New Book on Evolution will Awaken Interest and Encourage Critical Thinking

Over the last few months, Truth in Science has distributed a free review copy of the new revised UK edition of the book Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and against Neo-Darwinism (Hill House Publishers, Melbourne/London, UK Edition 2009) to all UK school libraries where biology is taught at advanced level, to provide an additional resource for learning centres, as well as to main public libraries throughout the country.

The new UK edition: 

• deals with a controversial issue that almost all young people are interested in and want to know more about;
• presents the strongest classical arguments made both for and against Darwinism, and as such is an excellent resource to help train pupils in the true skills of science: evidence-based enquiry and critical thinking;
• comes with strong endorsements from biological scientists in the UK and the US;
• has been significantly updated from the original US version making the new edition relevant to the UK curriculum together with the removal of American colloquialisms.

Dealing with controversial issues is a proven way of awakening pupil interest and encouraging their engagement with learning.

But controversial issues raise strong passions and there are many interest groups that want to close debate down. They want pupils to learn only one approach (not surprisingly theirs).  Editors are warned that some groups will shamelessly misrepresent and malign opponents in order to advance their agendas.

A good example is the British Humanist Association (BHA), which promotes materialist ideology for science and has called for action against Explore Evolution. Their description of the book is thoroughly misleading and gives a highly inaccurate impression of its contents.

From the BHA's attack you would be led to believe that the book has religious content, examines the claims of creationism and/or "Intelligent Design", is one-sided, or is otherwise not scientific.  All these claims are false:

• Explore Evolution is entirely restricted to examining the matter of Darwinian evolution, and not any alternative theory;
• The sole arguments examined and the only evidence discussed for and against are scientific arguments, not philosophical or religious.

The BHA also complains that some of the scientific evidences which raise questions about Darwinism are also used by creationists in creationist literature.  This criticism is paranoid nonsense.  The value of objective evidence does not go up or down depending on who is using it. Our science teachers are well-equipped to use their own minds to evaluate controversial areas such as some of the claims of neo-Darwinian theory.  In such an important area – our own origins – children have the right to hear more than one side of the case.

In response to recent statements made by Ed Balls and Michael Gove, we have to ask what is happening in state schools. Will pupils learn by default that secular views are the only ones worthy of serious consideration? Will the problems and implications of secular views themselves be presented? For example, materialist views are dominant in the presentation of science today. Will the issues raised by such views be addressed?  After all, if we are only complicated chemical machines doing what biology and evolution have programmed us to do, then what are 'reason' and 'science' that we should believe them?  Is school only for secular indoctrination, or will secular perspectives face the hard questions too? A commitment to openness and honesty demands that they should.

Join the battle to stop censorship of evidence.  Expose interest groups that want the books available in our schools to be controlled by a very narrow ideological agenda - such that neither teachers nor children are even allowed to know of - much less agree with - evidence that does not support their own position.

Read Explore Evolution for yourselves and reject calls for modern book-burning. A free complimentary copy of the book is available to teachers while stocks last. If you are interested to receive a copy, please email your information to: info@truthinscience.org.uk

Should the teaching of evolution become a compulsory part of the primary school curriculum? The British Humanist Association is very keen that it should. Last week they coordinated a letter stating it is “extraordinary that evolution and natural selection find no place in” the new proposed primary school curriculum. The letter was sent to Secretary of State Ed Balls, and signed by a group of scientists, educators and science popularisers.

The omission of evolution from the draft curriculum is not surprising. The new proposals are deliberately slimmed down in comparison with the current curriculum, in order to give teachers more freedom. The new curriculum is brief, and does not mention such important ideas and key concepts as: gravity, living cells, DNA, acids and alkalis, the periodic table.

Why is the British Humanist Association so concerned that the theory of evolution should be compulsory in Primary Schools? Clearly, they hope that it will advance a humanist agenda.

Richard Dawkins, a signatory on the letter and a vice-president of the British Humanist Association, writes that if asked “Has your knowledge of evolution influenced you in the direction of becoming an atheist?” he “would have to answer yes” (The God Delusion, hdbk. ed., p. 68). He also believes that this has moral consequences: “Absolutist moral discrimination is devastatingly undermined by the fact of evolution.” (The God Delusion, p. 301).

The primary school education system is of great interest to Richard Dawkins, because he knows that young children are “native teleologists” (The God Delusion, p. 181) – that is, they draw a conclusion of intelligent design from their knowledge of the natural world. This makes them “intuitive theists” (The God Delusion, p. 181). Richard Dawkins therefore hopes that by making the teaching of evolution compulsory in primary schools, he will influence children away from their theistic beliefs and towards the belief that God is a delusion.

Richard Dawkins has written vehemently against the “indoctrination” of children in religious faiths. However, unless evolution and natural selection are presented in a fair manner to primary school children, with all view points represented accurately, his proposals could result in just such indoctrination.

Michael Reiss has been much in the news since his infamous talk at a science festival in Liverpool in September 2008. On that occasion, he re-iterated his long-standing view that good science teaching is about respecting the students' views and that science teachers should take seriously the concerns of students who do not accept the theory of evolution. Reiss is an evolutionist and has no desire to promote either creationism or intelligent design (ID). His remarks were merely in line with what is almost universally agreed to be good practice in education. Yet the fact that he is also an ordained Anglican priest was sufficient for pressure to be put on the Royal Society to sack him as its Director of Education. To its great shame the Royal Society succumbed to the pressure (see earlier blog items).

Since that incident, two papers by Reiss have appeared (in print or online). He states his own position unambiguously:

To an evolutionist, such as myself, although someone who is also a priest in the Church of England, the Earth is some 4600-million-year old and all organisms share a common ancestor. Indeed if you go back far enough, life had its ancestry in inorganic molecules. Furthermore, an evolutionary understanding of the world is fundamental to biology and many other aspects of science. For an evolutionist, understanding of ourselves, the other organisms and the world about us requires an evolutionary perspective. (2009:1938)

He acknowledges that,

For reasons that delight some, appal others, and bemuse many, belief in creationism persists while acceptance of intelligent design is growing in extent and influence in a number of countries. (2009:1938)

But having distinguished ID from creationism and described them more accurately than in most of the critical literature, he then presents his analysis of the issues purely in terms of creationism versus evolution, and thus, like most other critics, fails to address the scientific challenge of ID.What is very different about Reiss’ approach is that he recognises, indeed insists, that creationism is much more than “a simple misconception that careful science teaching can correct”:

A student who believes in creationism can be seen as inhabiting a non-scientific worldview, which is a very different way of seeing the world. One rarely changes one’s worldview as a result of formal teaching, however well one is taught. (2009:1940)

Thus Reiss’ hope for education is

… simply to enable students to understand the scientific worldview with respect to origins, not necessarily to accept it. (2009:1940)

What is disappointing is that Reiss, in common with most evolutionists (whether secular or theistic) regards science as something separate from religion. He constantly contrasts ‘religious worldviews’ with ‘the scientific worldview’ as if science is a faith-free zone. However, the last half-century or so of work in the history and philosophy of science has abundantly shown that in each and every discipline of science, the facts are seen in terms of a theory, against the frame of reference of a paradigm (research programme), within a philosophical view of reality, and from a religious stance (see, e.g., Roy Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality, 2005).

Both of Reiss’ papers suggest that “creationism isn’t really a science in that its ultimate authority is scriptural and theological rather than the evidence obtained from the natural world” (2008:167; 2009:1939). This is ironic because, firstly, ID is conveniently ignored and, secondly, because evolution in its origins and development was not motivated by scientific observations, but by religious commitments (of many sources here, one of the best is Cornelius Hunter, Science’s Blind Spot, 2007). Indeed, both historically and today, evolutionists rely on theological arguments for evolution (e.g. arguments of the sort that “A creator wouldn’t make it like this …”).

The irony is compounded when Reiss writes that he has “no doubt that the overwhelming majority of those who believe in creationism (and intelligent design theory) do so because of their religious beliefs” (2008:177). We do not understand how theists like Reiss can ignore so glibly the religious origins of evolution and the religious (or anti-religious) commitments of many, if not most of its proponents. Whatever one’s conclusions on these matters the debates are as much about the critical analysis of worldviews as about the evaluation of scientific evidence.

Reiss, Michael J., ‘Should science educators deal with the science/religion Issue?’, Studies in Science Education, 44 (2), 2008, pages 157-186.

Reiss, Michael J., The relationship between evolutionary biology and religion, Evolution, 63 (7), 2009, pages 1934-1941.

New research has just been published by Devon Quick and John Rubin at Oregon State University in The Journal of Morphology which throws into doubt the widely-held Darwinian belief that birds evolved from the Theropod dinosaurs. This work has been reported by EurekAlert! an online global news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The commentary is entitled "Discovery raises new doubts about dinosaur-bird links". Professor Rubin is reported to have said

It's really kind of amazing that after centuries of studying birds and flight we still didn't understand a basic aspect of bird biology. This discovery probably means that birds evolved on a parallel path alongside dinosaurs, starting that process before most dinosaur species even existed.

The research at Oregon State University has focused on the fixity of the unique avian skeletal structure and musculature to support its lungs and the requirement in birds to take in 20 times more oxygen than cold blooded reptiles. Researcher Devon Quick is quoted in EurekAlert!

This is fundamental to bird physiology. It's really strange that no one realized this before. The position of the thigh bone and muscles in birds is critical to their lung function, which in turn is what gives them enough lung capacity for flight.

There is now a growing body of evidence that undermines the Darwinian belief that birds evolved from dinosaurs. For example, Professor Rubin is quoted as saying

For one thing, birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs they are supposed to have descended from. That's a pretty serious problem, and there are other inconsistencies with the bird-from-dinosaur theories. A velociraptor did not just sprout feathers at some point and fly off into the sunset.

While the researchers maintain that birds and dinosaurs may have had a common ancestor, Professor Rubin is quoted as follows:

Frankly, there's a lot of museum politics involved in this, a lot of careers committed to a particular point of view even if new scientific evidence raises questions. In some museum displays, the birds-descended-from-dinosaurs evolutionary theory has been portrayed as a largely accepted fact, with an asterisk pointing out in small type that "some scientists disagree". But now there are more asterisks all the time. That's part of the process of science.

We refer readers to the Truth in Science web article shown here. In addition, we do not anticipate a David Attenborough documentary!