Re: paleonet Creationism to be taught in UK schools

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I thought there might perhaps be some interest in this article from the Guardian newspaper

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1735730,00.html

Breandán


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kenneth A. Monsch" <kmonsch@biol.uni.wroc.pl>
> To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: paleonet Creationism to be taught in UK schools
> Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 14:18:31 +0100
> 
> 
> Dear Breandán (and everyone else on-line)
> 
> I just sent the following message to two of the e-mails that you mentioned.
> I hope that something like this should do the trick (especially if we send
> many such messages).
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> To whomever this may concern,
> 
> I have been, in part, educated in the UK. In 2000 I got my PhD at the
> University of Bristol. The reason why I write is the news, that Creationism
> is to be included in the science curriculum for GCSE's. I speak in unison
> with many, whom I suspect will react to this news, as well as those who for
> some reason do not react in saying  that this should not happen. The
> decision to include creationism with science courses should be retracted. I
> would like to urge you to review evidence from either the media, and (even
> better) scholarly journals or academic books, from which follows unanimously
> that neither creationism nor Intelligent Design is considered science. In
> the classroom, ID can be used, at best, to explain what science is not, and
> what it is. Creationism belongs to religion class. In science classes,
> teachers could mention that some people reject SCIENTIFIC evidence, because
> they just BELIEVE that God created in 7 literal days. Full stop. In religion
> class, the teacher could say that scientific evidence produces a different
> scenario than the LITERAL biblical stories, but that scientific evidence
> doesn't prove that God doesn't exist. Full stop. Whatever the pupils want to
> believe or accept then, is up to them, but nobody's feelings are hurt.
> However, putting pseudo-science and non-science such as ID and creationism
> on a par with science is just the start of forcing one sort of belief system
> to the masses (I am a Christian but do not agree with creationism and
> certainly not with aggressive creationist evangelism!). Another consequence
> will be, that you will educate potential science students that will not
> really know what science is, or what it is not, and thereby you would waste
> lots of scientific talent in the UK. I hope you will consider my and other
> people's letters and will thus take responisble decisions.
> 
> Yours sincerely,
> ***************************************************************************
> Dr. Kenneth A. Monsch                           tel +48-71-3754017
> Department of Vertebrate Zoology           fax +48-71-3222817
> Institute of Zoology
> University of Wroclaw
> ul. H. Sienkiewicza 21
> 50-335 Wroclaw
> POLAND

>


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