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Published online 17 September 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.1116
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Creationism stir fries Reiss
Royal Society's director of education stands down.
The director of education at the one of the world's premier scientific bodies has been forced from his job in a row over approaches to creationism in the classroom.
Michael Reiss, a professor at London's Institute of Education and an ordained minister in the Church of England, yesterday stepped down from his post as director of education at Britain's Royal Society.
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Strike a match lit - that is science. Pray the same match lit a second time - that is faith.
The same story is repeated again. It seems that the non-creationists has adopted a fanatic-religion-like attitude assuming that evolution is undiscussably evident and the one who approaches the restricted argument should be cut away in order not to propagate the diseased thinking. Doesn't that remind of something, terrorism may be...
Daniel, that is one fantastic groan-inducing headline!
I believe that mankind was created by the Big Cucumber. If I can get a substantial following, and in these times of the Internet Church there is quite a chance that I can find a good number of people willing to share my belief, will you support my demand that Cucumberism be taught in science? Seriously, creationism is religion. Since when should religion be taught in natural science? About Mr Reiss: scientists are already well advised never to mix religion and science but if it happens, NEVER EVER even advocate in WHATEVER form the one if not CLEARLY and EXPRESSLY separating it from the other. More so if the speaker is a clergyman. Church and science do NOT mix. He wants to preach? Church. He wants to teach? School. He wants to preach AND teach? Never in the same place within the same context. And he MUST make it perfectly clear that the one has nothing to do with the other and if he can't separate the two clearly enough so as NEVER to be misunderstood by anyone, he has no business in science. Let's be clear and straight, the debate on creationism in science is outright idiotic. All it does is show how low influential parts of society have sunk in the last years.
It is sad that "Scientism" is just another fundamentalist religion, to which Nobel Prize winners are also susceptible. And anyone who believes that a person is somehow responsible for what the press makes of their words, has never spent much time talking to reporters, and reporters are rarely responsible for the headlines editors place over their stories. In attempting to shed light on the problem, Professor Reiss draws the fire of those so narrow in their perspective, that they cannot see that a Human Being is not JUST a scientific object. Human experience involves more than just objective inquiry, and attempts to reconcile all the aspects of being Human has a very long history -- it's sometimes known as "striving to become a whole Human Being." It is sad that only the narrow-minded fanatics on either end of the spectrum get all the attention. But of course fanatics always have a great advantage in honest inquiry -- they know they are right to start with. The Royal Society should be ashamed.
Creationism stems from Christianity and non-Pagans. Christianity, like many other religions, is a recruitment faith. Therefore it is a Christian's job to recruit others to join their joyful, fulfilling, and righteous committment. I don't think that this is a secret.
Whoever came up with that pun should be congratulated - and then shot. In case he/she does it again...B-) HOWEVER: although I am a committed born-again atheist (birth -> Catholic -> atheist) and firmly believe that theisms have no place in the classroom or lecture hall, I think poor Reiss's fate was a little harsh. Giving recognition in a teaching environment that some folk do have committed beliefs that run counter to evolutionary facts as we know them - and then quickly countering these with other non-Christian world views - can't be such a bad thing, can it?
Admitted that humans derive from an animal, such as animal from what derives? What accounts for the reason of the periodical discussion on Darwin THEORY? This is the question. In my opinion, based on a well-established CLINICAL experience, there are other more important theories than that of Darwin: if you see, for instance, www.nature.com, at URL http://blogs.nature.com/nm/spoonful/2008/04/stress_as regarding cancer primary prevention, and, in addition, as ragards diabetes primary prevention,at URL http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2008/02/confusio... ), you'll realize that it's possible to perform an efficacious primary prevention on very large scale, in individuals regognized since birth as involved by both a well-defined biophysical semeiotic constitution and related Inherited Real Risk of cancer and respectively of diabetes(See also my website). At the geginn of the third millennium, when in 25 years there will be 300 millions of diabetics, and millions of cancers all around the world, is the discussion on Darwin theory more worthy than that I suggest?
What did this poor chap actually say? It seems to me that he said that teachers should be able, without fear of reprisal, to take the creationist bull by the horns and actually talk about it in the classroom instead of treating it like an elephant in the room. If I understand his public comments properly, and I could be wrong, he was not advocating the teaching of creationism in the classroom. The fact that he is a clergyman is neither here nor there. Removing him because he dared bring up the "C" word simply demonstrates that some of the British science intelligentsia fail to understand that we are not going to advance understanding of evolution by ignoring creationism. Patient engagement in the classroom is certainly one of the ways to address this issue. What is so wrong with that?