The BHA has asked Education Secretary Ed Balls to act against a new wave of propagandist material dressed up as science that has been sent to secondary schools by the creationist organisation Truth in Science.
The BHA previously wrote to the DCSF about Truth in Science in 2006 after the organisation attempted to infiltrate teaching of creationism and ‘intelligent design’ in school science lessons by posting costly free teaching resources to all secondary school heads of science and by encouraging parents to challenge teaching on the origins of species.
The Government distanced itself from the resources sent to schools and, after campaigning by the BHA and others, finally published its ‘Guidance on the place of creationism and intelligent design in science lessons’ in September 2007. The guidance makes clear that creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories, and so cannot be taught in science lessons, as they have "no underlying scientific principles, or explanations".
Truth in Science has now sent copies of the book ‘Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and against Neo-Darwinism’ to school librarians around the country. The book seeks to undermine the theory of evolution and seeks to have creationist-inspired ideas, such as ‘intelligent design’, implanted as credible scientific viewpoints. In the letter that accompanies the book they argue that ‘the textbook is ideally suited for use in the classroom and for teachers who wish to increase their understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory’.
James Williams, Lecturer in Science Education at the University of Sussex says:
"The book cleverly omits any mention of creationism and intelligent design, but merely contains updated and rehashed creationist arguments. The book is subtly loaded against evolution, yet purports to be a ‘balanced argument’. It is cleverly constructed and leads the reader down a path where the answer always seems ‘obvious’ – design – it is if you follow their arguments – but the arguments they have loaded in favour of design cannot be balanced.
"Given the backlash against their last attempt to lever intelligent design into UK they have clearly decided to try a back-door route by pushing these books onto a largely non-scientific audience of school librarians. They could be easily be taken in by the glossy production values and miss the arguments loaded in favour of ‘design’. Many unsuspecting librarians may well have placed this on school shelves.
"If the intelligent design community wishes to be taken seriously it must spend its money on serious scientific research and gain acceptance that way. So far they have produced no credible evidence to date, unlike the mountain of evidence for evolution.”
Notes
James Williams is available for comment upon request. For information or further comment please contact Paul Pettinger on 020 7462 4993.
The BHA previously wrote to the DCSF about Truth in Science in 2006 after the organisation attempted to infiltrate teaching of creationism and ‘intelligent design’ in school science lessons by posting costly free teaching resources to all secondary school heads of science and by encouraging parents to challenge teaching on the origins of species.
The Government distanced itself from the resources sent to schools and, after campaigning by the BHA and others, finally published its ‘Guidance on the place of creationism and intelligent design in science lessons’ in September 2007. The guidance makes clear that creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories, and so cannot be taught in science lessons, as they have "no underlying scientific principles, or explanations".
Truth in Science has now sent copies of the book ‘Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and against Neo-Darwinism’ to school librarians around the country. The book seeks to undermine the theory of evolution and seeks to have creationist-inspired ideas, such as ‘intelligent design’, implanted as credible scientific viewpoints. In the letter that accompanies the book they argue that ‘the textbook is ideally suited for use in the classroom and for teachers who wish to increase their understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory’.
James Williams, Lecturer in Science Education at the University of Sussex says:
"The book cleverly omits any mention of creationism and intelligent design, but merely contains updated and rehashed creationist arguments. The book is subtly loaded against evolution, yet purports to be a ‘balanced argument’. It is cleverly constructed and leads the reader down a path where the answer always seems ‘obvious’ – design – it is if you follow their arguments – but the arguments they have loaded in favour of design cannot be balanced.
"Given the backlash against their last attempt to lever intelligent design into UK they have clearly decided to try a back-door route by pushing these books onto a largely non-scientific audience of school librarians. They could be easily be taken in by the glossy production values and miss the arguments loaded in favour of ‘design’. Many unsuspecting librarians may well have placed this on school shelves.
"If the intelligent design community wishes to be taken seriously it must spend its money on serious scientific research and gain acceptance that way. So far they have produced no credible evidence to date, unlike the mountain of evidence for evolution.”
Notes
James Williams is available for comment upon request. For information or further comment please contact Paul Pettinger on 020 7462 4993.
Just a brief comment to make a minor correction to the story.
Quote:"And scientists should watch their language, he said. Many mistakenly confuse the words “theory” and “hypothesis”, in scientific terms, a theory is a clearly proven fact."
This is an indirect quotation from me not my actual words (hence no quote marks). A scientific theory is a well evidenced explanation of a natural phenomenon a theory is not a fact and facts are not theories. Scientific theories explain the observations and data that we gather.This minor error just goes to show how difficult it is when reporting science in the media and how precise we must be when using the language of science. James Williams.