Teaching of creationism in schools

Abstract

Sir—I find myself both disappointed and puzzled that your correspondents should take issue with the obvious common sense of Virginia Barbour’s editorial. The issue is not whether one should have faith or whether it should play a large part in one’s life in general or one’s career as a doctor. The statement that Barbour makes is, it seems to me, incontrovertible: creationism has no place in science teaching in schools. The assertion by Daniel Yeo that creationism is a valid scientific position is frankly absurd: we no longer believe that the earth is the centre of the universe; that matter is made up of four elements called earth, air, fire, and water; or that combustible materials give off a substance called phlogiston. By precisely the same logic (it’s called looking at the evidence), the overwhelming majority of scientists and doctors, including those who have a firm religious faith, accept that the account of creation given in Genesis is a myth. Those who promote creationism do so not out of a belief in a particular scientific position but through a bigoted insistence that what is in the Bible must be literally true. The entire history of Western science since the late middle ages has been one of moving away from the blind acceptance of received authority (often based on a narrow interpretation of religious teaching) to the calm and objective assessment of evidence. To promote the idea that creationism should be taught in schools is not simply wrong in that creationism is wrong; it also represents an attempt to pervert science and everything that it has tried to do for the past 400 years. Incidentally (pace Dr Gillespie), Newton may well have believed in a divine force in creation; what he did not do was to allow himself to be tied down by the conservative religious orthodoxy of the day—he did not accept the doctrine of the Trinity and, as such, could never take holy orders. Roger A Fisken