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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

It’s really cool that UK puts scientists to its own money.

Most countries will go with politicians, buildings and warlords.

I have to say that it saddens me to see Darwin go. Considering that the evolution theory is still considered controversial in many places(even in advanced countries like the US) I think it was a very bold move to have him on the note.

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I think the situation is different in the UK. I've never come across a person who disbelieves evolution. It would be equivalent to a flat-earther or person who genuinely thinks political figures are lizard folk.

The UK does have a Creation Science Movement[0]. My partner and I unwittingly stumbled into their Genesis Expo[1] in Portsmouth the other year – we blindly walked in without noticing the building's name or any paraphernalia, just "ooh, look, fossils". Only when inside did we realise it was full AND THIS IS WHY EVOLUTION IS WRONG stuff.

[0] https://csm.org.uk/

> Founded in 1932 as “The Evolution Protest Movement” by a small group of Christians concerned by the propaganda that was promoting the theory of evolution as if scientifically proven

[1] https://csm.org.uk/genesis-expo/

The UK has a decently high number of Jehovas Witnesses who (based on the stuff on leaflets they've put through my door) definitely don't seem to follow mainstream science on evolution.

Aye I don't deny such people exist in the UK, but if they tried to get schools to change their curriculum, they would not be given the time of day like folk in the USA.

Yeah, I mean they probably exist in the UK, but there is never an attempt to teach anything else but evolution in state schools like I believe there is in parts of the USA.

I have been here (it's not far from where I live): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark_Zoo_Farm It's certainly an experience (and the animals don't seem too bothered about the whole creationism thing)!

Try evolutionary psychology or gene evolution theory. UK is full of nutjobs.

Plenty of the more fundamental religious believe in creationism. And many more do not actually believe in natural selection element of evolution, more evolution guided by the hand of god (at least in my experience of talking to others).

> I think it was a very bold move to have him on the note

There's a lot of wacky people with wacky ideas in the UK... but I think almost literally nobody disbelieves evolution here. It's just not a thing on anyone's radar and the small component we have of evangelical christianity is strangely quite an urban middle-class thing. I don't think it was bold at all.

> cool that UK puts scientists to its own money

If you want an engraved portrait of Gauss, Cliff Stoll will sell you a nice one: https://www.kleinbottle.com/gauss.htm

Check out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Japanese_ye...

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