Creationism Banned from Science Classes by Scottish Government

Perhaps I'm cynical, but it seems to have gone like this...

"Minister, when will the Government ban bandersnatches from school cupboards?"

"Um, I'm pretty sure there aren't any bandersnatches in the school cupboards..."

"Minister refuses to ban bandersnatches from school cupboards! Everyone, sign our petition to insist that school cupboards are no place for a bandersnatch, and join our team!"

"I really don't think we have any..."

"The government is still refusing to institute a proper ban on keeping them in school cupboards, and putting our children's education at risk! Like us on Facebook! Tweet our campaign link! With your help we can make them move on this!"

"But we really... oh, forget it, fine, we hereby ban bandersnatches from school cupboards, will you go away now please?"

"Hooray! Thanks to our campaign, the government has finally banned bandersnatches from school broom cupboards. This is why you should donate to us -- remember, we're the organisation that finally made the government ban bandersnatches from school cupboards, and you can make your donation to us at this address..."

It's basically cargo-culting popular science articles. They see something like "continental drift is demonstrated by how the coastlines of Africa and the Americas fit so neatly together." They then come up with something that sounds similar, like, "the Grand Canyon could have been carved by a huge and sudden deluge, demonstrating Noah's Flood." The fact that the Africa/Americas thing is just a brief summary of mountains (sometimes literally so) of data is completely lost.

If by "teach" you mean anything resembling "present a subject as if it were factual, and rooted in evidence", then no.

It's okay to inform students about creationism.

This only applies to government-funded schools. Independent schools can get away with anything.

Would you say that schools should not exclusively teach that 2+2=4, but give the students tools and allow them to draw their own conclusions? Should schools allow students to reach their own conclusions as to whether the Earth is flat, or whether the Sun is pulled across the sky by chariots?

Schools should absolutely teach creationism, in the same classes where they teach Greek mythology, Hindu gods, Native American creation stories, etc. And that is exactly what happens here. To quote the article, "...creationism can be taught in religious and moral education...."

Kids in Scotland can study Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies if they want - which is, I believe, a far more appropriate context for religious beliefs than a science class.

What's disturbing in this? It's not like they are going to hang everyone who mentions anything about creationism....

It's not part of that sphere of humanity that we call science.

This is not that, though; it's a question of what's taught in schools. There has to be a curriculum. By necessity of the limits of time and effort, this can only include a finite number of things. For administrative efficiency, this is centralised in Scotland (and separately in England&Wales). Teaching creationism as science is simply a category error. Teaching it as fact is a factual error.

You're still free to take your children to Sunday school and teach them whatever you want there.(+)

(+) well, apart from the banned sectarian football songs

I don't think it's about governments deciding on an approved view, so much as government removing the teaching of obvious nonsense from schools.

Religious schools - which still exist, unfortunately - have no problem with forcing their approved views on kids, even after those views have proven to be harmful: as in - say - abstinence education instead of useful sex ed.

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/47421.html

[Edit: I got Standard Grades and National 5s mixed up!]

Schools are a social(ist) institution put in place by the goverment to ensure people have an equal access to knowledge - a foundation. Schools also have to follow a certain curriculum which would give this foundation. A school cannot simply choose to not teach reading or writing, or teach that the earth is flat because they beleive this is the right thing to do.

This has come up previously with different topics over the years. In many countries it is explicitly illegal for schools to teach that the Holocaust ever happened, or use text books that alledge this.

And, this is probably a good thing.

I'll also note that if parents feel strongly about their children learning creationism, nothing prevents them from teaching it themselves, or buying books that teach it, or even inviting "learned" lecturers to present the topic. This is just about taxpayers not paying for the teaching of nonsense.

Fix it themselves, perhaps by electing government officials who represent their views on what should be taught in schools and can outlaw obvious lies from curriculum? I really don't see the problem here.

Basically, there are a few known facts: (1) organisms die, (2) organisms reproduce, (3) the offspring are different from each other and from the parents, (4) the differences are more or less random, (5) dying is not random but a consequence of external forces, and (6) external forces are relatively constant. From these facts, it logically follows that over generations (or ofganisms reproducing ans dying), the living organisms will become more and more adapted to the environment. To avoid this long and detailed explanation, we just call this process evolution.

It's completely the same as e.g. the word "evaporate" - instead of saying that kinetic energy causes H2O molecules to become more and more excited, and slowly breaks the H bonds between molecules, so that they can move freely inspace (gas), we just say "water evaporates".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_exp...

"Evolutionism was a common 19th century belief that organisms inherently improve themselves through progressive inherited change over time, and increase in complexity through evolution. The belief went on to include cultural evolution and social evolution."

And more to the point:

"In modern times, the term evolution is widely used, but the terms evolutionism and evolutionist are seldom used in the scientific community to refer to the biological discipline as the term is considered both redundant and anachronistic, though it has been used by creationists in discussing the creation-evolution controversy. Apart from the use of the word by creationists, it is also often used by theists to imply a worldview that is essentially naturalistic."