This shared belief in the origins of man - and the universe - is uniting unlikely bedfellows in the anti-evolution cause.

The Rev Greg Haslam, who preaches the creationist Christian creed to his 400-strong congregation at Westminster Chapel in London, welcomes the determination of Muslims to impart a religious-based view of the world.

But that is hardly an example of "uniting", and does not imply that the two groups work together. So far as I have been able to determine, they generally do not.

Anyway, file this one under "Why the legacy mainstream media are losing ground." Basically, it's reached the point that, on some topics, they just can't put out a story any more without a big fat thumb print sticking in it.

See also: Will Brit “faith and science” heavyweights speak up after education director’s firing?"

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Former famous atheist Antony Flew asked for intelligent design to be taught in British schools.

As the ID controversy grows worldwide, I simply don't and can't keep up with everything. One thing I hadn't realized - which a friend mentioned recently - is that one of the 12 prominent academics who asked at the end of last year for intelligednt design to be explored in science classes was Antony Flew:

It has emerged that 12 prominent academics wrote to Tony Blair and Alan Johnson, the education secretary, last month arguing that ID should be taught as part of science on the national curriculum.

They included Antony Flew, formerly professor of philosophy at Reading University; Terry Hamblin, professor of immunohaemotology at Southampton University; and John Walton, professor of chemistry at St Andrews University.

Flew was best known for being converted from atheism to deism (there is at least some kind of God) by intelligent design - after about fifty years of being one of the world's most respected academic atheists. He commented on DNA that

... the investigation of DNA “has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved.

Of course, the British government nixed the idea, but I bet it doesn't die. And people wonder why there is an intelligent design controversy. By the way, to keep up with ID in Britain, go here.

ID in the UK: Engineering prof speaks for design

Stuart Burgess, professor of design and nature, in the mechanical engineering department at Bristol U argues"> that intelligent design is as valid a scientific concept as evolution:

I've been designing systems like spacecraft for more than 20 years. One of the lessons I've learnt is that complex systems require an immense amount of intelligence to design. I've seen a lot of irreducible complexity in engineering. I have also seen organs in nature that are apparently irreducible. An irreducibly complex organ is one where several parts are required simultaneously for the system to function usefully, so it cannot have evolved, bit by bit, over time.

The same pattern is unfolding in Britain as in North America: Pondering herds of forgettable notables assure us that the universe cannot show evidence of intelligent design and - miraculously! - that there is no conflict between Darwin's design-free theory of evolution and monotheistic religion which posits a creator/designer. Then a guy like this comes along and you see why the forgettables have to act fast to ram it all down everyone's throat - their stale date is coming up pretty fast.

ID in the UK: Is there a British media competition to get it all wrong?

Having followed the intelligent design controversy for several years now, I have come to the conclusion that most media coverage on the subject is worthless if you actually want to know what is happening. It is quite helpful if all you want is to confirm materialist prejudices.

I usually recommend that people go to the blogs of the two sides: Panda's Thumb or TalkOrigins for the Darwinists, for example, and Uncommon Descent or Telic Thoughts for the ID types.

Beyond that, all I really want to say nowadays is that the universe is either top down or bottom up. That is, either mind comes first and creates matter or matter comes first and creates mind. The evidence for bottom up is actually quite poor but Darwinism (from goo to zoo to you in a zillion easy steps) is the bottom-up creation story. Thus, getting Darwinism inserted in the school system, funded by the tax money of those who oppose it, is an enormous triumph for the materialist - especially when the genuine evidence base is so slender.

So many media outlets have voted themselves the guardians of the bottom-up theory of life and the opponents of the top-down theory of life. Consistent with their mission, they seem to compete for what they can get wrong about intelligent design or any other idea that insists that mind comes first.

Here is a classic example from the Guardian, which - like many Britrags, has gone into a feeding frenzy over Truth in Science, a Brit group that challenges institutional Darwinism on behalf of ID. This Guardian story is pretty much the "template" story we might have been led to expect. Everything is assumed and nothing is demonstrated. It is taken for granted that every reasonable person is alarmed that students might learn non-sectarian but non-materialist ideas about origins other than Darwinism and materialism. No reason given.

But here comes the Guardian’s money shot:

The DVDs were produced in America and feature figures linked to the Discovery Institute in Seattle, a thinktank that has made concerted efforts to promote ID and insert it into high school science lessons in the US.

Actually, the Discovery Institute has opposed teaching ID in schools consistently. I know from various leaks that Disco has gone to considerable trouble to try to head off nutty groups like the Dover school board, because they disrupt the work of ID-friendly scientists by marketing highly politicized issues to tots, which results in court cases, adverse judgements, et cetera, when the scientists just want to be left alone in peace to do their work. They have enough problems with materialist colleagues trying to wreck their careers; they don’t need it from the fundamentalists too.

However, the Guardian promptly blew its promising lead by publishing a backgrounder by Anna Seward that clarified some aspects of intelligent design - making clear that ID has nothing to do with the age of the earth.

But in Seward’s favour, it may be said that she avoided every issue about what ID does claim - that life shows evidence of design and survival of the fittest cannot do all its proponents claim (concepts like irreducible complexity, specified complexity, fitness of universe or planet for life, et cetera). So she can still safely qualify as a materialist, despite scoring an “own goal” from the we-need-to-get-it-all-wrong perspective, in pointing out that ID is not creationism.

For a vastly more useful (in fact wonderful!) critique of the Guardian's performance, go to Brit journalist Peter Hitchens. For example, he writes,

ID, whose opponents haven't bothered to find out much about it because they already know it's balderdash, is not in fact an all-embracing theory about the origin of species. Darwinists seem to have thought they needed to have such a theory, since they had overthrown centuries of Christian orthodoxy. So, rather than just sticking to their basic and unquestionable point, that the Church could no longer claim that certainty was on its side, they developed a complete explanation of everything, which has been under constant revision ever since as new facts have come to light or - just as important - failed to come to light.

Hitchens has the genuinely heart-stopping qualification (to me, at least) of knowing at least a little bit about North America before he sounds off. As a Canadian, I have long since given up on Brits who yatter freely about North America without ever consulting a map, let alone booking a ticket, much as if nothing had changed since 1491.

I sometimes wonder whether a committed Darwinist would see anything wrong with misrepresentations, because he is so convinced that the facts will support Darwinism in the end, that he will be right even if he is wrong. And if he is an atheist, perhaps he doesn't think that the books will ever get balanced anyway.

Truth in Science has certainly got the media by the tail, anyway. Here are some links to stories it has generated, most of which are obsessive materialist boilerplate written by people who have never considered the possibility that Darwin might in fact have been wrong in his central conviction, that mind can be built up by accident from matter.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.
Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

ID in the UK: Infighting among the Darwinists?

Yesterday, I blogged on the development of the ID controversy in Britain, mainly thanks to local Darwinists and the ever-reliable British media. According to Truth in Science, 63% of teachers who wrote to them were positive toward the controversial packet of materials.

Now, a local writes me to say that one supporter has begun to distance himself from the local NCSE face-transplant, BSCE.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being granted tenure at Baylor after a long struggle - even after helping in a small way to destroy the Baylor Bears' ancient glory - in the opinion of a hyper sportswriter.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

ID in the UK: Media and Darwinists still ID's best friends

The American National Center for Science Education seems to have franchised* the British Centre for Science Education (notice how they thoughtfully used the British spelling of "Centre"), staffed largely by militant atheists, to sell Darwinism in Britain.

This follows on the heels of a group called Truth in Science sending copies of Unlocking the Mystery of Life to all secondary school science departments in Britain.

And of course, a group of liberal Christians and humanists has banded together to oppose Truth in Science. (That the British Humanist Association is shouting "lies, lies, lies" is no surprise, but I would have thought that plummeting liberal church attendance would be more of a concern to the liberals, but hey .... ) And the legacy media of Britain are, true to form, blundering after the Internet, retelling the only story they ever really knew - the need to defend the creation story of atheism (Darwinism), never mind why.

As I have noted elsewhere, contrary to usual practice, journalists never wonder whether current science boffins may be acting from partiality to atheism's grand creation story. Indeed, most would be embarrassed to even consider the possibility that there may be evidence against that particular story. Such evidence does not make other stories true, of course, but it does raise the question of why questioning the evidence for the creation story of atheism should be so controversial.

In some cases, I suspectt hat the reason for not going down that path is simply that it takes only a modest amount of research to discover how self-referential the story is. But that would be a dangerous discovery indeed, too dangerous for most journalists today. When a person starts with the mindset that Darwin's creation story must be correct, it makes so much more sense for them to speculate on the hidden motives of anyone who knows of reasons to doubt it.

(That is one reason why the controversy can only grow. People who would prefer to avoid controversy find that they cannot, because they cannot trust legacy media sources in this area.)

I also find it curious that the militant atheists of BCSE have not considered the possibility that their efforts could backfire. Thanks in large part to groups such as NCSE, belief in Darwin's theory is lower in the United States than it is in Europe. (That, of course, is mainly because some doctrines are never doubted until someone tries too hard to defend them. Enter NCSE ... )

Presumably, BCSE wishes to duplicate the feat in Britain, but wouldn't it be fairer and more honorable of them to let the Truth in Science guys do their own work?

Some legacy media stories are here and here, oh and here too - this last one a classic Brit toff "just doesn't get it" special. But there have been some intelligent letters anyway.

* in BSCE's words, NCSE is providing "active support and advice".

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Head for the hot tub!: Theocracy looms

When I first started researching the intelligent design controversy, an earnest individual warned me that the ID guys might be fans of a deceased American fundamentalist (?) named Rousas Rushdoony, a guy who really did want to start a theocracy.

As it happens, I knew about Rushdoony vaguely, as a local poli sci prof had written briefly about his "Dominion theology" a decade earlier in a Canadian church press rag. No link panned out, of course, and dying in 2001 probably limited the guy's influence.

Now I see where a Brit anti-ID group is fronting Rushdoony. If they can't raise a better scare than this, ID must be pretty safe.

Debunking the nonsense generally, Rich Lowry writes in Free Republic:

Purveyors of the theo-panic love to exaggerate the influence of the bizarre Christian Reconstructionists who actually want an American theocracy. As New York Times religion writer Peter Steinfels notes in a review of the spate of new books, Christian Reconstructionists play "a greater role in the writings of the religious right’s critics than they ever have in the wider evangelical world." He notes that the flagship evangelical journal, Christianity Today, almost never shows up in these books, because, inconveniently, it is "moderate, reflective and self-questioning."

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Darwinism franchise opens in Britain: (= ID controversy ramps up in Europe)

National Center for Science Education is one of the key groups responsible for the popularity of intelligent design theory in the United States - on account of its senseless promotion of Darwinism in the public schools. Now, I see, the idea is being
exported to Britain, so we can anticipate more people finding reasons to doubt Darwinism there.

Don't forget- most of us never think much about D. and his theory. Only when Darwinism is force fed to us, do we begin to discover that it's a load of high-energy twaddle.

My favorite NCSE move is finding a bunch of liberal dog-collars and well-meaning but clueless scientists to insist that here is no conflict between Darwinism and Christianity, when a thirteen-year-old could figure out that the conflict is obvious and fundamental.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.