Creationist Teaching Aids Banned in Great Britain Science Classes

The Guardian reports that Great Britain has banned use of creationist material in science lessons (hat tip to Panda’s Thumb and Red State Rabble which picked this up after I missed it earlier in the week):

The government is to write to schools telling them that controversial teaching materials promoting creationism should not be used in science lessons.

The packs include DVDs and written materials promoting intelligent design, a creationist alternative to Darwinism, that were sent to every school in the country by the privately-funded group Truth in Science. Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Last week, the Guardian revealed that 59 schools had told Truth in Science the materials were a “useful classroom resource”.

The government has already stated that the Truth in Science materials should not be used in science lessons. On November 1, the education minister, Jim Knight, wrote: “Neither intelligent design nor creationism are recognised scientific theories and they are not included in the science curriculum. The Truth in Science information pack is therefore not an appropriate resource to support the science curriculum.” The Department for Education said it was working with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the public body that oversees the national curriculum, to communicate this message directly to schools.

But Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrats’ science spokesman, said: “I’m amazed that they have found it so difficult and it has taken so long.” He feared that some teachers would use the packs to promote intelligent design as a belief or that it would be presented as a valid scientific theory.

“[Pupils] are somehow being told these agendas are alternative ways of looking at things. They are not at all,” the Nobel prizewinner and prime mover in the Human Genome Project, John Sulston, said at a lecture last week at the British Museum. “One is science – a rational thought process which will carry us forward into the indefinite future. The other is a cop-out and they should not be juxtaposed in science lessons.”


Chopra Concludes, Responding to Criticism

Deepak Chopra has concluded his series of blog posts on The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins by responding to some of the comments on his previous posts. He ignores the  majority of critical responses, and still provides no evidence that he either has read or understands the writing of Richard Dawkins. (My previous posts on Chopra here.)

Chopra starts out by showing he misunderstands not only Dawkins but virtually all of science. He disagrees with those who criticized his previous posts in believing “that physics, chemistry, cosmology, etc. aren’t fundamentally rooted in randomness and chance.” In contrast to what Chopra claims about science, science can be viewed as the development of theories (confirmed by experimentation) which explain and provide order to the phenomenon which previoiusly might have been thought to be chance (or the acts of the Gods). Evolution, for example, explains the development of complex organisms from single organisms by a means far more complicated than simple chance. While I can understand how those who are not familiar with evolution might mistakingly believe it is based upon chance, physics and chemistry have far less potential to be described as being in rooted in randomness or chance with even a casual understanding of them.

Chopra next attempts to defend the question of a higher intelliglence, arguing that  “the real point is that human intelligence and creativity have to have a source. Dawkins cannot locate one; therefore the question of a higher intelligence hasn’t been resolved.”  The source of human intelligence and creativity is the brain. Dawkins does not attempt to prove a negative, but his work does demonstrate that arguments such Chopra’s do not provide any evidence that a higher intelligence is necessary to understand what is not understood by science. People in the past might have used earth quakes as evidence of the existence of a higher intellilgence, but science has showed that a higher intelligence is not necessary to explain them. Increased understanding of the human brain will probably also refute the claims that higher intelligence and creativity create the need for a God. Some might still believe in a God out of faith, and this faith cannot be disproven, but where Chopra is wrong is to claim that his arguments provide an argument for the existence of God beyond faith. Arguments over the existence of God are beyond the realm of science. The problem with many of Chopra’s arguments is that he attempts to twist science to lend support to his beliefs, and attacks science when it contradicts his religious views.

Chopra’s third argument is similar to the arguments in his previous posts. Previously Chopra argued that we can prove the existence of God from the existence of yellow flowers, that “we are in god as a fish is in water” and that “if the universe didn’t have imagination, neither would we.” Now he argues against a materialistic view of the brain based upon wanting a banana:

I may feel that I want a banana, but where did this “I” come from” Maybe it’s a delusion as some philosophers and brain scientists assert, since no once has ever found the region of the brain where the personal self resides.

Chopra creates a mystery by phrasing the questions absurdly. There is no great mystery here. Chimps also want bananas. My dog might not like bananas, but he sure begs for a variety of other foods. This offers no evidence of  either higher intellilgence or of a “universal intelligence” as Chopra argues.

Finally Chopra argues that “Dawkins seems to be ignorant of any God except the one offered in Sunday School.” This only confirms the suspicions that Chopra has not actually read his work as Dawkins looks at a variety of views of God. If Chopra has some new view of religion which overcomes the problems discussed by Dawkins he shows no evidence of this in his many posts on the topic.

War on Terror Over

The War on Terror is over, at least in Great Britain where “Cabinet ministers have been told by the Foreign Office to drop the phrase ‘war on terror’ and other terms seen as liable to anger British Muslims and increase tensions more broadly in the Islamic world.”