paleonet Fw: Creationism in the GCSE curriculum

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Dear all,

Those who have not immediately deleted (-: the e-mails of this thread will
know, that I sent an e-mail to official instances, expressing (our) concern
about possibly having creationism in the GCSE curriculum in UK schools. As
the reply below shows, those concerns were a bit overblown (check the link
provided). Don't depend too much on British media (that reported the
intorduction of creationism in the curricula)! We should know that they are
notorious for gossip, twisting facts or making them up (except for the BBC,
which I regard as reliable, despite urinating dinosaurs in their
documentaries :-)! In the document "Science Progreamme of Study for key
stage 4" there are some things mentioned that sound reasonable to us all,
e.g that pupils will be taught what science cannot (yet) explain. Aha, we
can say, so science cannot prove the existence of God, and we knew it! Of
course, creationists may abuse the same statement to make the point, that
science cannot explain how life came to be: it is a matter of belief, so we
can only turn to a creation in literal days, as a fact passed on by God
himself....It seems a bit of a catch-22 situation, not because the education
authorities in the UK were wrong, but because of the nature of
creationism...


Ken
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Orrow-Whiting, Mark" <Orrow-WhitingM@qca.org.uk>
To: <kmonsch@biol.uni.wroc.pl>
Cc: "Edwards, Rebecca" <EdwardsR@qca.org.uk>; "Curriculum"
<Curriculum@qca.org.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 5:29 PM
Subject: RE: Creationism in the GCSE curriculum


Dear Mr Monsch,

The purpose of the revised Science Programme of Study for key stage 4 (see
http://www.qca.org.uk/10340.html) is to enable young people to develop
understanding of science as a subject discipline, together with the skills
and knowledge to make appropriate decisions about science as it affects
their lives now and in the future.  The Science Programme of Study is
statutory and indicates what must be taught.  It does not list what should
not be taught as such a list would inevitably become prohibitively long.
Neither creationism nor intelligent design is included in the Science
Programme of Study.

However, some media reports have suggested that creationism is to be taught
as a scientific theory in the science classroom.  As the awarding body named
in the reports has pointed out this is clearly not the case.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us on this issue, we take your
concerns very seriously.

Mark Orrow-Whiting
Adviser for Science
Mathematics, Science and Technology team
Direct dial: 020 7509 5869

-----Original Message-----

***************************************************************************
Dr. Kenneth A. Monsch                           tel +48-71-3754017
Department of Vertebrate Zoology           fax +48-71-3222817
Institute of Zoology
University of Wrocław
ul. H. Sienkiewicza 21
50-335 Wroclaw
POLAND