There has been a lot of talk about the arrival in the UK of the teaching
of creationism, the belief in the literal truth of the Bible and a rejection
of Darwinism. While this has been an issue in the United States for a
long time, it has only recently started here. Sir Peter Vardy, a wealthy
car dealer in charge of Reg Vardy PLC, has invested in a number of Academies
in the North-East of England, and plans to invest in more. The deal with
the government is that the taxpayer funds 90% of the costs of the Academy,
which replaces a failing school, and the rest of the money comes from
private investment, in these cases Sir Peter.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has declared himself to be 'very happy' with
the teaching of creationism alongside Darwinsm (Prime Minister's Questions
Commons Hansard 13/3/02: column 886-7, Source).
There is growing opposition to the Vardy Academies; there have very recently
been objections raised in Conisborough,
where another is planned.
It is troubling that government money is being put into these academies,
where such ideas are taught. If people want this kind of idea to be taught
as fact, then they should bear the entire cost of the operation- there
is no justification for the state paying money into such education. There
is opposition from the Church of England; the Bishop of Oxford has said
that such teaching 'brings 'Christianity itself into disrepute', the Bishop
of Durham called for the school to be reinspected, and it has been described
as 'simply scientific and theological nonsense' (letter
in Church Times). Creationists beliefs are not representative of most
of mainstream Christianity; the Roman Catholic Church does not subscribe
to their ideas either. It is a fringe and extremist belief without any
scientific basis, dependent purely on a literal interpretation of certain
areas of the Bible, an interpretation that is not extended to everything
in the Bible, such as prohibiting mixed fabrics or allowing for daughters
to be stoned to death. Selective literalism is inherently unsound.
The text of a notorious lecture, The
Teaching of Science- A Biblical Perspective, given at Emmanuel College
by the Head of Science, later removed from the Christian
Institute website after it was criticised, shows some of the dubious
methods used by some creationists to peddle their ideas. He suggests that
'Teachers must therefore do all that they can to ensure that pupils, parents
and fellow colleagues are reminded frequently that all is not what it
seems when popular so-called scientific dogma presents itself before them.'
In other words, he is recommending that teachers deliberately and systematically
undermine the naturalism that has 'infected' the National Curriculum,
and goes through a list of ways to do this.
Pedagogically this strikes me as a dangerous approach; deliberately undermining
a curriculum suggests that the body of knowledge being taught is unsound,
undermining pupils and students belief in the education system. There
is nothing wrong with religious ideas being taught where they belong in
the curriculum: in religious studies, but a deliberate and systematic
attempt to replace science with what is accepted as myth, even by the
majority of churches, is an unwelcome addition to the education system,
and one that should not benefit from state funding.
