Top UK educator opposes hard-sell teaching of evolution

WOULD YOU BUY A USED SCIENTIFIC THEORY FROM THIS MAN?

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Update #2: Prof. Reiss resigns from position of Royal Society's director of education.

Update: Prof. Reiss's proposal divides the Royal Society -- two Nobel laureates, other senior fellows call for his removal as education director.

The repercussions of Darwin's theory are finally coming home to roost in Darwin's home country. A news article says,

Creationism and intelligent design should be taught in school science lessons, according to a leading expert in science education.

The Rev Prof Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society, said that excluding alternatives to scientific explanations for the origin of life and the universe from science lessons was counterproductive and would alienate some children from science altogether.
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He said that around one in 10 children comes from a family with creationist beliefs. "My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science," he said . . . .

. . . . Reiss said he used to be an "evangelist" for evolution in the classroom, but that the approach had backfired. "I realised that simply banging on about evolution and natural selection didn't lead some pupils to change their minds at all. Now I would be more content simply for them to understand it as one way of understanding the universe," he said.

Reiss, who is an ordained Church of England minister, told the British Association Festival of Science in Liverpool that science teachers should not see creationism as a "misconception" but as an alternative "world view". He added that he was not advocating devoting the same time to teaching creationism or intelligent design as to evolution.

There are also those who have non-religious reasons for opposing hard-sell teaching of evolution.

We all know what hard-sell teaching of evolution is like: dogmatic teaching of evolution, constantly in-your-face, no-ifs-ands-buts-or-maybes, the evolution-is-central-to-biology nonsense, no weaknesses, no evolution disclaimer statements, brainwashing, spoon-feeding, no critical thinking allowed, the-only-criticisms-of-evolution-are-unconstitutional-creationist-criticisms, no compromises, if-you-don't-like-it-you-can-go-to-hell, those kinds of things. And it is an unfortunate coincidence in the USA that Darwinists can misuse the Constitution's establishment clause to attack the teaching of scientific (pseudoscientific to them) ideas that they don't like, and I doubt that Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders would approve of such misuse. There is no constitutional principle of separation of pseudoscience and state, and it is this misuse of the establishment clause that has enabled the Darwinist tail to wag the dog.

A recent national survey of science teachers in the USA showed that approximately 25% of respondents spend some time teaching creationism or intelligent design, but many or most of them teach those things just for the purpose of disparaging them.

Why can't evolution just be taught as a sort of imaginary or hokey idea that may be wholly or partly untrue but is nonetheless useful in organizing and conceptualizing biology? As an engineer, I know that engineers are comfortable using analysis methods that are not intuitively correct or accurate, e.g.: (1) the use of complex-plane vectors in the analysis of AC circuits and (2) using rotating-cylinder aerodynamics to analyze fixed-wing airfoil aerodynamics by means of the Joukowski transformation of conformal mapping.

Suggested further reading:

An op-ed written by Prof. Reiss.

A good overview of UK evolution education in the international context.

The Discovery Institute's take on the UK controversy.
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