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The Department of Education responded to a letter of concern from the British Centre for Science Education (BCSE), which is worried by applications from Christian groups to run free schools. It fears that schools might be exploited by groups seeking to promote a literal interpretation of the Bible at the expense of science classes.
However, the Department of Education confirmed that Mr Gove is “crystal clear that teaching creationism is at odds with scientific fact”…
The BCSE expressed in writing its “extreme concern” about groups such as Christian School Trust who have made up to five applications to run free schools…
The Everyday Champions Church, in Newark, Nottinghamshire, submitted its proposal for a 652-place school in January. It claims that the parents of more than 660 children have signed up to attend the school.
The Church’s leader Gareth Morgan told the BBC: “Creationism will be embodied as a belief at Everyday Champions Academy, but will not be taught in the sciences. Similarly, evolution will be taught as a theory. We believe children should have a broad knowledge of all theories in order that they can make informed choice.”
In July last year Mr Gove acknowledged there were concerns about “inappropriate faith groups using this legislation to push their own agenda.” He told MPs on the cross-party Commons education committee that his department was working to ensure there were no “extremist groups taking over schools”.
A clear distinction between conservative politicians in the UK and US. The former resemble what traditional American conservatism used to embody – including disdain for populist pandering to religious nutters. That used to be left up to the Democrats in the United States.
I assume the UK has mandatory state sponsored schooling for the kiddies but “new legislation” allows for: “Free schools can be set up by charities, universities, businesses, educational groups, teachers and groups of parents. With an increased freedom of curriculum there have been concerns that scientific subjects might be neglected.
As with independent schools free school teachers will not need formal teaching qualifications
/////// Sounds like our Mother Country is going down the same shit hole the USA is–reducing services to society for a variety of reasons.
Society = only a thin veneer.
Everywhere it is clear that creationism is not a science. The question, in US or UK is how to teach about the issues on which domains of religion and science intersect in public schools funded by taxpayers among whom there are large groups seeing the issue only from one of those two perspectives?
Conundrum is how to solve this when majority of (tax)payers whose money is used to run education subscribe only to religious treatment of “how things began”. Only proper solution is to teach both religion and science but powers behind education system won’t. Hence the “Solomon Solution” merging both in the science education as options, which they are not. Same as it would be wrong to teach creationism and as option evolution in class on religion. Students are at worse end as no one is teaching the most important (and unifying) fact: religion is not science, science is not religion – each has its own methods and subjects, do not confuse them even when they look identical, think deeper and you’ll see that they are not.
I support classes like this in the Mythology section. Greek, Roma Mythology. Thor, Zeus and that cute guy, Apollo.
>parents of more than 660 children
Specifically 6 more, it’s just that the last 6 are are called Damien and the school teachers are getting a bit worried
UK dichotomy: “No God in school” but “Allah okay in the courthouse”.
http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4749183.ece
#1 – Yes religious state schools are common in the UK, the church provides the building and the local council pays for everything else just as in any other school. There are lots of Catholic, Jewish, Sikh schools (although for some reason Muslim ones always seem to get indefinitely hung up in the planning approval)
Ironically they normally have much better science teaching. Since they can be selective – on religious grounds (not on whether the parents drive a Volvo of course) they have a lower proportion of knife wielding thugs than the average school, so attract better teachers.
#2 dusanmal
So you think the only fair solution is to teach both religion and science?
Which religion?
The solution is obviously to teach actual theology in schools to prevent silly mainstream movements for political power/money based around ‘religion’ from ever being able to con enough people to take off.
#7
>Which religion?
Which science?
Religious NUT-CASES will not allow themselves to be CONFUSED BY THE FACTS !!! I believe they wouldn’t believe you if you told them Jesus NEVER SPOKE ENGLISH, holding up a Bible as the WORD OF GOD !!! And practically NONE OF THEM KNOW “THE ONE COMMMANDMENT OF CHRIST” for Christ’s sake !!!
#9–Fellow Traveller==nice spin, but you show your confusion about the very difference between religion(s) and the one and only SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Religion has dogma. Science has a method. You can believe whatever you want, but can you reproduce an outcome? Can other’s reproduce the same outcome? Then you got some science. There is only “one” science because there is no “science” as such–only a method.
I hope your confusion has been cleared up. There is no “overlapping magisterial” only intentional confusion by the religious mongrels who see the confusion as their last straw of credibility as they have no credibility without a false association to the only thing that is true.
Heh, heh.
Even the otherwise well educated remain: Silly Hoomans.
Really irrelevant as the country will be mostly Muslim with sharia law in a few decades.
#13 – no it won’t because all those chinese restaurants have secret regiments of the chinese army hidden in the basement ready to take over the country. But that’s OK because we are going to be ruled by the Germans under a secret Eu plot that will force everyone to be French.
But even they wont be able to stand up to the lizard people that will take over if Fox hunting isn’t unbanned, unless Scotland gets independence.
ps Reading the Daily Mail may seriously damage your health (or cure cancer – they haven’t decided yet)
# 2 dusanmal said, “Only proper solution is to teach both religion and science”
Absolutely right but you stopped short: Science should be taught in the schools and religion in the churches or home. We can prove evolution occurs but no god seems willing to make his/her/it’s presence known beyond a doubt. [Evolution is still called a theory but only because we do not understand it’s entirety. Not because any reasonable scientist is unsure it happens!]
#14 Nobody – Please don’t worry about any of those things. The hotel I’m staying in only has Fox News and I watched a bot of it today. I now understand the whole world will be ending soon. Probably before I fin
Its a pointless argument.
-ignore it.
Our science has become just as much a dogmatic religion run by fanatics as the most fervent creationists. “god” for scientists, is whichever government entity they are hustling for their funding & paycheck. Their “priests” -those that write the “sacred science cannons” sit on the holy “peer review” council. This is simply the ancient game of Division, of which both are the perfect “tools” to implement.
-s
#16 – burn the heretic.
Well, TRUE traditional Americans wouldn’t support state sponsored schools to begin with. That only happened in the late 19th century.
Funny thing is that Catholic schools have a very good reputation for teaching science (and most other subjects), even if they do include a bunch of supernatural nonsense. Most of this is due to the not putting up with the BS that abounds in the public schools. The smarter kids see through the mysticism but keep the real learning. Most important, the kids are well drilled and well taught in the tools needed to educate themselves.
Now, the question of should taxpayer supported schools teach “Creationism”. Answer, of course not, except as notes in the same context as other fiction and mythology. If you insist on having your fornication derived offspring indoctrinated with religion, send them to Sunday School.
Interesting how the voters are all experts on education – but only on education.
Every school district has public committees where politicians decide how schools should be run and what should be taught.
Why isn’t the city engineering department run on similar lines? It seems that these experts just go ahead and decide how much steel to put in a bridge without any democratic process.
#19 – yes you can. You can also observe it in any druggie with TB or hospital with MRSA.
Of course the jump from ‘I haven’t seen a monkey evolve into a man’ to ‘therefore the universe must have been created in 4000BC by a Jewish guy with a white beard who doesn’t like gays or shellfish’ requires rather more imagination.
#15–Animby==I normally wouldn’t post just to disagree with you but in this case I post because you are just about exactly wrong. That is NOT the definition/point of a scientific theory. Just the opposite is true. A Theory is a well developed set of facts and rules sufficiently proved out to be given that label. Gravity is a theory. I think your usage is closer to what a hypothesis is, or maybe half way inbetween a theory and a hypo?
Otherwise your critique of of Dusanmal was very good. I might have asked how/when religion and science “look the same” but I couldn’t muster the interest. Just more FUD. Its more than ironic that religion wants to be confused with science as confusion is a better foundation for belief than is fantasy. Ask “most” scientists, and they don’t give religion a thought. Its irrelevant. Only a very few scientists try to make money off the religion generated confusion. some do it for clarification.
The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.
George Bernard Shaw
I go with #13. The immigrants haven’t forgotten that the true road to power is reproduction.
I believe in creation but I also believe in evolution and science.
I see no contradiction. There are a lot of religious people and a lot of scientist who share my lack of tension on this issue.
The common way to explain this is by saying that religion and science are two completely different things. I used to think that way until I really considered it.
Now I think religion and science are two vantage points on the same thing.
#25 – true but the Americans don’t bomb each other over the details of transubstantiation.
# 11 bobbo, the evangelical anti-theist said, “Religion has dogma. Science has a method.”
Science also has dogma. In fact, mathematics, the most certain of all sciences, is a religion.
Bertrand Russell wrote:
“If a religion is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.”
H. Eves wrote:
“Suppose we loosely define a religion as any discipline whose foundations rest on an element of faith, irrespective of any element of reason which may be present. [Atheism], for example, would be a religion under this definition. But mathematics would hold the unique position of being the only branch of theology possessing a rigorous demonstration of the fact that it should be so classified.” — In Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1969.
# 22 bobbo, said, “I normally wouldn’t post just to disagree”
Bbbbbboboo? That’s the funniest thing you’ve said all week. 90% of your posts are EXACTLY just to disagree! * 90% does not represent the outcome of a mathematical analysis.
I know quite well the difference between an hypothesis and a theory and proven science. What I said is exactly correct if not the appropriate scientific jargon. You, sir, as you so often do, are picking nits and missing the point.
#18 Alfie : You continue to show your ignorance. We can directly observe evolution. I invite you into any microbiology lab. Wait! I withdraw that invitation. I have friends who are microbiologists. I don’t wish to offend them. Read a book, instead.
the “British Centre for Science Education”? Oh pul-lease! They can’t even spell “Center” right. What a bunch of morons.
Well apparently they’re not too worried about Scientology teaching that Lord Xenu came to earth, bring all the tortured souls of billions of slaughtered alien beings. And these are the cause of all our hangups. Yeah, that’s Ok. Just don’t point out that Darwin’s so-called “theory of evolution” (more like a hypothesis), has never been proven. And given it takes millions of years to see something evolve. It’s not likely any one scientist. or group of them, would live long enough to conduct the testing. But just like Hubbard, Darwin’s idea about life’s origin, came to him in a flash of inspiration. And somehow, that’s been turned into a science. Just because he recorded the sizes and shapes a bunch bugs and lizards.
Basically what was once simple Taxonomy. Has been taken to extremes, to explanation the origin of life on earth. And even the Stars in the universe. Every branch of science jumped on the Taxonomy bandwagon. Stars, planets, laws of physics, mathematics, you name it. They’ve decided it had to evolve at some time or other. To get around the whole “origin” question. Which they loathe to say, “we just don’t know where it came from.” So they say, it evolved from a simpler form. As if that explains where the FIRST SIMPLEST FORM, came from. But like Aristotle, they’re rather blow smoke up your blouse, than be caught without any explanation at all. Even if it’s a wrong one. And Darwinism has been monkeyed with, time and time again to account for new developments in Genetic research.
If they ever crack the DNA code. They’re gonna be a lot of splanin’ to do. To keep Darwin from winning the Darwin award. But regardless of all that. They don’t teach the origin of political ideologies, or economic systems of governments, in primary schools. So why is it felt so vital that the school kiddies be taught some “theoretical” notion, of how biological systems may have originated? In order to declare all religious explanations as bogus? They’re a lot like the Tobacco industry, marketing their product to kids. If they can’t get them hooked, at an early enough age. They probably won’t buy it later. So rather than holding Darwin off until College. Every primary school kid gets indoctrinated in Darwin, before most of them know how to balance a checkbook, or do their own taxes.
And for which they simply refuse to answer the simplest of questions. What so damn vital about kids knowing what Darwin thought, that it seems to trump learning anything else in school? Is “science” back atheism, such a vital, life enriching, aspect of modern education, that it most be force feed into every impressionable mind? Before some nasty old religion gets to them and pollutes their reasoning?
Besides, if the educational system were really doing its job. Then the Tea Party wouldn’t exist. And possibly half the GOP membership wouldn’t either. Since “God told me to do it” seems to be what many of them say is their reason for being such corrupt and clueless bastards. God has a really personnel problem, these days. Unless they’ve falsified their employment claims.
#30 – GlenFiddich – Do you even review what you write? Or just take another dram between paragraphs? You are a prime example of the failure of the education system.
By the way, don’t let big words bamboozle you. Taxonomy, for example. If you don’t know what it means, don’t use it.
You are hereby promoted to Moran 1st Class.
It is a very common mistake, the idea that evolution is scientific. Only a few parts of it are. The whole shebang, including the hypothesis of ‘common descent’ more properly would be described as a naturalistic philosophy or worldview. It begins with the ‘a priori’ presumption of naturalism – following which any ‘cherry-picked’ evidence can be interpreted to fit the current evolutionary model (even when it keeps changing). That is not how true science works. You don’t start with a conclusion (i.e. naturalism).
Creationism isn’t scientific either. It starts with the ‘a priori’ presumption of supernaturalism. The evidence is then interpreted to fit the worldview also.
If “creation is true”, science will never discover it. Science is narrow-minded. It limits itself to naturalism.
#6 Check your facts… There are HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of Muslim schools and Madrasahs all over the UK. They are NOT even REMOTELY being criticized like the Christians are.
Matter of fact, they are getting away with child abuse and VIRULENT hate speech and SURELY are not teaching science…