Request a video
What is My Teachers TV?
Quickly access content relevant to you. Log in below or Register now.
Bookmark this page
Follow Teachers TV
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on iTunes
Dr Adam Rutherford criticises teachers' views on creationism
  • Sorry, this news programme is no longer available for viewing or downloading.

Dr Adam Rutherford criticises teachers' views on creationism

Doctor Adam Rutherford has told Teachers TV News he has serious concerns over the findings of a survey on creationism in the classroom.

Nearly a third of teachers, who responded to an email poll for Teachers TV, think creationism or intelligent design should be given the same status as evolution.

Of the 248 science teachers who responded, 18% agreed that the two should have equal status.

Dr Rutherford says that science teachers with those views need retraining or should be taken out of the classroom if they refuse to change their opinion.

Comments

Post Comment

From:*
Anonymous
 
Public or private comment
 
  •  
    • Oeditor Oeditor
      Response to Prof. McIntosh
      12 November 2008 - 21:35

      My reply seems to have been linked above, out of sight. Excuse me if I make it a bit more current....


      "Glad to hear that you agree that some debate should take place, but of course I disagree with you about necessarily involving some religious theme. The science classroom is not the place for that..." A.M.

      So even Prof. McIntosh agrees that religion - and creationism is nothing if not religion - should be kept out of the science classroom. No wonder, since Leeds University and Leicester University have considered running remedial lectures for first year students who might have absorbed creationism. http://tinyurl.com/6apaq6

      Regardless of the rights and wrongs of discussing such a matter as "intelligent design/creation science" at university, school classrooms are not the place to waste time dissecting oddball theories. The TV series "Heretics" discussed a number of such. My favourite was Prof. Eric Laithwaite with his ideas about magnetism and gyroscopes but such matters are not for school - best reserved for experts or entertainment.
      EDITED - expanded slightly.

    • epeeist epeeist
      Not a theory
      13 November 2008 - 08:04

      'Regardless of the rights and wrongs of discussing such a matter as "intelligent design/creation science" at university, school classrooms are not the place to waste time dissecting oddball theories.'

      Could I take exception to one word in the above. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not theories. There is no evidence for them, they have not been subjected to testing and they cannot be falsified.

      In the same way can we get rid of the oxymoron "creation science".

    • james williams james williams

      (Associate)

      A response to Andy McIntosh
      13 November 2008 - 22:56

      Glad to hear that you agree that some debate should take place, but of course I disagree with you about necessarily involving some religious theme. The science classroom is not the place for that (AM)

      I agree and have never advocated the science classroom as a place for the religious/ID debate. Intelligent Design is at its heart religious so I dont know how you have the debate on ID in science without a religious theme, Philip Johnson whom you have quoted is very clear about the ultimate intent of intelligent design, which is a mechanism to introduce religion into science and ultimately into the whole curriculum. Youve quoted him, do you condemn this intent by the modern father of ID? Do you reject the wedge document?

      You are right about snowflakes, but it can be shown that the patterns one gets are simply an expression of molecular structure.

      But if we knew nothing of molecular structure our only inference would be that they were designed by a designer. Whats to say that all those things that Id creationists currently hold to be evidence of design are not as natural as snowflakes? Behe introduced the bacterial flagellum as a structure that could only have been the result of design. Others have shown that it is not irreducibly complex and could result from natural selection. He was wrong on this point. If we simply follow the ID route we just give up trying to explain things and revert to a designer when the going gets tough. Science grinds to a halt and we move back to an age of magic and mystery to explain things.
      Many of the greatest minds in the past have thought that design is the main contender for understanding the world around us. I have already referred to Newton, Faraday, Kepler etc.
      And they were wrong. Many things not explained then that could be inferred as design, have turned out to be explainable.

      It is disingenuous to suggest that ID is somehow redefining science - for centuries this was the main paradigm.

      But the current paradigm is naturalistic therefore you are asking for science to be redefined.

      As regards books and articles, there are many - some in secular journals such as Abel and Trevors "Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information", Theor Biol Med Model. 2005; 2: 29. and Meyer, S.C., The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic
      categories, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2), 213-239, 2004. And some articles in the ID / Creation Technical journals which are peer reviewed and are fast becoming a major repository of research based on the paradigm where design is not automatically excluded from the lab.

      I havent read the first, but will get hold of it. As for the second you know very well that this paper was retracted by the journal. Is that all you have? Two papers, one retracted? As for the peer reviewed Id creation/technical journals they do not meet the academic standards that we in the community recognise as suitable. (or do you routinely accept articles cited from these in support of your PhD students theses? Would articles in these journals qualify for the RAE - did you cite any of these in any RAe submission you made at Leeds?

      Why not have a journal within the accepted academic publishers lists of journals? The BMJ recently announced a journal for acupuncture to the dismay of many mainstream doctors - so it is possible to have credible academic journals for areas of science that some disagree with. Creation science moans all the time about prejudice. Acupuncture has done it, so could ID if it were indeed a proper science with a proper research agenda.

      Again I issue the challenge. If you feel that ID is marginalised and rejected out of hand, tell us how many papers have been submitted by so-called ID researchers and rejected and publish the referee comments on why they were rejected - it won't hurt the referee as they are anonymous.

      If the academic press is biased against ID, show us the evidence. How many papers have you submitted, with ID as its driving idea, to mainstream academic, scientific journals, not niche creationist magazines and journals, and are you willing to reveal the referees comments on why they were rejected and support the ID community claim that they it is discriminated against unfairly?


      "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts: but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon

    • epeeist epeeist
      Proves the point
      16 November 2008 - 12:07

      In my post of November 13 at 16:07 I warned of creationists an quote mining. And what do we have? The poster thetruerobo quote mining Colin Patterson's book.

      Patterson was responding to Popper's initial thesis that Darwin's theory of evolution was a research programme and not science. Popper changed his mind on this:

      "I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation...

      The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable but it turns out to be not universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising. Thus not all phenomena of evolution are explained by natural selection alone. Yet in every particular case it is a challenging research programme to show how far natural selection can possibly be held responsible for the evolution of a particular organ or behavioural programme" - from "Natural selection and the emergence of mind" (Dialectica).

    • james williams james williams

      (Associate)

      Colin Patterson taken out of context, again!
      16 November 2008 - 12:23

      Thank you 'thetruerobo' for bringing up this oft used out of context quote from Colin Patterson. I assume you have read Patterson's book? No? well, it may surprise you (or not) to learn that this quotation does not constitute a refutation of evolution as a science and as a fact and as a powerful explanatory/predictive theory. Colin Patterson supported evolution all the way. If you look at the quote in context and actually read what it says, there is nothing contentious here.

      The 'general theory of evolution' is the theory that explains all past and current evolution evidence/data. Colin patterson is correct, we cannot replicate what evolution has achieved in the past since those speciation events are unique. As Stephen Jay Gould says, if we were to replay evolution from the begining how life would develop and diversify would be very different from what we actually see in the past (fossils) and around us today.

      Now that is no different from the whole of cosmology (we can't repeat the evolution of the cosmos from the begining to today) the whole of geology (we cannot repeat the movement of the plates over millions of years, or the production of rocks from the begining of the earth to today), or the whole of meteorology (we can't repeat the weather that has happened over geological time). The fact that the whole of cosmology, geology and meteorology are not repeatable doesn't make them any less of a science. The key is that evolution theory can provide predictions as to what happened. Just as plate tectonics can be predictive (if the plates moved from A - B we should expect to find X) Evolution theory predicts that birds evolved from reptiles and that we should find transitional forms that exhibit features of birds and reptiles - we do find these in the fossil record. The fact that we cannot actually bring these fossils back to life and, over millions of years get them to evolve into something new which is a modern bird does not mean that it didn't happen. Evolution is a fact and a scientific theory. Patterson is saying very clearly that it is the 'unique event' that is unrepeatable and not part of science, not the totality of the whole explanation - evolution. What Patterson was doing was comparing the fact that evolution has occurred to the subject of history, specifically the History of England. Each historical event is unique and unrepeatable. Historian cannot predict the future no more than evolutionists can predict how or what species will evolve in the future - we may have some fun making these predictions, but they are untestable simply because they are in the future. But our knowledge of evolution and its

      Your quotation above has missed out a lot of the context of what Patterson was actually saying and, as with most out of context quotes you have made it say something that was not themechanism does allow us to predict what may have happened in the past. When we find evidence that supports our predictions then it confirms our confidence in the theory as being scientifically true and correct. The whole of evolution as a theory is testable in that all you would have to do is find something that evolution predicts shouldn't have happened, e.g. like finding modern human fossils in the Cambrian Rocks.

      The full passage which you have abstracted from is 195 words long and ends by giving a reason why evolution is not a 'law' (many creationists mistakenly cliam that if evolution were really true it would be a 'law' not a theory - again this misunderstands the nature of Laws in science). You quote only 39 words. You have left out exactly 80% of the full quotation.

      "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts: but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon

    • woollett woollett
      creationism in the classroom
      16 November 2008 - 20:42

      Science and Religion are categories created by us and given some criteria in which to operate in our understanding of reality. Using science's own criteria of hypothesis, testing and results means drawing conclusions from evidence. There is therefore no reason why through empirical observation and testing of things in our world, that we should not in theory draw a legitimate conclusion from that process to say that God created the world. It is true that God is not considered physical and is therefore not part of the 'physical sciences.' However, his world is and to decide before hand that the only explanation of causality you are going to find acceptable is one that can stem only from physical explanations within our known Universe is to operate according to a pre-held belief system or prejudice. It is unscientific. Evolution is a theory in crisis. From a scientific point of view, we can observe adaption, breeding and natural selection. The evidence for species leading from one to the other however should be ongoing and everywhere, but there is precious little to support this evolutionary model. No satisfactory evidence or explanation has ever been given for the supply of new genetic information required for something like a reptile to gain the chromosomal information for wings, feathers and flight. Equally the rule of 'irreducable complexities' (Michael Behe) shows that as many 'infitesimally small changes' are required to all coexist at the same time, the theory of evolution cannot possibly provide this. The example of the reptilian lung to the avian lung is a clear example of this. Truth be told, Evolution does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. The evidence is cobbled together irratically and seems to receive automatic acceptance from many scientists without honest reexamination. This smacks more of a belief system than a scientific model. If Intelligent Design has no place in the science classroom (and you acknowledge that it surfaces from students anyway) then Evolution should certainly belong in the R.E. department as a 'belief system.' It certainly does in my own classes and I feel that students deserve to subject all world-views to scrutiny even scientific ones. How that happens may be controversial, but it must happen and this generation cannot be allowed to blindly accept teaching about Evolution in the way that the last few generations largely have.

    • woollett woollett
      Response to Rutherford
      16 November 2008 - 20:48



      Science and Religion are categories created by us and given some criteria in which to operate in our understanding of reality. Using science's own criteria of hypothesis, testing and results means drawing conclusions from evidence. There is therefore no reason why through empirical observation and testing of things in our world, that we should not in theory draw a legitimate conclusion from that process to say that God created the world. It is true that God is not considered physical and is therefore not part of the 'physical sciences.' However, his world is and to decide before hand that the only explanation of causality you are going to find acceptable is one that can stem only from physical explanations within our known Universe is to operate according to a pre-held belief system or prejudice. It is unscientific. Evolution is a theory in crisis. From a scientific point of view, we can observe adaptation, breeding and natural selection. The evidence for species leading from one to the other however should be ongoing and everywhere, but there is precious little to support this evolutionary model. No satisfactory evidence or explanation has ever been given for the supply of new genetic information required for something like a reptile to gain the chromosomal information for wings, feathers and flight. Equally the rule of 'irreducible complexities' (Michael Behe) shows that as many 'infitesimally small changes' are required to all coexist at the same time, the theory of evolution cannot possibly provide this. The example of the reptilian lung to the avian lung is a clear example of this. Truth be told, Evolution does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. The evidence is cobbled together erratically and seems to receive automatic acceptance from many scientists without honest re-examination. This smacks more of a belief system than a scientific model. If Intelligent Design has no place in the science classroom (and you acknowledge that it surfaces from students anyway) then Evolution should certainly belong in the R.E. department as a 'belief system.' It certainly does in my own classes and I feel that students deserve to subject all world-views to scrutiny even scientific ones. How that happens may be controversial, but it must happen and this generation cannot be allowed to blindly accept teaching about Evolution in the way that the last few generations largely have.

    • james williams james williams

      (Associate)

      A Response to Woollett
      16 November 2008 - 22:10

      There is therefore no reason why through empirical observation and testing of things in our world, that we should not in theory draw a legitimate conclusion from that process to say that God created the world.

      OK fine, but what has that to do with evolution? Evolution is an explanation of HOW life has developed and diversified. Many scientists can comfortably live and work with a notion that God created the universe and the conditions for life. The theory of evolution has nothing to say on how the universe or life began. Science does not have an accepted explanation for that as yet.

      It is true that God is not considered physical and is therefore not part of the 'physical sciences.'

      Correct

      However, his world is and to decide before hand that the only explanation of causality you are going to find acceptable is one that can stem only from physical explanations within our known Universe is to operate according to a pre-held belief system or prejudice.

      Again, what has this to do with evolution? Science looks for explanations of the physical world, youve already ruled God out of the physical world and now you are trying to say that we are now prejudiced for not considering God as an explanation of the physical world. You are contradicting yourself.

      Evolution is a theory in crisis.

      Really????

      Thats news! Last time I looked evolution was very comfortable, accepted by the vast majority of scientists, held to be scientifically true and proven, with a history of 150 years of evidence predictions, tests etc. that support the central tenet of the science of biology. If thats a theory in crisis then the whole of science is shattered and crumbling and in complete disarray. Evolution is not a theory in crisis it is one of our most stable and well evidenced theories. Just because you say it is in crisis does not mean that it is.

      From a scientific point of view, we can observe adaptation, breeding and natural selection.

      i.e. the mechanisms for evolution - and this is a theory in crisis? One that even you admit we can observe? - You contradict yourself again. So you accept evolution but call it a theory in crisis. That does not make sense.

      The evidence for species leading from one to the other however should be ongoing and everywhere, but there is precious little to support this evolutionary model.

      Yes, the evidence is everywhere. We see it in the lab, in the wild, in the fossil record need I go on?

      No satisfactory evidence or explanation has ever been given for the supply of new genetic information required for something like a reptile to gain the chromosomal information for wings, feathers and flight.

      Explain what you mean by the supply of new genetic information. You are now straying into the creationist twilight zone where even they cannot define and explain what they mean by genetic information.

      Equally the rule of 'irreducible complexities' (Michael Behe) shows that as many 'infitesimally (sic) small changes' are required to all coexist at the same time, the theory of evolution cannot possibly provide this.

      At least you are enlightened enough not to call irreducible complexity a theory. The assumption here is that evolution proceeds through infinitesimally small changes and that isnt necessarily so. Behe was wrong about the bacterial flagellum for example. I suggest also that you read a book called The Plausibility of Life by W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart which gives a model whereby complexity can arise from variation without the need for successive small changes.


      Truth be told, Evolution does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. The evidence is cobbled together erratically and seems to receive automatic acceptance from many scientists without honest re-examination.

      You clearly do not understand how scientists work and behave. Science almost never grants automatic acceptance and there are plenty of scientists to attack experiments, papers, models etc. It is how scientists work. Creationism on the other hand starts with an answer and retrospectively fits the evidence to their worldview. The scientist who falsifies evolution theory and disproves it is in line for a Nobel Prize, and wouldnt we all like to win one of those.

      If Intelligent Design has no place in the science classroom (and you acknowledge that it surfaces from students anyway) then Evolution should certainly belong in the R.E. department as a 'belief system.'

      Intelligent design creationism arises in the classroom as does six day creationism as does the existence of Heaven, the reality of ghosts, astrology as a way of predicting the future, homeopathy as a medical treatment etc etc etc None of these is science.

      Intelligent design is a way of introducing a religious belief system into science and its ultimate goal is to have the WHOLE curriculum taught from a religious (Christian) viewpoint to the exclusion of all other religions or worldviews. The wedge document was very clear on this point. Belief systems are irrational and without evidence. Science is rational and built on evidence as such evolution is science and not a belief system.

      It certainly does in my own classes and I feel that students deserve to subject all world-views to scrutiny even scientific ones. How that happens may be controversial, but it must happen and this generation cannot be allowed to blindly accept teaching about Evolution in the way that the last few generations largely have.

      I trust, if you are a science teacher that you also ensure that students do not blindly accept teaching about gravity and atoms, given that they are theories. I fear you do your pupils a disservice if you are a science teacher. Teaching about evolution is done in science due to the weight of evidence for it (in the same way that we teach about gravity and atoms). There is already a place to discuss worldviews and to look at religion and science and to consider all the things that you feel should be considered by children. It is the RE class.


      "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts: but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon

    • epeeist epeeist
      Re : No evidence for evolution?
      17 November 2008 - 20:20

      You seem to be doing pretty well on your own, but I thought I would chip in a couple of extras.

      Whenever someone comes up with the "no evidence" myth I usually refer them to http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/, what normally happens is that the creationist (as they usually are) comes back within 10 minutes or so claiming that this is not proof. Sufficient to say that there is enough there to occupy a biologist for several weeks, especially if they then attack the 400+ references that Theobold cites.

      One thing to mention is the Sorites paradox, how many grains of sand do you have to have before it becomes a heap? Similarly, how much "micro evolution" do you need to have before it is evidence of "macro evolution"

      The second one I like is this little gem from Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxLR9hdorI, an extremely nice presentation on common descent.

      As for Behe - In the Kitzmiller-Dover trial he was forced to admit that any definition of science that would admit ID would be broad enough to admit astrology too. All of his examples of "irreducible complexity" have been shown to be false. More details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe#Dover_testimony

      You might also want to Google for "cdesign proponentsists" - this explains the term - http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/missing_link_cd.html

    • woollett woollett
      Thanks to williams and epeeist
      25 November 2008 - 20:41

      I appreciate engaging me with on this issue and regret that I cannot offer it as much time as perhaps you can. I would like to follow up on the books and sites you've indicated-this will take me a while though.
      "OK fine, but what has that to do with evolution? Evolution is an explanation of HOW life has developed and diversified...The theory of evolution has nothing to say on how the universe or life began. Science does not have an accepted explanation for that as yet."
      Is what you're saying here that if it is not about Evolution, then it is not allowed? Scientific study could lead to the idea that life begun in distinct species and that no life form has ever become another species. I appreciate that you do not believe this, but I wish to challenge prior assumptions. Either time and energy have always been around (big bang/crunch idea allowing cycles of Universes) or time, space, energy and matter are finite. I believe the second. Material things, even our planet and sun have their life span. The Big bang cosmology (still widely accepted) would suggest that the Universe had a beginning. Everything in the Universe has a cause, it follows that the Universe does as it too is material. As a chain of infinite regress is mathematically illogical, the burden of proof must lie with the person seeking to explain the origins of our Universe without God. Evolution is part of a larger world view, it cannot be allowed to be distinct from physics, logic and geography. I say geography only because the Cambrian explosion seems to contradict what geographers suggest about the formation of mountain ranges like the Rockies. According to their time scale fossils already in the Earth would have been damaged by the pressure and movement of the formation of the Rockies and so we would not find any/many fossils in tact...unless their timescale and theory is wrong! By not considering the whole picture, fallacies can continue because joined-up thinking is not entertained. Whilst I appreciate that Intelligent Design may not seem to meet the constraints or criteria of the current science curriculum, I feel that any scientific endeavour that is threated by the possibility of another interpretation of the evidence is dubious. Prior assumptions do shape scientists views in a number of ways. For example, the belief that rock strata formed horizontally when in fact they formed vertically in the most part, has historically led to a wrong dating of fossils. Fossils buried in the rock at the same time were thought to have been separated by millions of years. Radioactive dating of Uranium to Lead has taken accurate scientific principles of half-lives, but applied them wrongly. Scientists assume (because it fits a geological and evolutionary model they already accept) that to begin with there was just Uranium in the soil and no Lead. They also make no consideration for the solubility of Uranium which in a flood, for example, would be carried away from the rock. If they are wrong on both these counts, then when they calculate the timescales from the remaining amount of Uranium to Lead they will project milions of years when thousands are probable. The question is, what is the right prior assumption here?
      "From a scientific point of view, we can observe adaptation, breeding and natural selection.
      i.e. the mechanisms for evolution - and this is a theory in crisis? One that even you admit we can observe? - You contradict yourself again. So you accept evolution but call it a theory in crisis. That does not make sense.""
      I can accept natural selection, adaptation and breeding without accepting evolution. For example, we can see all manner of characteristics in breeding animals, but never in this process does the animal become a different species (i.e able to breed with an animal of another species). Long haired wolves survived the ice age because they had the strongest traits in their situation-nature seemingly selected them. Also, in the Cambrian explosion, scientists have suggested that the evolution of the eye led to animals preying on surrounding 'soft' animals. This led to a kind of 'arms race.' Are we to assume that animals suddenly 'willed' themselves to grow shells to 'adapt' to their surroundings? Impossible. Those with hard shells survived-nature selected this as the strongest trait. It continued through reproduction. However, they did not change into different species. How can anything in an intermediate state possess the 'stongest'characteristics? For Evolution to be certain, we would need to observe it. Obviously we cannot observe tiny incremental changes, but is these changes are in fact the mechanism by which all life develops, then we should see the various intermediate stages of these developments today. Animals in various spectrums of development between species. Each of them with the potential to have 'strong' traits which will secure their continued evolution. We should expect to see feathered lizards and Lizards with avian lungs; short-winged lizards on the way to becoming birds. I apologise in advance if this is not your own view of evolution, but it certainly prevails as a popular conception and one reinforced by certain of Richard Dawkins explanations of evolution (perhaps they are wrong).
      ""Belief systems are irrational and without evidence. Science is rational and built on evidence as such evolution is science and not a belief system""
      You seem to suggest that science is immune from this possibility. Your believe in evolution because the evidence and the way you understand that evidence supports it. I believe in Intelligent Design, because all the evidence as I see it supports it. We can debate the evidence, but that does not mean that belief in God is illogical or allogical. Afterall you accept yourself that some evolutionists also believe in a Creator God ( I happen to believe that this is a logical impossibility if you believe the Bible to be true). All the conversation and arguments made have been based on some evidence or logic. I have not resorted to...'just pray and believe,'...or 'you just can't see it because you don't want to believe in God' or anything of that nature.
      Science is indeed rational and built on evidence, but does not have a monopoly in understanding the world. It may produce erroneous theories or models from its enquiries which seem to be the best explanation of things for a time. This is especially true of evolution, because unlike much of science it cannot be subject to repeated and controlled testing and experimentation.
      Yes, you were right, I am an RE teacher.
      Francis Bacon-he was more a philospher than a scientist since the scientific revolution followed him. Science and Philosophy are twins-can they not interact on the same issues?

    • james williams james williams

      (Associate)

      Creationism in science
      8 November 2008 - 09:31

      I research the issue of creationism and evolution in school science. Creationism has no place in science, since, by definition, it is not science. I would no more urge teachers to teach creationism than astrology, phrenology or physiogomy in science(predicting the future by the stars or reading bumps on the head or the shape of people's noses as indicators of their character) than I would require all RE lessons to have science included alongside all discussion of Biblical events or events portrayed in any other Holy text, which states that there is no physical evidence for a God or Gods and that there is no physical evidence for most of the stories in any Holy book from any religion and, as such, they cannot be taken as true or representations of actual events.

      Children may well bring up creationism in science lessons and teachers must deal with that. The easiest solution is to explain that creationism is a matter of belief but science is not about belief but the acceptance of evidence. Beliefs are often irrational and unsubstantiated by evidence. Science is rational and substantiated by evidence. There is overwhelming evidence for evolution (indeed we have a better understanding of the mechanism of evolution than we do for what causes the mass in matter - perhaps the Large Hadron Collider will change this)and therefore we accept evolution as scientifically proven and true. We also accept that things have mass and that gravity operates in a particular way. They are also scientific theories and they are also accepted as scientifically proven and true. The nature of truth and proof in science is something that a lot of science teachers and the majority of the public misunderstands. Proof and truth in science does not mean unchanging or absolute. Truth and proof in science is only provisional.

      The proper place for discussing issues such as creationism and intelligent design creationism is the RE classroom. That provision is already available to all RE teachers and, by definition all children. Science is about the natural world and how it operates. It is not about the supernatural.

    • david rosevear david rosevear
      Re : creationism in science classroom
      9 November 2008 - 16:51

      One must agree with James Williams' truism that beliefs are often irrational and unsubstantiated by evidence. There is no evidence that micro-evolutionary changes such as is observed in the beaks of finches can be extended to the presumed progression from a protozoan to a person. There is no scientific basis for the belief that once upon a time nothing became unstable and exploded into everything, nor that non-living chemicals organised themselves into a functioning and reproducing living cell. Natural selection, like artificial breeding, has limitations, and so is an agent of conservation rather than major change beyond the genes already present.

    • james williams james williams

      (Associate)

      Re : Reply to David Rosevear
      10 November 2008 - 21:52

      Thank you Dr Rosevear for your confirmation about beliefs. Creationism is a belief system and is, as you say, irrational and not based on evidence. I know that you would like evolution to be thought of in the same way, but evolution is science and is not a belief system in the way that religion and faith are.

      Let's be clear here. When a scientist says 'I believe that...' it is not the same as, for example, a Christian saying 'I believe in God.' This is analagous to the vernacular meaning of theory, being just a 'speculative guess' and the scientific meaning where a theory is a well evidenced explanation of a natural phenomenon accepted by the scientific community. The first 'belief' is actually based on prior experience and knowledge and does not invoke a supernatural agency - for example a scientist who says that they believe that an antibiotic chemical extracted from a fungal growth may stop infection is not invoking God to do the work.

      As I state below, evolution is a theory about the diversity and development of life on earth. Something from nothing is about the origin of the universe and is exactly the same as creationism proposes - that something came from nothing - your agent for this is God - unprovable. Science is working on ways in which this could happen and has not yet an answer that the science community in general accepts as an accepted theory though there are a number of hypotheses. I know that every time you trot out the 'sometyhing from nothing' line at your meetings it gets a good laugh, but something from nothing caused by an unprovable supernatural invisible being is just as ridiculous if you look at it logically. It doesn't get a laugh because your audience are 'believers' who, irrationally and with no evidence (as you admit above)just happen to believe in God.

      How the universe began, be it God or a fundamental force that physics has yet to discover that created the singularity from which the current universe originated does not negate the theory of evolution. The origin of the universe and life has no bearing on how that life developed and diversified.

      You also misunderstand evolution if you believe (and I think that you do having heard you speak a few times) that evolution is about progression from simplicity to complexity. It isn't and neither is evolution random and 'non directional'.

      You accept natural selection, a mechanism for evolution but state that the evolution of new species substantially different from the common ancestor is not possible, when you are presented with the actual evidence e.g. the fossils, the DNA evidence etc. you and others in the creationist community simply ignore the evidence. That doesn't make it go away. It doesn't make it wrong, it doesn't cease to exist just because you distribute books and pamphlets saying that there are 'no transitional fossils'. There are - they are all around us now and there are countless specimens in the museums. They exist, they are real.

      Interestingly I think that your own organisation, the creation science movement, at one time categorically denied that natural selection was real (before your time I think) - but I am willing to be corrected here since I don't have the reference to hand nd I'm working from memory.

      I recomend a very good book that outlines how natural selection can give rise to 'complexity' - The Plausibility of Life by W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart. They provide not only evidence but a mechanism whereby microevolutionary changes can indeed generate new species and structures that a gradualistic small incremental step model of evolution fails, in your terms, to do.

      I am fascinated also that creationist organistaions are now using Darwin's 'tree metaphor' to illustrate the diversity of life, with one little twist. They have a forest instead of just one tree. Each tree being a 'created kind' (would you care to define exactly what this is so that I can add it to my collection of created kind definitions). Creationism has adopted 90+% of evolutionary theory due to the fact that the weight of evidence would make the creationist community appear very silly if they didn't adopt it. There are just a couple of differences.

      Creationists accept the mechanism for evolution, natural selection (originally they rejected natural selection)
      Creationists accept the appearance of new species since this has been observed in nature and in the lab (originally they adhered to the 'fixity of species)
      Creationists accept common ancestry for a wide range of organisms provided a they look a little like each other (e.g wolves - dogs) except for humans who 'have' to be special. (whereas at one time each 'kind' - never properly defined to this day - was thought to be unique and not related even if they looked similar)
      Evolutionists accept the 'tree' analogy of Darwin BUT instead of one tree they have a 'forest'.

      In fact there is very little that the creationists do not accept from evolutionary theory - they just don't like the idea of Humans being related to a common ancestor that gave rise to apes and monkeys. And some, yourself included I think, don't like the idea of an earth that is over 10,000 years old.



      "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts: but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon

    • deankatia deankatia
      Re : Darwinism has no place in Science
      17 November 2008 - 22:05

      James Williams states that creationism has no place in science, since, by definition, it is not science. He goes on to say creationism is a matter of belief but science is not about belief but the acceptance of evidence. But what about Darwinism? It too like creationism - is a belief about the past which cannot be put to the test. Surely Darwinism has no place in Science let alone the Science classroom. Consider these quotes;

      1. Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus outside of empirical science but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. (P.Ehrlich Prof. of Biology, Stanford Uni. And L.Birch Prof.of Biology Uni.of Sydney, Nature vol214 1967 p352)

      2. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. (Dr.C.Patterson Senior Palaeontologist British Mus of Nat History quoted in Darwins Enigma by L.Sunderland Master Books USA 1984, p89)

      3. is [biology] then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof. (L.H.Matthews,FRS Introduction to Darwins Origin of Species, J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd 1971)

      Williams makes several references to evidence and even overwhelming evidence without explaining what this supposed evidence is. The only evidence which matters is that which would show that Darwinian evolution could account for the complexity of life we observe in the present. There is no such evidence. Worse there is not even a proposed mechanism for adding new genetic information to the genome. But this should be of no surprise to us if we have even the most basic grasp of fundamental scientific principles. After all such a mechanism would contravene the 2nd law of thermodynamics and the related and arguably more fundamental law of information conservation.

      If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for [your theory] but to collapse in the deepest humiliation.
      (Arthur S. Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1930), p. 74.)

      ..the fateful principle known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which stands today as the principal pillar of classical physics left intact by the march of science, proclaims that the fundamental processes of nature are irreversible. Nature moves only one way
      (Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein (1957), pp. 102-103)

      As I explain to my students; bananas are only ever observed to turn to mush never the other way round

      Show me evidence in fact forget evidence just dream up ANY mechanism by which the information content of the human genome (6 billion bits) might have evolved from 0 bits and I might start considering putting Darwinism on an equal footing with ID.

      I dont want to teach children fairytales. I want to teach them truth. What do we actually know? We know from statistics that the universe has not been around long enough for even a single functional protein to have been formed from amino acids. We know from physics that all systems move from complex to less complex. We know that DNA contains an encyclopaedic amount of information. We can do experiments in the present to show that information can be transferred sometimes with losses but never generating new additional information. And we understand from information theory the reason why we never observe new additional information. Tell me therefore why I should teach children a theory which contradicts so much well established science?

    • AdamRutherford AdamRutherford
      Creationist conditions
      11 November 2008 - 09:28

      Dear Phil,

      I've been a journalist for a few years now and never once come across a situation or person who made such stipulations when preparing to engage in debate. In fact, I've never known a media outlet which would even consider such terms. I understand your point about wanting editorial control. But it does beg several questions: are your arguments not robust enough to withstand critical scrutiny? Can they not be phrased so as to avoid editing that confuses your intended meaning? What are you afraid of?

      Anyway, thank you for considering an interaction, terms notwithstanding. I am going to discuss the possibility of a debate with my editors. Do you have an address at which I can contact you directly.

      Best wishes

      Adam

    • edinburgh4 edinburgh4
      Re : Email
      13 November 2008 - 19:07

      Hi Adam,

      I cannot see a private message option. To avoid spam I don't post my email the web. Please use the contact page on the creation group website to get in touch and I will pick your email address up from there. If you start the message "Phil" others will know it is for me.

      With editorial control the issue is being able to bring our arguments. We tend to find we get asked simple yes/no questions like "do you believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans?". We answer "yes". An evolutionist is then asked to talk for five minutes on "why Adam and Eve should not be taught in biology".

      The problem here is no Creationist has any biological evidence the first humans were called Adam and Eve and none is making the case this should be taught in biology as science. However it is fair to discuss the evidence for and against evolution in science.

      1986 Dawkins debated with Wilder-Smith in the Huxley Oxford Union Debate on creation and evolution. Creationism was almost unknown in the UK and Dawkins expected a landslide victory. However the Creationists won between 36% and 43% of the final vote. After that Dawkins decided never to engage with Creationists in public debate again. He now only debates with Christians who believe in evolution.

      In 1986 non-engagement was a great strategic position for Dawkins. He had more access to the media and the Creationists were tiny in number compared to today and there was no Internet. As Dawkins became the chair for the Public Understanding of Science in 1995 his influence in education and in the media grew.

      While Dawkins will not take part in free debates with Creationists he does send out invitations for them to take part in his pre-recorded shows. Creationists have realised this never works in their favour and decline interviews that do not have fair ground rules.

      This has led to a situation where there is little real dialogue. ECG has about 1,000 videos downloaded each week (excluding those that stream). Among those that listen will be a mixture of students, parents, pastors and teachers and this in turn may have some impact on schools. We would rather express our views very clearly to a few people who can pass them on accurately than give a counter productive message to millions.

      We took part in the student newspaper article because we thought the rules were fair. We were given a list of suggested questions to answer and a word total within which to do it. In our article we raised scientific objections to evolution and the Humanists mostly raised political objections to Creationism.

      There were a few angry letters from Atheists but in general we found people said they were fascinated by the article because they had never heard a Creationist make the case for creation.

      The negative side of both sides not engaging is it creates two very polarised groups very familiar with their own argument. It also creates a third larger group that sees the two sides do no engage and sees this as a reason not to engage with either. Putting the two views side, side meant that it engaged the people in the middle. I think most agreed it was good journalism.

      Phil

    • let the evidence lead let the evidence lead
      Response in brief to James Williams post 9th Nov
      12 November 2008 - 03:37

      Thanks to James Williams for his considered reply. Glad to hear that you agree that some debate should take place, but of course I disagree with you about necessarily involving some religious theme. The science classroom is not the place for that - and thus your appeal for a photo of the designer may be your desire but is not a prerequisite for considering design. What needs to be opened out is the issue of how design can be inferred. It clearly has a major part to play in man-made creations. Can this be inferred in nature? You are right about snowflakes, but it can be shown that the patterns one gets are simply an expression of molecular structure. But design is rightly inferred when machines involving free energy devices abound (see Thaxton and Bradley "The mystery of life's origin" (Lewis and Stanley 1992). Many of the greatest minds in the past have thought that design is the main contender for understanding the world around us. I have already referred to Newton, Faraday, Kepler etc. It is disingenuous to suggest that ID is somehow redefining science - for centuries this was the main paradigm. It is only recently that there has been a new materialism that has crept in and has insited that only paradigm worthy of consideration is methodological naturalism. As Philip Johnson has stated in a review of some years ago (see http://www.ctlibrary.com/bc/1999/sepoct/9b5030a.html) "The main issue is the scientific naturalist claim that the origin and development of life can be explained employing only unintelligent natural causes like chance, chemical laws, and natural selection. ... The neo-Darwinian theory was discovered by a science that was committed a priori to methodological naturalism, the principle that research should always be guided by a commitment to discover strictly natural causes for all phenomena. Most educated people today have been taught to regard the theory as unassailably confirmed by objective scientific testing." It is this presupposition that must be open to careful scrutiny, and the evolutionist is on a very sticky wicket if he insists on a restricted materialistic worldview before looking at the evidence. Reiss I know would not agree with my own concluions but he was very keen on lsitening to where people were at. The very thing that ID and Creation thinkers are accused of doing is in fact the problem with the evolutionist camp. Worldviews have to be openly acknowledged and then a reasoned debate can take place on the evidence.

      As regards books and articles, there are many - some in secular journals such as Abel and Trevors "Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information", Theor Biol Med Model. 2005; 2: 29. and Meyer, S.C., The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic
      categories, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2), 213-239, 2004. And some articles in the ID / Creation Technical journals which are peer reviewed and are fast becoming a major repository of research based on the paradigm where design is not automatically excluded from the lab. A book well worth reading is 'Genetic Entropy and the mystery of the genome' by John Sanford who shows that rather than genetic variety and mutations building new phenotypes, the reality is genetic mutations heading species for mutational meltdown.

      One of the major areas where evolutionary thinking has reached a dead end is in the area of information which cannot be reduced to matter and energy and yet has been shown clearly to be a major issue in how living organisms function.

      And Zeno's paradox James? A bit weak here ... since for hominid / human supposed evolution the dispute is about each of the supposed intermediates. Thus the very first hurdle is not accepted. It is not a case of accepting grudgingly one intermediate and then asking you to get more. There are none that show a clear proof of transition. The burden of proof remains in the evolutionary camp since the fossils we do have fit perfectly well with exactly what one would expect from created original kinds with natural selection. It is the evidence of fossils which has convinced many that the data is not consistent with evolutionary accounts.

      Thanks for your time. I will leave it now to others to pick up on these issues.

      Andy McIntosh, Leeds

    • Oeditor Oeditor
      Re : Not science classrooms after all
      12 November 2008 - 20:51

      "Glad to hear that you agree that some debate should take place, but of course I disagree with you about necessarily involving some religious theme. The science classroom is not the place for that..." A.M.

      So even Prof. McIntosh agrees that religion - and creationism is nothing if not religion - should be kept out of the science classroom. No wonder, since Leeds University and Leicester University have considered running remedial lectures for first year students who might have absorbed creationism. http://tinyurl.com/6apaq6

      Regardless of the rights and wrongs of discussing such a matter as "intelligent design/creation science" at university, school classrooms are not the place to waste time dissecting oddball theories. The TV series "Heretics" discussed a number of such. My favourite was Prof. Eric Laithwaite with his ideas about magnetism and gyroscopes but such matters are not for school - best reserved for experts or entertainment.
      EDITED - expanded slightly.

    • marvin1 marvin1
      Prof Macintosh
      12 November 2008 - 19:53

      Prof Macintosh wants to make out that it is a matter of 2 competing paradigms/worldviews. This is classic misdirection. It is not a matter of materialism v non-materialism. It would be perfectly possible for a materialist to conclude that a particular thing, one of the hominid species say, is best explained by an unknown designer. And conversely it is perfect possible (and happens all the time) for a non-materialist (the Catholic biologist Ken Miller, for example) to conclude the best explanation is natural selection. It is a matter of examining the evidence and reaching a reasoned conclusion. Your particular 'worldview' need have nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, I do find that certain worldviews, usually fundamentalist theistic ones, tend to deter proper examination of the evidence and to skew peoples' reasoning ability.

    • epeeist epeeist
      Response to Prof. McIntosh.
      12 November 2008 - 09:47

      "What needs to be opened out is the issue of how design can be inferred."

      One of the chief methods for raising hypotheses is abduction. If you want to infer a designer then this should be perfectly adequate.

      Of course once you have your hypothesis then you are going to have to compare it with other hypotheses in the same area. While Duhem shows that theories are in general under-determined it does not mean that all theories are created equal. Does your hypothesis of a designer have the same explanatory power as the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution? Does it make testable predictions in the same way as the theory of evolution does (Tiktaalik comes to mind here). Which is the most parsimonious, a simple selection process or a designer capable of not only producing the universe but influencing every quantum mechanical interaction. Is it self-consistent and consistent with other theories, for example geology and the age of the earth, cosmology and the age of the universe. Above all, is it falsifiable?

      "Many of the greatest minds in the past have thought that design is the main contender for understanding the world around us. I have already referred to Newton, Faraday, Kepler etc. It is disingenuous to suggest that ID is somehow redefining science - for centuries this was the main paradigm."

      Argumentum ad antiquitatem and argumentum ad verecundiam. It would be quite easy to come up with a list of great minds who have either no belief or a belief in something else than a Christian god, but it would not add any weight to the argument.

      And is he saying that the work of Hempel, Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, Feyeraband etc. can be discounted?

      'It is only recently that there has been a new materialism that has crept in and has insited that only paradigm worthy of consideration is methodological naturalism. As Philip Johnson has stated in a review of some years ago (see http://www.ctlibrary.com/bc/1999/sepoct/9b5030a.html) "The main issue is the scientific naturalist claim that the origin and development of life can be explained employing only unintelligent natural causes like chance, chemical laws, and natural selection. ... The neo-Darwinian theory was discovered by a science that was committed a priori to methodological naturalism, the principle that research should always be guided by a commitment to discover strictly natural causes for all phenomena.'

      This is equivocation. Both writers confuse methodological and metaphysical naturalism.

      "It is this presupposition that must be open to careful scrutiny, and the evolutionist is on a very sticky wicket if he insists on a restricted materialistic worldview before looking at the evidence."

      The theory of evolution is 150 years old. Does Prof. McIntosh honestly believe that nobody has been looking at the evidence in all this time? Does he really believe that generations of biologists have simply making things up. And if he wants to put things on an equal footing, then what actual evidence is there for design and a designer?

      "The burden of proof remains in the evolutionary camp since the fossils we do have fit perfectly well with exactly what one would expect from created original kinds with natural selection. It is the evidence of fossils which has convinced many that the data is not consistent with evolutionary accounts."

      No, the burden of proof lies with the proponents of ID and creationism, they wish to add entities to the debate. It is up to them to demonstrate the existence of such entities. Presumably they would not wish to cast doubt on the authority of a 14th century Franciscan friar.

      As for fossils providing evidence of descent, perhaps it might be as well to look at the genetic data as well and to see whether there is any consilience between the two, for example ERV fragments in both chimpanzee and human DNA. What are the probabilities of multiple instances of fragments been present in the same places in both genomes?

    • TiS TiS
      Interviews.....
      11 November 2008 - 16:20

      On behalf of Prof McIntosh, Truth in Science wishes to make it clear that it received an email in May from Andrew Fox, Producer/Director for Teachers TV, asking only for contact with science teachers who would be willing to discuss why creationism and/or intelligent design should be taught in science lessons. We forwarded his request and left it to individual teachers to respond.

    • edinburgh4 edinburgh4
      Why Use Video?
      9 November 2008 - 15:25

      When we started Edinburgh Creation Group we took the decision to video all our talks. This means that people are free to listen to our arguments firsthand.

      Psiloiordinary rightly says the Prof Andy McIntosh argues that bird lungs present a major problem for evolution. You can hear his argument in full here (10 mins the video is in the right place) and then judge for yourself if his point is erroneous or displays a shallow understanding of biology:

      Bird Lungs and Evolution

      Dawkins says: Failure to see how something could have evolved is simply failure of the imagination not failure of science.

      If this is the case then I would argue that being able to explain how something could have evolved is triumph of the imagination and not a triumph of science.

      Creationists make the point that detailed fish fossils are not formed by gradual burial caused by normal sedimentation. For two reasons 1) Flesh that falls to the bottom of the ocean gets scavenged. 2) Dead fish tend to float.

      The detail in many fossils shows they were formed quickly e.g. fish fossilised in the act of eating other fish, fossil jellyfish that have no bone structure and fossils of sea creatures fossilised in the act of giving birth.



      The creationist's point about fossils is they demonstrate rapid deposition. This could be from a global flood, a local flood, a landslide. But it is unlikely to be from an animal dying of natural causes and waiting for months on the ocean floor to get buried.

      Creationists have both religious beliefs and scientific opinions. Though I believe that Jesus is the creator I do not believe that this should be taught as biology. My deduction about the identity of the creator comes from outside biology so it does not belong in it. However the observation that bird lungs defy gradualistic evolution does belong in biology because it is an evidence based observation.

      Darwin said: 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' (On the Origin of Species)

      Equally it would be wrong to insist that science says the earth is less than 6000 years old. However there is plenty of scientific evidence that is consistent with an earth less than millions of years old and defies an earth billions of years old this evidence can be presented in physics.

      Evidence for a Young Earth

      If you believe that creationists do not present evidence please compare Dr Marc Surtees talk about the evolution of birds with the film about penguin evolution on this site.

    • pritchaj pritchaj
      Re : Darwin and the evolution of the eye
      11 November 2008 - 14:09

      I get tired of the selective use of this quote from chapter 6 of the Origin of Species: Darwin did indeed say 'If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.'

      but the very next sentence says:

      'Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.'

      and the next few pages document the evidence avaiable in 1859 to support this contention. It is true that complexity cannot arise by chance mutation, but the propcess of evolution is random mutation (variation) AND non-random differential survival. Darwin was well aware of this.

    • edinburgh4 edinburgh4
      Creationism and Interviews
      10 November 2008 - 16:56

      Dear Adam,

      Thanks for your comment. I cannot answer for Andy but I will try to fill you in on the general conditions under which Creationists will engage in media debate.

      In the past we have found it of little benefit to take part in a discussion where our views are first edited by a person who opposes them. This is not cowardliness but just commonsense. If you would like Andy to appear in a feature you will probably need to give him editorial control of how his words are used.

      As a creation group we were asked to take part in a feature in the Edinburgh University student newspaper. We gave the following conditions:


      1. That we should be given a set amount of space to express our views.


      2. Our words should not be edited. However if balance is needed an equal amount of space should be given to the Humanist Society or other opposing group to defend evolution or attack Creationism.


      3. Both articles should have the same deadline for submission.


      The Student Newspaper agreed to these terms and students were fascinated by the debate. So I place the gauntlet back down for you. If you are willing to let Andy express his views under these conditions I think (but cannot guarantee) you will get a different answer.

      The length of video/article and date of submission should be made public in advance. So it is plain there is no editing and there is no advantage from only one side knowing what the other has said. And also so there is no pulling of the whole feature at the last moment when much work has gone into it.

      People can respond to arguments made by comments or a second round of videos or articles made under the same conditions.

      It may take a while to organise but I am sure that you will not have a problem getting Andy or another speaker under these conditions. We tend to book Andy six months in advance as a speaker because he is very busy working as a scientist. If Andy is busy I would recommend asking Dr Arthur Jones, I believe he is writing a book on the validity of assuming Atheism in science education.

      Phil

    • Katjo Katjo
      Science shouldn't start with the answer
      10 November 2008 - 13:48

      Creationism and ID start with the premise that a god exists, and that the bible is literally true, then all other facts have to be made to fit this idea. For creationists no other possibility exists - this is not science, it is theology.

      The mythology of the christian creationists' god is just one among a vast number of mythologies, and to the non-theist there is no reason why any one should be preferred over any other - they are all equally nonsensical, and there is no more evidence for the truth of any of them over any other. The evidence for the christian god seems to be entirely the bible - a highly contradictory collection of personal views written by bronze-age and iron-age men to support their particular agendas, and which was censored and modified by later men to fit their own world views. Christians will cite 'personal experience' as evidence, but humans and the human brain are notoriously unreliable, you cannot expect others to make decisions based on your personal experience. I have yet to see any evidence of a 'miracle' that couldn't be explained in a more rational manner, and the Templeton Foundation showed in a double-blind test that prayer has no effect - except where people knew they were being prayed for - when their recovery from surgery took longer and was beset with more complications. People who believe in extraordinary ideas should give extraordinary proofs - the bible is not proof of any kind.

      Creationists persist in trotting out the names of scientists from previous ages who still discovered things despite being creationists - this is irrelevant, there was no alternative to them, would they still be creationists if they were alive today? I doubt it. How much more quickly would geology and biology developed in earlier centuries if creationism hadn't been the only model for the universe?

      I don't have a problem with people believing this kind of thing, but they should not be allowed to decide policy, education, laws or morals for others based on their unprovable beliefs. This is the 21st century, not the 14th, creationism is no more science than astrology or tea-cup reading are. It is completely unacceptable for creationism to be taught in the science classroom, any science teacher should be able to give a clear refutation of any creationist ideas should any pupil raise them in the lesson. It is important for people to have a clear understanding of evolution for them to be better able to recognise and counter the nonsense spouted by creationists.

    • epeeist epeeist
      Creationism is not science
      10 November 2008 - 13:35

      As was shown in the Scopes and Kitzmiller-Dover trials creationism and its cousin in a fancy dress "Intelligent Design" are not science. Or if they are science they use a definition so broad in scope it would also admit astrology. This Michael Behe was forced to admit in the latter trial.

      The claims of creationism are not falsifiable. Any demonstration of why a particular claim is ludicrous, such as light from distant galaxies travelling from much further away than 6000 light years, is immediately met by an ad hoc add on to get around the difficulty.

      It doesn't help that these ad hoc conjectures are often inconsistent or only tackle one topic. For example the creationist claim that carbon dating is inaccurate neglects other dating methods such as dendrochronology, varves, ice cores, coral growth etc. It also fails to cope with the consilience between them.

      In the end the number of these auxiliary hypotheses and their inconsistencies renders creationism worthless.

    • grogen99 grogen99
      Let's set some things
      10 November 2008 - 12:47

      Let's set some things straight here. The earth is 4.5-4.6 billion years old, this is a fact. There is not one single geochronologist on the earth who thinks that it is less than 10,000 years old. If anyone thinks that they know better than the people whose job it is to determine this then I suggest that they become a fully qualified geochronologist and show the current experts where they are going wrong. However until such a time we have no choice but to accept what they all say.
      Secondly, forget every other piece of evidence, the fossil record etc, DNA analysis (the same that could be used in a court case) shows that descent from a common ancestor is undoubtedly true. Whether this occurred by genetic drift, Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection, one of the other suggested mechanisms, or one that is yet to be discovered, is certainly an interesting debate. However to pretend that the experts who work in relevant fields disagree about the notion of common descent is just disingenuous.
      As for this nonsense about evolution being 'atheistic philosophy', many of the strongest proponents of evolution (and so also opponents of intelligent design and creationism) are religious themselves; Ken Miller, Francis Collins, Francisco Ayala, Simon Conway Morris and Joan Roughgarden among others. Is gravity an atheistic philosophy as we can now explain the way in which planets stay in their orbits without invoking supernatural causation?

    • AdamRutherford AdamRutherford
      Dear Professor
      10 November 2008 - 12:28

      Dear Professor Macintosh,
      I'm Adam Rutherford. That's me in the video above. This short interview was associated with a film that we made for teachers TV:
      http://www.teachers.tv/video/29680

      You were invited to contribute to this film and to engage in a proper conversation about your organisations views. But you declined to appear, as in fact did all organisations that harbour creationist views. This was a shame, and served to portray creationists as cowardly. Here you are on this notice board though, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to ask you directly why you did not want to participate.

      Best wishes

      Adam

    • M Hill M Hill
      Uncertainty, Abiogenesis and Occam's Razor
      10 November 2008 - 09:52

      Just because there is no certainty in the various possible scenarios for abiogenesis doesn't mean that we need to invoke an Invisible Sky Fairy to create life. In fact, since there are several plausible means for the generation of the first life, to be properly parsimonious (i.e. use "Occam's Razor"), we necessarily have to lean towards the explanations which don't invoke the additional complication of an intelligent creative agent.

      I fail to be impressed by the attempts at arguments from authority made by creationists. Having a PhD doesn't make you any more of an expert outside of your own field than any other reasonably well-educated person - I should know, I've got one. It's very telling that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the supposed "experts" touted by creationist organisations are nothing of the sort, despite feeble attempts to link aero engineering with biological flight evolution.

      The other lie touted by the creationists is that we should "teach the controversy". Among actual experts (i.e. scientists who actually work in the right fields) there is no controversy. Until they can show that their fantasies are being deliberately suppressed from the peer reviewed literature, they should be treated the same as any other fringe hypothesis - that is, allowed to investigate and publish their evidence, but not taught in school until the scientific community's consensus changes.

    • Russell Adams Russell Adams
      Darwinism and Faith
      10 November 2008 - 07:20

      The arguments about the teaching of creationism continue to rage. It remains a controversial topic. But the question has to be asked Why is this? There is obviously a religious aspect and this is the point that Michael Reiss attempted to make. As far as I could tell, Professor Reiss was not advocating the teaching on creationism in science classes. He is not a creationist. He was recommending that teachers dealt sensitively with pupils religious convictions.

      But there also must be a scientific aspect to the controversy since Darwinism cannot answer lifes biggest questions. By definition, the hypothesis can say nothing about the origin of life itself. The Miller experiments still referred to in the textbooks, do not provide convincing answers as the hard evidence suggests that the early earth had an oxidising atmosphere. Darwinism can say nothing about the origin of biological information that is carried on DNA and RNA.

      Nobody doubts that the earliest fossils indicate that photosynthetic life was fully functional shortly after (in geological terms) the earths crust cooled for the earth to be hospitable to life. Darwinism has no answer to the emergence of such complex biochemistry. The school textbooks are filled with peppered moths and Darwins finches, very powerful examples of natural variation within species, very poor examples of evolution.

      There is no doubt that the Darwinian hypothesis has the power of explanation but there is a great deal that has to be believed without any hard scientific evidence. Anyone with a measure of religious conviction will recognise this. Presumably a small percentage of science teachers fulfil this criterion.

    • david J M russell david J M russell
      Mumbo jumbo
      10 November 2008 - 05:41

      Creationist stories are pure and simple mumbo-jumbo;opinions based on desperate and blind faith, and bronze age superstitious dogma. Such ideas should have been made obsolete decades ago but still, unfortunatley, find space in the minds of the uneducated and deluded. As teachers, it is our role to address such issues and educate the uneducated - It's a sorry state we are in if even a significant proportion of our educators are themselves uneducated and/or deluded. It is time to move on now and accept the world for what is really is, not what we want it to be.

    • psiloiordinary psiloiordinary
      Truth In Science and the truth
      9 November 2008 - 19:01


      Prof McIntosh uses his scientific credentials to make assertions to people who know no better like the three listed above as being unchallengable facts that "scientists" are deliberately hiding form the public.

      Such insinuations of a worldwide atheist/humanist conspiracy are made in all seriousness.

      Here are a few quotes from Prof McIntosh and the TiS which belies their deliberately softly, softly approach on this thread;


      "TIS seeks to encourage scientists to present the truth fairly and to expose as charlatans those who deliberately mislead. "

      Perhaps Prof Mcintosh can explain what he means by "those who deliberately mislead"?

      Here is the original wording of the advert for the record.

      "TRUTH IN SCIENCE
      It is a concern to many when science is wrongly taught in our schools, colleges and universities. In particular, macroevolution is taught as though it were a proven and unchallengeable fact. For our children and grandchildren, God is thus robbed of His glory. Young people are encouraged into a way of thinking that leads to atheism, hedonism, despair and moral bankruptcy. Belief in a Creator is often ridiculed and anyone advocating such a view is portrayed as either foolish or nave.
      In reality evolutionary claims often constitute speculative beliefs about the past and use explanations that are contrary to the spirit of empirical science. For example, human origins are typically presented with simplistic diagrams supposedly showing the progression from ape-like ancestors to modern man. We believe this amounts to deception. Problems with evolutionary theory are well documented but many scientists seldom acknowledge this, choosing rather to gloss over them. This matters because a false view robs us of our sense of value and purpose before a Sovereign Creator God.
      If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do? Psalm 11:3
      To respond to this, a group of professional and business people are meeting under the heading TRUTH IN SCIENCE [TIS]. As citizens with a concern for the family we seek to encourage Christians to be confident that Gods spoken command in space-time history resulted in supra-natural creation. Non-believers must be challenged in such a way that they can no longer hide behind the delusion that science has disproved the existence of God. TIS seeks to encourage scientists to present the truth fairly and to expose as charlatans those who deliberately mislead. Our aim is to compliment the work of existing Creation groups by targeting education in particular.
      Do you share this vision? We believe that as children of the Lord Jesus Christ, bought at the price of His own shed blood, we cannot sit back and allow this situation to continue unchallenged. Do you wish to see our children being taught the truth rather than having their moral and spiritual lives undermined? Although TIS have ways and means in mind, at this early stage we are flexible about the best approach. If finance is made available have you the time and ability and commitment to be the driving force, co-operating with us, in this venture to effect the education of young people in our land. If so, we wish to hear from you.
      Steve Layfield, Professor Andy McIntosh, Willis B Metcalfe, John Perfect, Rev Maurice Roberts.
      Our Council of Reference includes the following: Dr John Blanchard; Dr Stuart Burgess; Gerard A Crispin; Prof. Derek Linkens; Prof. Richard Porter; Dr Stephen Taylor;
      Please reply to TIS by email at applications@TruthinScience.org.uk"

      From this we can see why TiS are prepared to jump through mental hoops. They think that people's souls are at risk from the influence of evolutionary theory.


      More quotes to follow shortly.

      Regards,

      Psi

    • psiloiordinary psiloiordinary
      Prof McIntosh speaks;
      9 November 2008 - 19:19

      Here is a comment on the Bible and science - it is clear which comes first in his mind;

      "But what we have revealed in the Bible, where it touches on astronomy, where it touches on science, where it touches on geology, like the flood and many other things which are recorded in the Bible, where it touches on science, we need to stand by it. Not all truth is possible to understand by science and not all science is true. That's an important point because if you've got a scientist with all - you can have so many letters after your name, I don't know how many letters he may have after his name - but if he says something which is totally different to what the Bible says, you know which one's true!"

      So there you go folks - he has his conclusion before he looks at the evidence - the bible is inerrant!

      - - -

      Here is some advice for some fellow scientists from him - stop what you are doing and worship christ instead;

      "Christ the judge

      We know Christ will judge the world finally, because he has already done it once at the great Flood in the time of Noah which, as Genesis records, covered all the world.

      The rocks testify to the enormous upheavals caused by the Flood and its aftermath. The massive sedimentary rock formations which cover 75% of the earths surface, together with the fossils they contain, provide powerful testimony not of evolution as many suppose, but of Gods judgement in the past.

      Rather than searching for transitional fossils (missing links) which the rocks will never show, we should stand in awe at the judgement of God, which swept men and creatures to their deaths, as described in Genesis 6-9.

      This really happened, and is referred to in no uncertain terms by the Saviour himself in Matthew 24:37-39. But there is still judgement to come.

      As God brought the watery catastrophe some 4,500 years ago so, declares Peter, the heavens and the earth which now exist, are kept in store by the same word, reserved for fire until the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:7).

      Christ will be the final judge on that last day, and only those who have believed in him as the Creator, Saviour and Judge will be saved.

      Your whole future hangs on Christ."
      (Evangelical Times)

      - - -

      The BBC are in on the conspiracy as well;
      "While we are delighted that many are saved apart from a belief in the historicity of Genesis, it will soon become an issue with those who are saved. Young people are bombarded by evolution at school, while the media are pushing it in no uncertain terms.

      Even some evolutionists sounded warnings about the ridiculous fairy-tale acting in Walking with cavemen the BBCs multi-million pound series that was little more than science fiction and offered not a shred of evidence to support its claims."
      (Evangelical Times)

      - - -

      Physics and Chemistry are all wrong too! - Why? The Bible comes first;

      "The age of the earth

      Many professing Bible-believers join with unbelievers in dismissing the straightforward historical view of Genesis, on the basis of the so-called certainties of scientific dating methods. What should be our attitude?

      Firstly, of course, Scripture should always come first, not man-made scientific theories. Secondly, however, the dating schemes that appear to militate against a young creation are, in fact, based on unproved assumptions. "

      Lot's more to follow if requested.

      Regards,

      Psi

    • james williams james williams

      (Associate)

      Response in brief to Andy McIntosh's latest post
      9 November 2008 - 16:26

      "My view and the view of us all in Truth in Science is in agreement with Michael Reiss"

      At last some sense. So you agree that creationism is not science that evolution is the correct explanation for the development and diversity of life on Earth.

      Since those are Micheal Reiss's views.

      No that isn't what you mean is it. You want the discussion of ID in science classes where Michael states that this is not a misconception but a 'worldview' I have to disagree with him on this point. It is a scientific misconception. Just like heavier things fall faster than lighter things. Acceptance of evolution does not negate a belief in a personal God or Gods.

      "...a significant minority (31%) of teachers, that there should be proper discussion of the evidence itself in the classrooms and lecture rooms of our educational institutions."

      Which can and does take place in the RE classrooms in schools (look at the year 9 scheme of work for Religious Education and there is a whole unit of work here for use in all state and independent schools).

      Actually there is no debate here is there? All the issues that TiS and you wish to be discussed in schools can already be discussed in schools. So why the insistence that it must take place in science? As a science teacher I would discuss such issues with RE students in RE classes (and don't forget that all state schools must have religious education on offer for all pupils up to year 9 and only then is it optional).

      Interesting that fewer than 1 in 5 science teachers (18%) feel the same way about discussing it in science.

      Why didn't the 'Truth in Science' news blog record the resuilt that fewer than 1 in 5 science teachers support your aims? I guess that's not as dranatic as 31% of all 'teachers' polled - which would include non-teachers, non-scientists, primary teachers of all specialisms including perhaps science those from faith schools, perhaps non faith schools etc. We have little to no data about the survey and how representative it is of the views of teachers as a whole. As I understand it the 1000+ replies came from a mail-out of over 10,000 'teachers' so about a 10% reply rate. Would you accept this methodology and return rate of survey as academically rigorous? Say for someone doing academic reserach? I wouldn't. It is a popular poll and no more. These things are easily crashed or twisted to whatever you want it to be. e.g. see some of the calls on the Pharyngula blog run by PZ Myers who regularly gets his readers to crash such polls in the USA and elsewhere. I realise that in stating this I am also arguing against the facts that the overwhelming majority of science teachers reject creationism and intelligent design in science lessons. I prefer to wait for th rigorous results of work currently going on by doctoral students in the UK (there are 3 I personally know about - if anyone knows of any other work I'd love to hear about it).

    • let the evidence lead let the evidence lead
      Nullius in verba - again
      9 November 2008 - 16:00

      The important issue is following where the evidence leads. Concerning the questions of 'oeditor', in a science lesson, what a person's Christian convictions are should not be any more relevant than whether a teacher holds to atheistic humanism as their philosophy of life - as long as the teaching is based on evidence and not dogma. It is well known and not hidden where my convictions lie, and so were the convictions known of much greater scientists - Maxwell, Boyle, Faraday, but also Darwin, Huxley, Einstein and Crick. One does not judge science by the worldview of those experimenting or researching. One judges it by the evidence and whether it fits the suggested explanations. When it comes to the research lab, lecture hall, tutorial or classroom it is the Royal Society motto 'Nullius in verba' which should be followed. That the Royal Society themselves did not do this over the matter that Michael Reiss legitimately raised, is a great loss to their reputation. If we move from this in Schools and Universities, it will lead to tyranny.

      Though 'Psiloiordinary' has chosen to dismiss the Truth in Science materials, let it be said that many have found the packs extremely helpful in at last giving a proper and balanced perspective on the actual scientific facts, rather than being pushed to believe in evolutionary dogma without careful discussion of the evidence first. It is as dangerous to push an evolutionary interpretation without careful scrutiny as to push a religious belief with pupils by misusing the science classroom.

      The proper approach should be 'On the word of no one', that is not believing because someone says it, whether it be an archbishop or the high priest of the prevailing evolutionary paradigm. Thus pupils and students should be allowed to question the traditional interpretations given by the dominant thinking of the day, whether it be the design thesis or an evolutionary approach.

      I would encourage teachers on this forum to look for instance at the article on the TiS web site : http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/view/264/63/ (TiS blog 28th March 2008) where the so called 'transitionary' fossils of Prothero in the New Scientist (27th Feb 2008) are carefully analysed and shown by careful scrutiny to be no transitions at all. I repeat my pseudonym 'let the evidence lead'. Carefully hear the other side to the scientific debate before deciding. My view and the view of us all in Truth in Science is in agreement with Michael Reiss and clearly a significant minority (31%) of teachers, that there should be proper discussion of the evidence itself in the classrooms and lecture rooms of our educational institutions.

      Andy McIntosh, Leeds

    • james williams james williams

      (Associate)

      A response to Nullius in Verba
      9 November 2008 - 15:54

      I have looked in detail at the Truth in Science (TiS) website and DVDs and supporting material. It concerns me that an organisation should link to such pseudoscientific websites such as those promoting Baraminology study of the created kinds and then proclaim to be only interested in rational discussion of scientific evidence and that it is non religious. That aside, much of the material on the DVDs is mere propaganda from the discovery institute in America.

      I do agree that the issue is about how scientific thought and debate should be encouraged. That is the premise behind the way science should be taught in schools today How Science Works. I assume that you wish to change the definition of science to include the supernatural (so that intelligent design can be discussed) and that you would like science included that is not accepted by the general scientific community that does not have a body of peer reviewed academic research behind it and that you wish intelligent deign creationism to jump straight into the school science curriculum without any resistance simply because you think its a good idea. I am also assuming that unlike in America where intelligent design is a device for introducing religion into schools by the backdoor, intelligent design in the UK is different even though it uses the American model.

      What other science gets into the school curriculum in this way? I recall cold water fusion a big fuss, apparently based on good science, not replicated by science, discredited, but some proper scientists with science PhDs proposed it. Why didnt we just jump that straight into the science curriculum? Why are we not still teaching it? There is a minority of bona fide scientists who still believe in it so surely it deserves to be on the school curriculum along with homeopathy, astrology and physiognomy all of which lay claim to being scientific.

      "There is no fear in scientific debate from our side.

      OK so how many academic papers have been submitted to peer review in mainstream academic science journals and, if they are simply being rejected out of hand, why not publish the titles and abstracts of the papers and the dismissive referee comments? That way, with open declaration, any claim of prejudice could be backed by evidence. What about papers written that have only been accepted with changes to them that exclude reference to intelligent design publish the correspondence that shows the deficiency of the peer review system that IDers keep telling us that is so prejudiced against publication? I have had papers criticising creationism and intelligent design rejected for publication. I dont cry foul and claim bias I look at my work critically and try to do better.

      let the fossils be lined up to prove the origin of man to be from some common ancestor to apes and man. Any teacher being fair with the evidence will know that one cannot do this,

      There are numerous reconstructions of human lineage there are hundreds if not thousands of published papers on human evolution. Go to the museums and see the fossils and reconstructions.

      But of course you are really posing a Zenos paradox problem here.

      Fossilisation is a very rare event. Fossilisation of land based animals including humans is a very rare event. Populations of humans and their early ancestors were very much smaller than today making preservation a very rare event. It is amazing that we have as much as we have.

      The thing is, as our evidence base increases so does our understanding of human evolution. This means that we are constantly revising our lineages and changing the line-up to put it simply.

      The creationists who have a fixed view of how and when humans arrived state that this shows how bankrupt our ideas are and how we cannot show a definitive line-up that does not change.

      In Zenos paradox, I can mathematically prove that it is impossible to walk from one side of the room to another. First walk half the distance, then half again and half again and so on ad infinitum. How does this apply to the fossils? Well the creationist states that they wish to see the in between form of two fossils, lets call them A and E. I produce such an intermediary form, C and the creationist states now that my problem has increased since I know have to go out and find fossils B and D. so instead of one gap between A and D I now have two further gaps. Even if I find B and D they will then say that my problems are much bigger since I now have to find the one before B and after, the one before D and after. And so on it goes.

      It also makes an assumption that evolution always progresses in small incremental steps and it does not. Simply saying that you cannot produce a full evolutionary lineage does not make the existence of that lineage false. Simply dismissing an existing lineage by pointing at the gaps does not make the lineage false.

      My challenge to the intelligent designer is to show me an original undoctored photograph of the designer shaking hands with say Michael Behe or William Dembski or Professor McIntosh. I also want the designer to design a new form of life that does not and has never existed and that does not use DNA in the form known to us at present or that is based on a non carbon element, say silica, to prove that he/she/it is actually the designer. But of course all intelligent designers know that they cannot do this, so the so-called evidence of design on its own does not prove the intelligent design belief system to borrow from your own post.

      Interestingly a large number of IDers accept common descent for humans and other life on earth, e.g. Michael Behe. I assume that you do not and as such are at odds with many within the intelligent design community?

      There is often the appearance of design where there is none e.g. snowflakes. I can see shapes in clouds - but they are not designed. Scientists often use the language of design in their descriptions of things - unintentionally. That does not prove design. As a geologist I remember looking at crystal structure and marvelling at the symmetry but I didn't jump to the conclusion that it was designed when I first looked at the science of crystallography - even though it was at that time inexplicable to me. I studied, I looked I tried to understand how these structures came about. Crystals aren't designed - unless of course you are into crystal therapy and crystal energy as a way of healing - perhaps that should be on the science curriculum come to think of it!

    • james williams james williams

      (Associate)

      A reply to Phil - is Athesim Scientific?
      9 November 2008 - 15:07

      Theres a lot to discuss here from Phils post
      Is Atheism scientific?

      Evolution has nothing to say on the origin of life. It is a theory that explains the development and diversity of life.
      What if God created the universe and life but that this was the only intervention and from the very pico/milli/microsecond of creation naturalistic processes took over? Many scientists hold to that view and very easily and comfortably reconcile a belief in God (which is irrational as there is no scientific evidence for the existence of a supernatural omnipotent being) and the theory of evolution as applied to the cosmos and life?
      The rest of the psot has little to do with whether or not atheism is or is not scientific and I fail to see the point of that statement.
      truth should be important in both science and RE
      Yes, but they are two different things. Scientific truth is not the same as truth as a concept in Law or probably theology (I am not a theologian so cannot confirm this with any authority). Biblical truth is unchanging scientific truth can, and does, change. The statement by edinburgh4 is far too simplistic. In science we talk about truth in the scientific sense.
      the idea that unintelligent design (naturalism) can be falsified while at the same time intelligent design cannot is logically untenability (sic) and morally dubious.
      Hmm. Interesting. Quite a mix here. Naturalism is a philosophical standpoint and science is naturalistic there is a subtle difference. One may lead to the other, but when we are looking at explanations of natural phenomena which is the definition of science then it is about finding naturalistic explanations.
      As for falsification there are numerous ways in which evolution as a scientific theory can be falsified. E.g. find me fossils of modern humans in the Cambrian rocks. What falsification is there for intelligent design? There are parts of intelligent design which can and have been falsified e.g. Michael Behe once claimed that in order to falsify intelligent design all we had to do was show that the bacterial flagellum could have come about by natural selection and, he stated If that happened, intelligent design, as I understand it, would be knocked out of the water. I certainly dont expect it to happen (http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/michael-behe-on-falsification/) well we know have shown that the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex and could have come about by natural selection. So there you have it, intelligent design according to Behe is not correct and the theory has been falsified. But lets be generous since intelligent design creationists are sticking to their guns. How do you falsify a theory which has at its heart an unknown designer. The whole theory rests on the fact that something cannot be explained and resorts to this unknown designer. The falsification would have to be that you must explain everything that is today and has been and ever will be unknown. That is indeed logically untenable and morally dubious. At one time we couldnt explain cancer. So should we have stopped and said ah people are designed to die of this disease so now that we know that lets not waste money on research into finding a natural cause since it is clearly the will of the designer as a mechanism of controlling populations or killing off sinners.
      The laws of gravity, electromagnetism etc were discovered by creationists
      So what? The whole of science and scientific endeavour was about proclaiming the glory of God and confirming his place as the one true God. That does not make the theory of evolution wrong just because it seemingly goes against God. We may as well discard any theory which explains something that previously was an act of God so there goes the theory of plate tectonics since that explains earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and out with much of the science meteorology, since we now know that Thunder is not God moving the furniture around in heaven (as my Grandmother said yes I know she didnt actually believe it, but a thousand years ago God as the cause of thunder and lightening would be a good explanation).

      Many theories developed today are developed by Christian believers.

      Newton was also an alchemist thoroughly unpleasant person, a rogue and someone who sought to destroy the career of another scientist. So why not write that the Laws of gravity were described by an alchemist therefore alchemy should be a science taught in schools today?

    • Cato0111 Cato0111
      Creationism AND Evolution
      9 November 2008 - 14:16

      1: The above thread contains numerous excellent points; the main one I'd like to focus on is that 'we' - spiritual leaders, scientists, society and of course the teaching profession (a) do not possess absolute proof (and quite possibly never will) and (b) can and should embrace a diversity of different views and interpretations. Therefore, if one can accept this perspective, there really is no need for calls for people to leave the profession or for 're-education'. One can not help thinking of a certain deceased dictator, on whom I believe the beeb is about to run a documentary.

      2: Let us look at this from a 360 perspective:

      Do we really understand and know all that is necessary about the origin of the universe and of life? We do know that there was a super continent, Panagea, then two smaller ones, including the southern Gondwana. We're still not sure, but seem fairly confident that man started off in Africa, the Great Rift valley to be precise; however finds, particularly in other Gondwana loci continue to puzzle us. We do know that latest research suggests life on earth dates from approx. 450 million years ago. Possibly single celled organisms around hot springs We do know that Earth's history includes floods of 'Biblical' proportions. We're reasonably confident Earth's geology and climate has played major and ongoing part. Does any of this contradict Genesis? I suggest very definitely not, yet neither does any of this absolutely and incontrovertibly prove and verify it.

      Several key 'theosophical' issues have yet to be properly addressed and resolved:

      Let us assume the Bible's creation account is in fact substantively correct. Given that all our scientific research seems to indicate that the Universes is in fact many thousands of millions years old, what then is a day for God?

      Various scientific theories remain current for the origin of the universe; all of them pre-suppose an initial park or moment of creation. Interestingly very few of the pretend to really understand what happened in the first instant. Let us leave that point - which could be key, as it happens, aside; what caused this initial spark or moment? This 'Prime Mover, First Cause' proposition has yet to be exhaustively and mathematically disproved.

      3: The best we can aim to in educating our young people is, to teach the importance of approaching the subject matter at hand with an open mind, and to equip them with the appropriate scientific, intellectual, logical and analytical tools to gather and interpret the evidence. While educating them as to the principal theories, including Creation and Evolution (which are not in an of themselves contradictory, by the by) let us allow them the intellectual freedom to draw their own conclusions.

      4: Often, sadly, the debate on this aspect of teaching, as in many others relating to science, misses out on a key point: whatever one chooses to believe 'faith' in the broadest sense offers a spiritual and moral/ethical framework and support for our young people which nothing the scientific, rationalist or economic communities can match - or ever has.

    • psiloiordinary psiloiordinary
      Creationist Claims
      9 November 2008 - 09:41

      Hi All,

      I don't know if the poster claiming to be Andy McIntosh is actually him.

      But either way people may like to know that the real prof McIntosh (at a talk at the York University Christian Union) did claim the following as scientifically proven fact;

      Trilobite eyes can not be explained by random chance (yes I know that no-one claims they are).

      Fish can not fossilise (when dead they float you see) and so this proves that Noah's Flood was the only possible scientific explanation for fish fossils.

      The way birds breath is simply, categorically and obviously impossible to evolve by natural selection.

      These claims demonstrate one of the following;

      A breathtaking lack of basic knowledge of evolution.

      A willingness to, shall we say, gloss over, the actual science, in the name of his religious cause - which he makes no secret of usually other than on the Truth In Science web site.

      I am unsure as to which of these explanations is correct.

      - - -

      Talk from creationists/IDists of an "open debate" and "scientific controversy" are shown to be disingenuous by the words and actions of the creationists/IDists themselves.

      The materials pushed by TiS to UK schools, which I have viewed, contain no scientific or educational merit and can best be described as highly polished and expensively produced propaganda.

      This material has been analysed on the web in detail and a simple google will reveal such whilst at the same time showing just how much creationist/ID propaganda is about there and how well funded they are.

      James Williams has it right.


      Psi


      . . . and yes he confirmed then in public that he "favours the young earth hypothesis".

    • Oeditor Oeditor
      So how old is the universe?
      9 November 2008 - 01:58

      I'm new to this forum and it's not entirely clear whether "let the evidence..." is actually Prof. McIntosh or not. My apologies if this is not the case but... if you are he, you have not disputed my observation that creationism is a religious and not a scientific viewpoint. If you are indeed Prof. McIntosh, perhaps you would say whether I am correct, or not, in stating that you believe in the literal truth of Genesis, that the universe is around 6000 years old and that the Grand Canyon was formed by Noah's flood.

    • let the evidence lead let the evidence lead
      Nullius in Verba
      8 November 2008 - 21:54

      Teachers may be interested to read the Truth in Science web site on this whole issue of how to understand other approaches to thinking concerning origins. The issue is not whether Creation should be taught in science lessons. The issue is how genuine scientific thought and debate should be encouraged. Stifling the debate as Adam Rutherford suggests is a recipe for tyranny and there is a great danger of insisting that atheism is the only paradigm in which to conduct science (patently not true when one considers the greats like Faraday and Boyle of earlier centuries). The view of 'oeditor' above would also have stopped Charles Darwin receiving a hearing since he was only an amateur biologist. What is important is that all minds be allowed to express their thinking without fear of prejudice, particularly in the classroom, as long as it is based on evidence and scientific experiment.

      As stated at the Truth in Science blog http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/blogcategory/51/63/ for Mon 27th October 'On the word of no one', "There is no fear in scientific debate from our side. It is not the place of the scientific classroom to bring in religious instruction but neither is it the place to propagate the blind belief in atheistic philosophy. It would seem very evident that some influential evolutionists seem to have a real phobia about genuine scientific debate."

      It is important that no student feels ostracised by a dominant philosophy in the classroom. The important matter is to allow the evidence to speak for itself. The creationist or intelligent design viewpoint is not in any way afraid of the evidence. Just like an experiment dropping a ball proves gravity to a gravity denier, if evolution is such a robust theory, let the fossils be lined up to prove the origin of man to be from some common ancestor to apes and man. Any teacher being fair with the evidence will know that one cannot do this, and that the evidence on its own does not prove the evolutionary belief system, though it is a possibility worthy of careful consideration. It is also important to recognise that many leading scientists down the ages have been strongly convinced of a theistic and creation position. Again quoting the Truth in Science web site "...the more vigorously those of an evolutionary persuasion insist that the only correct paradigm with which to approach science is atheistic, the further away we have drifted from the Royal Society motto Nullius in Verba ('on the word of no one'). Some of the leading scientists of the Royal Society down the centuries have been theists. Isaac Newton, Edward Boyle, Lord Kelvin are all these to be relegated because they had this troubling belief in the divine? Why should todays thinkers be any different? Has the evidence so indisputably removed the need for the divine, or is it just prejudice?"

      I would suggest that the approach of Michael Reiss was exactly right. He was of the sincere view that evolution is a correct interpretation of the evidence but recognised that true debate should not be stifled.

      Andy McIntosh, Leeds


    • edinburgh4 edinburgh4
      Professor McIntosh's Qualifications
      8 November 2008 - 21:46

      Thanks for your reply,

      Professor McIntosh's qualifications cross a number of fields: he is a professor of thermodynamics and combustion [physics/chemistry] and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. Within engineering he is a C.Eng his specialist field is biomimicry the concept of reverse engineering biological systems so they can be rebuilt synthetically and used in consumer products, medicine and transport. He is no stranger to biology as you suggest.

      He is also a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society which I would say makes him qualified to talk about birds and flight.

      Add to this that he is a C.Math. So he is at least worth listening to when he speaks about the probability of the designs in nature coming together from random mutation and natural selection over a specified number of generations for a given size of population.

      Intelligent Design advocates are making the case that nature has been designed. It seems to me that engineers, those who design working systems are well qualified to speak about the design seen in nature.

      Darwinism has not limited its influence to biology. It effects politics, economics, religion and sociology. To suggest that Prof McIntosh should not talk about biology seems a little unfair. It would be like saying no one should listen to Dawkins if he talks about religion. Clearly people enjoy hearing what Dawkins has to say about religion. And as a biologist and an intelligent person Dawkins has some credibility when he questions the claims of religion (specially if the religious claims exclude the biological ones).

      I think maybe you have compartmentalised science into a series of non-overlapping boxes into which and out of which no one is qualified to comment. Michael Reis made the point that for many religion and science themselves are not the non-overlapping circles Humanists insist they must be. For many people they form a consistent world view.

      You can watch the video: The Grand Canyon: Evidence for Flood. If you want further information about the subject Paul Garner the speaker is a Fellow of the Geological Society.

      If you would like to hear an ancient historian talk on the subject of symbolism in ancient cultures you may want to listen to Paul James-Griffiths talk: Tracing Genesis Through Ancient Cultures.

      Details of the Chinese symbols can be found in the book: God's Promises to The Chinese by Dr. Ethel Nelson & Dr. Ginger Tong Chock.

      My own story like that of many Creationist is that I have come from the position of attacking Christianity as being intellectually weak. However I was forced to change my mind by the weight of evidence. The online book theevolutioncrisis.org.uk gives the story of 5 Atheist PhD scientists who became Creationists. It should challenge your view that all Creationists have a young earth as their starting assumption for many it was their final conclusion.

      Phil

    • edinburgh4 edinburgh4
      Is Atheism Scientific?
      8 November 2008 - 16:19

      I belong to Edinburgh Creation Group an organisation that promotes understanding and education about creation. Most of our public lectures are given by PhD scientists and geared at university level and not schools. Our videos are on the web: edinburghcreationgroup.org.

      For anyone who thinks creationist are people who simply fail to understand evolution (or naturalistic explanations) and do not present any evidence please watch:

      The Origin of Life - Prof John Walton
      Birds and Flight - Prof Andy McIntosh
      Human Evolution - Dr Mark Surtees

      My view is that truth should be important in both RE and in science teaching. For this reason we also record many talks on archeology and history e.g. Dr Mark Woolmer's talks on Egyptian & Persian Chronology and the Old Testament.

      Furthermore the idea that unintelligent design (naturalism) can be falsified while at the same time intelligent design cannot is logically untenability and morally dubious. If a design did not come from an unintelligent source there is only one conclusion left. Excluding special creation from discussion leaves evolution as the only option this is hollow victory. More and more the public are seeing it as such.

      The idea that the universe is intelligible is the underlying assumption of all scientific enquiry. The laws of gravity, electromagnetism etc were discovered by Creationists. They believed there in a divine ruler so they expected to find rules. My question is if there is no ruler why should we expect to find consistent rules governing the universe? If the world was not created by an intelligence why is it reasonable to expect we can find intelligible causes for everything?

      Phil

    • Oeditor Oeditor
      Re : Creationists and science
      8 November 2008 - 17:57

      Professor McIntosh may talk about birds but he is an engineer, not a biologist. Nor is he a geologist, as can be seen from his claim that the Grand Canyon was formed by Noah's flood - "probably in matter of hours". He isn't a historian or a linguist either, despite having produced a DVD claiming that the Chinese ideographic script provides evidence of the Tower of Babel.
      What he is - and he proclaims this proudly - is a committed Christian who believes that the biblical account of creation in Genesis is to be taken literally and that it happened about 6000 years ago. Everything he and his fellow creationists claim stems from that one premise and nothing else.

Related video

Adam Rutherford on Evolution and Creationism
Creationism and Evolution are explored by Dr Adam Rutherford
Creationism/Intelligent Design
A debate on the issue of teaching Intelligent Design
KS3/4 Design and Technology - Designing for CAD/CAM 2
A challenging Year 9 class tries some new ideas for CAD/CAM
KS3/4 PSHE - Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is explored in two secondary schools
School Governors
Do we need to rethink the way our schools are governed?