. . .so say both religious and non-religious members of the BCSE;

“Imagine you are a teacher of more recent history, and your lessons on 20th-century Europe are boycotted, heckled or otherwise disrupted by well-organised, well-financed and politically muscular groups of Holocaust-deniers. Unlike my hypothetical Rome-deniers, Holocaustdeniers really exist. They are vocal, superficially plausible and adept at seeming learned. They are supported by the president of at least one currently powerful state, and they include at least one bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Imagine that, as a teacher of European history, you are continually faced with belligerent demands to “teach the controversy”, and to give “equal time” to the “alternative theory” that the Holocaust never happened but was invented by a bunch of Zionist fabricators.”

. . .

“The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire. When they attempt to expound the central and guiding principle of biology; when they honestly place the living world in its historical context — which means evolution; when they explore and explain the very nature of life itself, they are harried and stymied, hassled and bullied, even threatened with loss of their jobs. At the very least their time is wasted at every turn. They are likely to receive menacing letters from parents and have to endure the sarcastic smirks and close-folded arms of brainwashed children. They are supplied with state-approved textbooks that have had the word “evolution” systematically expunged, or bowdlerized into “change over time”. Once, we were tempted to laugh this kind of thing off as a peculiarly American phenomenon. Teachers in Britain and Europe now face the same problems, partly because of American influence, but more significantly because of the growing Islamic presence in the classroom — abetted by the official commitment to “multiculturalism” and the terror of being thought racist.

It is frequently, and rightly, said that senior clergy and theologians have no problem with evolution and, in many cases, actively support scientists in this respect. This is often true, as I know from the agreeable experience of collaborating with the Bishop of Oxford, now Lord Harries, on two separate occasions. In 2004 we wrote a joint article in The Sunday Times whose concluding words were: “Nowadays there is nothing to debate. Evolution is a fact and, from a Christian perspective, one of the greatest of God’s works.” The last sentence was written by Richard Harries, but we agreed about all the rest of our article. Two years previously, Bishop Harries and I had organised a joint letter to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.”

. . .

“The Archbishop of Canterbury has no problem with evolution, nor does the Pope (give or take the odd wobble over the precise palaeontological juncture when the human soul was injected), nor do educated priests and professors of theology.”

. . .

“They may think God had a hand in starting the process off, and perhaps didn’t stay his hand in guiding its future progress. They probably think God cranked the Universe up in the first place, and solemnised its birth with a harmonious set of laws and physical constants calculated to fulfil some inscrutable purpose in which we were eventually to play a role.

But, grudgingly in some cases, happily in others, thoughtful and rational churchmen and women accept the evidence for evolution.”

. . .

“Evolution is an inescapable fact, and we should celebrate its astonishing power, simplicity and beauty. Evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are embedded in the rocks of aeons past. Given that, in most cases, we don’t live long enough to watch evolution happening before our eyes, we shall revisit the metaphor of the detective coming upon the scene of a crime after the event and making inferences. The aids to inference that lead scientists to the fact of evolution are far more numerous, more convincing, more incontrovertible, than any eyewitness reports that have ever been used, in any court of law, in any century, to establish guilt in any crime. Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time.”

From here.

From the Guardian;

Exams for which pupils are expected to believe that the Loch Ness monster disproves evolution have been deemed equivalent to international A-levels by a UK government agency.

The National Recognition Information Centre (Naric) in Cheltenham, which advises universities and employers on the rigour of lesser-known qualifications, has ruled that the International Certificate of Christian Education (ICCE) is comparable to courses such as international A-levels, the Times Education Supplement has found.

Teenagers studying for the certificate, which is taught in about 50 private Christian schools in the UK, spend half their time learning from evangelical US textbooks. The curriculum is based on the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme, which describes its ideology as “Christian fundamentalist”.

Jonny Scaramanga, who was a pupil at a school in Bath that used the textbooks, has complained to Naric that the books tell pupils that the Loch Ness monster “appears to be a plesiosaur” and helps to disprove evolution.

The textbooks also state that apartheid helped South Africa because segregated schools “made it possible for each group to maintain and pass on their culture and heritage to their children”.

One of the textbooks tells pupils: “Have you heard of the ‘Loch Ness Monster’ in Scotland? ‘Nessie,’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

“Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all.”

Naric, which is funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, has said the ICCE is equivalent to the advanced certificate of Cambridge International exam board’s international A-levels.

Tim Buttress, Naric’s spokesman, told the TES its remit did not cover the curriculum’s content.

Here you go;

A tasty Blog with a nice mix of scientific content.

This post particularly caught my eye;

CSI Cambrian

[bum bum - bum - bum bum. Whooooo are you? - Who? Who? - Who? Who?]

Grissom: Well? What do we have?
Catherine: The deceased is a 0 foot 1 inch arthropod of uncertain gender
G: Hmm. Time of Death?
C: That’s proving a little difficult.
G: OK. Do we know how long the body has been there?
C: Best estimate is five hundred and nineteen million years.
G: [raises eyebrow]So not much left then?
C: Actually quite a lot. The lab guys say it’s in a lager statten.
G: Ah, Lagerstätten. An old German mining term meaning “mother lode”. Used by palaeontologists to mean a deposit with exceptional preservation. So we’re in luck.
C: Yeah . . . right .

G: Do we have a cause of death?
C: Oh I think so. Death would appear the result of a large wound in the right side. A significant piece of the right side has been removed, and is missing.
No sign of a struggle at the site either, so it would appear that the attack took place elsewhere and the victim ended up here.
G: Got a name?
C: Naraoia? Possibly. Difficult to say at this stage.

G: What was the victim wearing?
C: The typical Naraoid two piece, a short anterior shield and a longer posterior shield. Although the posterior shield is a bit more stylish than normal, as it sharply tapers towards the back.

The recent issue of Scientific American featured several articles on evolution;

The Human Pedigree: A Timeline of Hominid Evolution

The Evolutionary Origins of Hiccups and Hernias

Time Line: Evolution in the U.S. Public Education System

The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom

Why Everyone Should Learn the Theory of Evolution

Time Line: Evolution Before and After Darwin

Darwin’s Living Legacy–Evolutionary Theory 150 Years Later

Dynamic Darwinism: Evolution Theory Thrives Today

Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology

Putting Evolution to Use in the Everyday World

The Future of Man–How Will Evolution Change Humans?

Jerry Coyne (wiki) gave a “guest lecture” at Manchester University in November 2008, as the guest of Matthew Cobb (University of Manchester).

I cheekily asked to attend after Jerry had contacted the BCSE for some updates on the creationism situation here in the UK, I happened to be in Manchester on the due day and my new boss kindly allowed me a long lunch hour.

After the recent controversies about Michael Reiss, what he did or didn’t say and how the Royal Society (over)reacted, followed by more recent headline claims that one third of UK teachers wanted Creationism in science classes I was particularly keen to see just how Jerry would handle the issue.

Let’s just take the time to ensure that we spell things out clearly here (no matter how confusing the creationists would like to make the issue);

Of course the BCSE does not want creationism taught as science in science classes, but of course if the subject is brought up, then it should be treated just like any other pseudoscientific claim a student may bring up, by being soundly debunked.

The lecture theatre was full (you will hopefully be able to see for yourself soon as a video of the event is planned for iTunes U) and there were a number of faculty there as well as students from various life science courses.

Jerry, who had been quiet and thoughtful as we entered the theatre and as he set up, seemed to come to life as the lecture theatre lights dimmed and the audience quietened in expectation.

This is a quick summary of the main points he covered but look out for the podcast ( I will place a link to it here in due course).

We began with the Clarence Darrow quote from the time of the original monkey trial;

“If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers… Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.”

[Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925]

Jerry then assured us that the next item was not a joke before he unleashed the infamously daft “the banana is an atheist nightmare” video;

Just in case you think that really is just a joke played by someone trying to make creationists look silly then here is another link which goes into even more detailed silliness on this topic.

Lot’s of laughter which petered out slowly as Jerry repeated that this is actually a serious attempt at an argument in the US. People gradually realised exactly what it is that science and rational thought are actually up against.

We also got to see what the banana looked like before it was artificially selected by human beings and effectively “evolved” through artificial rather than natural selection into it’s current state.

Next Jerry showed us stats comparing countries by the percentage of the population that accept evolution – the US is very near the bottom alongside Turkey. The UK is quite near the top.

We are reminded that we are probably going to see more and more of the creationists activities which have previously been laughed at as a USA phenomenon here in the UK in future.

To back this up we are shown the survey results from Teachers TV here in the UK from here.

To illustrate what we are up against here are some quotes from a leading creationist William Dembski who promotes intelligent deisgn as not being creationist;

“4. Does your research conclude that God is the Intelligent Designer?
I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.”

From here

or perhaps this. . .

“”Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners do not have a clue about him.”

From here.

Another important point to bear in mind is the difference between the use of the word theory in every day talk and the use of this same word in scientific circles.

Jerry reminded us all that Creationists are certainly not above using any kind of possible tactic to further their argument including the deliberately confusing misuse of the English language.

In scientific circles a theory is not a guess or possible idea as in everyday speech but instead refers to an extremely well tested framework of ideas which have stood up to minute scrutiny over a long period of time.

The tenets of evolutionary theory are as follows;

• Evolution happened
• It was a gradual process which took a long time
• It lead to speciation
• It therefore implies the existence of a “tree of life”
• Natural selection was one of the processes behind evolution

The facts which support these tenets in brief summary form;

• Fossil Record – we are specifically reminded of speciation in diatoms
• Transitional Forms – reptiles – birds / land mammals to whales
• Embryology – rear limbs in dolphins / Lanugo on newborn children (hair)
• Vestigial Organs – rear leg bones in whales / appendix / Kiwi bird wings / Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve (from when we were fish) – even in Giraffes
• Biogeography – Glyptodont fossils in one area of earth – their modern descendants occupy the same area now – Armadillo
• Molecular Biology
• We now have over 300 observed cases of natural selection operating in the wild.


Jerry summed up the huge mass of evidence that supports evolutionary theory with the following famous quote;

“Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.”

From here.

There are actually two forms of Intelligent Design;

• Weak form – used in court and in public
• Strong form- used by those same proponents as use the weak form in public when speaking to religious sponsors

Jerry finished by chatting about the Judge in the infamous Dover trial from a couple of years back who identified Intelligent Design as Creationism and famously said this in his judegment;

“the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s”.

In other words;

Intelligent Design is a science stopper.

Jerry got a warm round of applause – not the usual thing for a lecture – but very well deserved.