The figures were revealed in a report broadcast on More 4 News on Tuesday, and are the result of inquiries made to 50 Evangelical, Jewish and Muslim schools.

Andrew Copson, BHA Director of Education and Public Affairs said: “It is appalling that there are thousands of children in Britain who are being taught that evolution is a myth and creationism a fact.

“It is even worse that almost 1,000 of those children attend schools funded by taxpayers, which teach creationism despite national guidance that it has no place in the science classroom.

“We are glad that the government is currently producing new guidance on how to deal with creationism in schools but it is crucial that school inspectors are also trained to check faith schools rigorously for the teaching of creationism or intelligent design.”

The BHA has written to the Education Minister Ed Balls urging greater effort in promoting good science education in all schools.

The report broadcast on More 4 News on Tuesday 2 July 2008 found that 14 of the 19 Jewish schools that responded teach creationism, along with all 21 of the Evangelical schools following the Accelerated Christian Education syllabus that responded, and 5 of the 10 Islamic schools that responded.

In all there are 5,822 pupils in the schools teaching creationism mentioned in the report. Of these, 992 are in one of the 5 state schools that admitted teaching it.

Mainstream theologians and religious leaders reject creationism as a distorted reading of the Bible and other religious texts.

See Ekklesia’s briefing here: – ‘Theology, science and the problem of Intelligent Design’ – http://ekklesia.co.uk/node/6707

The post At least 40 schools teaching creationism in UK appeared first on Ekklesia.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in the USA, which has both believers and non-believers among its active supporters, has this week launched a website called www.ExpelledExposed.com which “reveals the truth behind the creationist movie’s misrepresentations.”

Writing on MSNBC, Dr Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, says ‘Expelled’ isn’t just bad, it’s immoral. “There is not a shred of intelligence on display in this just released ‘documentary’ purporting to be a careful examination of the fight over teaching creationism and evolution in America”, he declares.

“Creationists have been making the same arguments for decades,” says Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (www.ncseweb.org). “They’ve gotten better at marketing these claims, but they’re no more valid now than during the Scopes trial of the 1920s. Creationists have been predicting the death of evolution for over a century, yet it is constantly affirmed by evidence from fields Darwin could never have imagined.”

Given the damning assessment at www.ExpelledExposed.com, Scott adds, “Perhaps the filmmakers should have spent more time hitting the books, instead of beating up on hardworking scientists.”

Throughout the movie, Ben Stein claims that ‘Big Science’ represses intelligent design to advance an atheistic agenda, but Peter Hess, from NCSE’s Faith Outreach Project, strongly disagrees.

“There are many successful evolutionary biologists who are also people of faith,” he observes, “and a host of people of faith who regard intelligent design as a misconceived and harmful rejection of science. In attempting to pit Christianity against science, Expelled misrepresents both.”

“We reviewed public records and reports on the intelligent design promoters who were supposedly discriminated against, and we discovered that the claims that they lost their jobs over intelligent design are unsupported,” explains Josh Rosenau, a biologist at NCSE.

“That said, professors who aren’t making advances in their field, editors who disregard their journal’s established practices, and lecturers who repeat creationist falsehoods shouldn’t be surprised if they have trouble holding jobs. These people weren’t expelled; they flunked out.”

The www.ExpelledExposed.com site contains information about the ‘martyrs’ from Expelled, and also of real scientists who successfully challenged established science.

“The difference,” NCSE researcher Carrie Sager observes, “is that real scientists back their challenges with experimental results. Results are what changed minds, forced textbook revisions, and earned Nobel Prizes.”

More insidious are the movie’s attempts to link evolution to the Holocaust, say critics. Susan Spath, a historian of science at NCSE, comments: “The implication that Darwin led to Nazism and the Holocaust is an irresponsible misrepresentation of a terrible history. Hitler abused many things, including science, and Expelled is wrong to shift blame off his shoulders and onto evolution.”

The www.ExpelledExposed.com site quotes the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, who described similar claims in a previous creationist movie as “an outrageous and shoddy attempt … to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust.”

Dr Caplan is even more forthright. He writes on MSNBC: “To lay blame for the Holocaust upon Charles Darwin is to engage in a form of Holocaust denial that should forever make Ben Stein the subject of scorn not because of his nudnik concern that evolution somehow undermines morality but because in this contemptible movie he is willing to subvert the key reason why the Holocaust took place — racism — to serve his own ideological end.”

The National Center for Science Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools. The NCSE maintains its archive of source material on the history of creationism at its Oakland, California, headquarters.

On the web at www.ncseweb.org. www.ExpelledExposed.com is a resource for journalists, teachers, and curious moviegoers who want the full story behind Expelled.

———-

See also on Ekklesia: ‘Theology, science and the problem of Intelligent Design’ by Simon Barrow, http://ekklesia.co.uk/node/6707

The post Creationist film not very intelligently designed appeared first on Ekklesia.

Darwin’s theory of the evolution of species has long been an occasion of conflict between scientists and Christians who claim to take the Biblical account of creation literally.

ENI reports: The exhibit, which opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on 8 March, had failed to find support from the museum’s usual sponsors. Museum officials said none disagreed with Darwin’s theories but cited concerns about a potential backlash from Christians opposed to the idea of evolution.

The editor of the United Church Observer, David Wilson, decided the Canadian magazine should become a sponsor after learning that the exhibit had received no corporate support in other North American cities where it had been mounted.

In announcing the magazine’s sponsorship, Wilson said, “There is nothing in the exhibit that threatens or diminishes religion. If anything, it shines a light on the inherent beauty and wonder of a creation that is constantly and eternally evolving. The Darwin exhibit deserves support and we’re not afraid to say so.”

According to public opinion surveys, significant numbers of Christians in North America oppose Darwin’s theory that humans evolved from simple life forms over many millennia. In the United States, school boards in as many as 25 states have been challenged in recent years to include what is called “intelligent design” in science studies, a view that its critics say encourages students to doubt the theory of evolution.

The Rev. Paul Fayter, a professor of science and religion at York University in Toronto and a parish minister with the United Church of Canada, told Ecumenical News International, “The Observer has shown great leadership. This small gesture speaks to the centuries-long, deep and mostly supportive relationship the Church has had with the world of science.”

Darwin: The Evolution Revolution runs from 8 March to 4 August in Toronto before moving to the Natural History Museum in London, Britain, in time for celebrations marking Darwin’s 200th birthday in February 2009.

[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.]

The post Canadian church magazine sponsors Darwin exhibit appeared first on Ekklesia.

Pastors, theological educators, scientists and lay people also joined together to mark the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth on 12 February. Darwin, a number of whose specific ideas have been superseded, but whose influence remains vital, is regarded as the founding father of the modern biological sciences.

Educators and clergy have been working together to bridge the popular perception of an inevitable gap between science and religion by organizing an annual teach-in to to coincide with the anniversary.

Together they are working to combat the influence of creationism and its cousin ‘intelligent design’, which base their rejection of all or part of evolutionary science on discredited biblical interpretation and a god-of-the-gaps idea that the divine is to be sought in the ‘holes’ or limits of the natural sciences.

By contrast, mainstream scholars argue that the creativity of God is to be understood in and through the natural, not in conflict with it, though they give different pictures and accounts of the relation between God and the world.

An international panel of scholars gathered under the umbrella of the Cambridge-based International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) have recently agreed a statement explaining why ‘intelligent design’ is both poor theology and faulty science (http://ekklesia.co.uk/node/6707).

In 2006 and 2007, the event now called Evolution Weekend was known as Evolution Sunday. The organizers say the title has been changed “in an attempt to be more welcoming to members of all religions.”

Dr Michael Zimmerman, the intiative’s founder and dean of liberal arts and sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis, told journalists before the Weekend that the effort is going “phenomenally well”.

“We have gone up almost 30 percent over last year’s participants, which was 30 percent over the year before,” he told commented.

He is especially pleased to see more scientists getting involved. Over 550 scientists from 29 countries have signed up to help answer questions from clergy or congregations, to speak at church services, or to promote Evolution Weekend gatherings.

“I want to be clear: These scientists are not promoting religion, they’re promoting good science,” he said. “But they’re perfectly willing to work with clergy to promote [understanding].”

More than 800 or more congregations taking part in Evolution Weekend have been engaged in the science-religion dialogue this year. The available resources included more than 100 sample sermons – many of them exploring how both the contingency and complexity of evolved life can be understood as reflections of divine creativity and the whole world process as gift.

Those working to promote understanding of modern evolutionary biology and to combat creationism include the respected National Center for Science Education, which works collaboratively with (and employs) both religious believers and the non-religious.

——

See also:

Theology, science and the problem of ID, by Simon Barrow – http://ekklesia.co.uk/node/6707

Clargy Project / Evolution Weekend – http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evolution_weekend_2008.htm

National Center for Science Education: http://www.natcenscied.org/

International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) – http://www.issr.org.uk/index.asp

The post Evolution is no threat to thoughtful religion, say US churches appeared first on Ekklesia.

The International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) in Cambridge notes that “there has been much interest in the view that our current scientific understanding of evolution is incoherent. According to this view, certain biological features, because they appear to be ‘irreducibly complex’, could not have evolved by natural selection and therefore must have been created by the intervention of an ‘intelligent designer’.”

ISSR adds: “This view has been challenged, not only by atheists such a Richard Dawkins, but also by religious believers. Among these are many members of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR), the world’s foremost scholarly organization devoted to the dialogue between science and religion.”

ISSR’s Executive Committee has commissioned, and is now making public, a report on the issue by seven of the Society’s members, each of whom is an expert in science, theology, philosophy or history. The report was finalized only after consultation with ISSR’s members, who come from many countries and from many different religious traditions and academic disciplines.

The concept of intelligent design is, says the report, “neither sound science nor good theology.” The authors do not attempt to specify precisely how they believe the religious believer can speak of God’s action as creator – a question on which they may differ among themselves. They are united, however, in resisting what they call “the insistence of intelligent-design advocates that their enterprise be taken as genuine science – just as we oppose the efforts of others to elevate science into a comprehensive world view (so-called scientism).”

Sir Brian Heap, the President of ISSR, who is both a distinguished endocrine physiologist and a practicing Christian, says “here is a succinct critique with a valuable bibliography, though no doubt not the last word on the subject”.

The ISSR Statement on the Concept of “Intelligent Design” and its signatories may be found on the ISSR website: http://www.issr.org.uk/id-statement.asp

After exchanges with a number of concerned groups, including the religious think-tank Ekklesia and the British Humanist Association, the British government issued a statement last year making it clear that ID should not be part of science teaching in schools, in spite of attempts by creationist lobby groups to get it recognised.

The UK Department of Children, Schools, and Families said that “Creationism and intelligent design are not part of the National Curriculum for science”, and described “intelligent design” as “a creationist belief” that “is sometimes erroneously advanced as scientific theory but has no underpinning scientific principles or explanations supporting it and it is not accepted by the international scientific community.”

Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow today welcomed the statement on ID from the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) as “a very important development”.

“Intelligent design is a serious category mistake in both theological and scientific discourses,” he said. “It brings the proper engagement of religion and science into disrepute, and benefits those who wish to pursue dubious ideological agendas at the expense of a common search for truth and wisdom.”

—–

See also: Theology, science and the problem of ID – http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/6707

The International Society for Science and Religion at Bene’t House, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge: http://www.issr.org.uk/index.asp

The post Leading science and theology scholars reject ‘intelligent design’ appeared first on Ekklesia.

Creationism distorts truth in science, says vicar

-25/09/06

By Michael Roberts

A viewpoint from an Anglican vicar who is also a geologist, and seasoned critic of creationism

Truth in Science, or rather the lack of it, has been highlighted in the last few days. On 20 September 2006, an organisation using that name was ìlaunchedÖ with a website www.truthinscience.org.uk and a mailing to all Secondary School and College Heads of Science in the United Kingdom.î

The organisation, which aims to combat Darwinism, continues: ìTiS provides resources to assist teachers in allowing students to critically examine Darwin’s theory of evolution. Whilst accepting that changes in gene frequencies occur over time, and that limited evolution occurs in nature, TiS encourages a rigorous examination of whether or not this can explain the origin of life and its huge diversity.î

On examination, this turns out simply to be Young Earth Creationism repackaged. The initiative has been a year or two in the planning and is well-thought out, with considerable financial backing. TiS have a board of directors, a council of reference and a scientific panel.

Prominent is Andy McIntosh, Professor of Thermodynamics and Combustion Theory at the University of Leeds and author of Genesis for Today, which is largely about the value of Genesis for ethics. It contains several appendices which I believe are full of scientific errors and misinterpretations.

Another director is Steve Layfield, head of science at Emmanuel College, Gateshead, who fervently supports teaching creationism in schools, even suggesting that the Fall of Adam resulted in lunar craters and thus should be taught as science.

Two others are John Blanchard, evangelist and author of Evolution: fact or fiction? Has Science Got Rid of God? and Does God Believe in Atheists?, which stand accused of being full of scientific distortion, and George Curry, Vicar of Elswick Parish Church, Newcastle, on the board of the Christian Institute and chair of Church Society.

All the fifteen mentioned on the website are Young Earth Creationists, and connected variously with Biblical Creation Society, Answers in Genesis and other groups. This is not apparent in the website materials, as any reference to YEC is avoided in preference to ìteaching the controversyî and presenting that ìAlternatives to Darwinian evolution as a theory of origins can be taught in Key Stages 3 and 4 under the topic of Ideas and evidence in science. These topics give pupils some understanding of the nature of scientific enquiry and how modern scientists work. … Darwinís theory of evolution has been highlighted in KS4 as an example of how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of interpreting empirical evidence.î

There is an air of superficial plausibility about this, which is apparent in four lesson plans on Irreducible Complexity (Intelligent Designís catchphrase), the Fossil Record, Homology and Natural Selection. As a geologist I will only comment on the
Fossil Record Lesson Plan, where ìPupils are introduced to the three theories currently used to interpret the fossil record: Phyletic Gradualism, Punctuated Equilibrium and Phyletic Discontinuity.î These three are, of course, Darwinian gradualism, PE and essentially Six Day Creation. Both scientists and theologians contend, with massive evidence that it is disingenuous to present the last as a scientific theory.

The material on the website is carefully packaged, and its YEC roots, and thus its scientific worthlessness, may not be immediately apparent to the undiscerning. Though the ìCambrian Explosionî is mentioned (the sudden explosion of life forms spread over 10 million years some 550 million years ago), any reference to the vast age of the earth is carefully avoided.

All the ìcommitteeî appear to believe the earth to be 6000 to 10,000 years old and not 4.6 billion. In fact one cannot make any intelligent comment about the Cambrian Explosion without accepting its vast antiquity.

It is not possible to predict the outcome of this exercise. Some teachers may have already used the DVDs to scare birds from their vegetable patch. However it will give a way for the increasing number of YEC science teachers to introduce creationism into the classroom, despite the fact that it is scientific nonsense and dependent on the gross misrepresentations of standard science.

It is a concern that the authors are sure that OFSTED will not object to their ideas. The result will be to confuse students, to increase the antagonism of non-believers, and to raise opposition to faith schools of any kind.

Sadly the church, and especially the Church of England, has avoided taking a stand on these issues, possibly to avoid confrontation with more conservative members. Far too often the opponents of this pseudo-scientific nonsense are atheists, who then use this to ridicule faith. Will the church now wake up?

Michael Roberts is an Anglican priest, a geologist and author of a range of scholarly and popular articles on religion and science. He is Vicar of Winmarliegh, Glasson and Cockerham, Diocese of Blackburn, and a contributor to Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

[Also on Ekklesia: UK anti-evolutionists seek to lure parents with new website 25/09/06; Theologians and scientists welcome Intelligent Design ban; Schools minister says creationism has no place in classroom science; Exam Board rules out creationism in UK classrooms; Vatican astronomer says creationism is superstition; Archbishop of Canterbury criticises teaching of creationism; Creationists target schools and universities in Britain; Dawkins attacks creationist plans; Faith schools may allow extremists in, say critics; Creationists plan six more schools; Christians to explore values in science and technology; New Christian academy rejects creationism as ‘rubbish’]

A viewpoint from an Anglican vicar who is also a geologist, and seasoned critic of creationism

Truth in Science, or rather the lack of it, has been highlighted in the last few days. On 20 September 2006, an organisation using that name was ìlaunchedÖ with a website www.truthinscience.org.uk and a mailing to all Secondary School and College Heads of Science in the United Kingdom.î

The organisation, which aims to combat Darwinism, continues: ìTiS provides resources to assist teachers in allowing students to critically examine Darwin’s theory of evolution. Whilst accepting that changes in gene frequencies occur over time, and that limited evolution occurs in nature, TiS encourages a rigorous examination of whether or not this can explain the origin of life and its huge diversity.î

On examination, this turns out simply to be Young Earth Creationism repackaged. The initiative has been a year or two in the planning and is well-thought out, with considerable financial backing. TiS have a board of directors, a council of reference and a scientific panel.

Prominent is Andy McIntosh, Professor of Thermodynamics and Combustion Theory at the University of Leeds and author of Genesis for Today, which is largely about the value of Genesis for ethics. It contains several appendices which I believe are full of scientific errors and misinterpretations.

Another director is Steve Layfield, head of science at Emmanuel College, Gateshead, who fervently supports teaching creationism in schools, even suggesting that the Fall of Adam resulted in lunar craters and thus should be taught as science.

Two others are John Blanchard, evangelist and author of Evolution: fact or fiction? Has Science Got Rid of God? and Does God Believe in Atheists?, which stand accused of being full of scientific distortion, and George Curry, Vicar of Elswick Parish Church, Newcastle, on the board of the Christian Institute and chair of Church Society.

All the fifteen mentioned on the website are Young Earth Creationists, and connected variously with Biblical Creation Society, Answers in Genesis and other groups. This is not apparent in the website materials, as any reference to YEC is avoided in preference to ìteaching the controversyî and presenting that ìAlternatives to Darwinian evolution as a theory of origins can be taught in Key Stages 3 and 4 under the topic of Ideas and evidence in science. These topics give pupils some understanding of the nature of scientific enquiry and how modern scientists work. … Darwinís theory of evolution has been highlighted in KS4 as an example of how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of interpreting empirical evidence.î

There is an air of superficial plausibility about this, which is apparent in four lesson plans on Irreducible Complexity (Intelligent Designís catchphrase), the Fossil Record, Homology and Natural Selection. As a geologist I will only comment on the
Fossil Record Lesson Plan, where ìPupils are introduced to the three theories currently used to interpret the fossil record: Phyletic Gradualism, Punctuated Equilibrium and Phyletic Discontinuity.î These three are, of course, Darwinian gradualism, PE and essentially Six Day Creation. Both scientists and theologians contend, with massive evidence that it is disingenuous to present the last as a scientific theory.

The material on the website is carefully packaged, and its YEC roots, and thus its scientific worthlessness, may not be immediately apparent to the undiscerning. Though the ìCambrian Explosionî is mentioned (the sudden explosion of life forms spread over 10 million years some 550 million years ago), any reference to the vast age of the earth is carefully avoided.

All the ìcommitteeî appear to believe the earth to be 6000 to 10,000 years old and not 4.6 billion. In fact one cannot make any intelligent comment about the Cambrian Explosion without accepting its vast antiquity.

It is not possible to predict the outcome of this exercise. Some teachers may have already used the DVDs to scare birds from their vegetable patch. However it will give a way for the increasing number of YEC science teachers to introduce creationism into the classroom, despite the fact that it is scientific nonsense and dependent on the gross misrepresentations of standard science.

It is a concern that the authors are sure that OFSTED will not object to their ideas. The result will be to confuse students, to increase the antagonism of non-believers, and to raise opposition to faith schools of any kind.

Sadly the church, and especially the Church of England, has avoided taking a stand on these issues, possibly to avoid confrontation with more conservative members. Far too often the opponents of this pseudo-scientific nonsense are atheists, who then use this to ridicule faith. Will the church now wake up?

Michael Roberts is an Anglican priest, a geologist and author of a range of scholarly and popular articles on religion and science. He is Vicar of Winmarliegh, Glasson and Cockerham, Diocese of Blackburn, and a contributor to Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

[Also on Ekklesia: UK anti-evolutionists seek to lure parents with new website 25/09/06; Theologians and scientists welcome Intelligent Design ban; Schools minister says creationism has no place in classroom science; Exam Board rules out creationism in UK classrooms; Vatican astronomer says creationism is superstition; Archbishop of Canterbury criticises teaching of creationism; Creationists target schools and universities in Britain; Dawkins attacks creationist plans; Faith schools may allow extremists in, say critics; Creationists plan six more schools; Christians to explore values in science and technology; New Christian academy rejects creationism as ‘rubbish’]

The post Creationism distorts truth in science, says vicar appeared first on Ekklesia.