Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Agitation Against Creationism in the UK

David Attenborough has joined a group of scientists who are arguing that the government must forcefully ban the teaching of creationism in schools.  Duncan Geere of Wired UK has the story:
While in power, Gordon Brown's Labour government released guidance to schools that creationism shouldn't be taught in science classes, but stopped short of enshrining the recommendation into law. The coalition government hasn't acted on the subject either. Attenborough has joined three Nobel prize winners and Richard Dawkins in protesting against creationism and intelligent design, asking for it to be completely banned.
The former director of education for the Royal Society, Rev Michael Reiss, who has in the past referred to evolution as "god's work", is amongst the signatories. He told the Telegraph: “Evolution is an extremely powerful idea that lies at the heart of biology. At the same time, it's a sufficiently simple concept that there's no good reason why it should be left out of the primary curriculum.”
It is not clear how far this will go or what impact it will have. That Richard Dawkins is part of the organization will have a polarizing impact, I am sure.  Attenborough has a world-wide reputation as one of this generation's greatest naturalists and has made many wonderful documentaries about life in the wild. 

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