The Red Notebook

Ga! Sometimes my self-imposed ban on dignifying Intelligent Design with any sort of response can be so hard!

Times: Creationism gains foothold in schools

The [UK] government has cleared the way for a form of creationism to be taught in Britain’s schools as part of the religious syllabus.

Lord Adonis, an education minister, is to issue guidelines within two months for the teaching of “intelligent design” (ID), a theory being promoted by the religious right in America.

Until now the government has not approved the teaching of the controversial theory, which contradicts Darwinian evolutionary theory, the basis of modern biology.

…so I’ll limit myself to just two words:

Arse wank!

(I hope that’s dignified enough for you.)

In science, even self-evident truths need to be put to the test. There was an interesting story in the Telegraph last week, which described how scientists have tried to show that the long necks of giraffes are adaptations to give them an advantage over shorter animals when grazing trees. Bleeding obvious, you might think, but it has also been suggested that giraffes’ long necks might be a result of sexual selection. Although the scientists concede that their experiment is not definitive, they conclude that giraffes browse at high levels in the leaf canopy out of preference (to avoid competition with shorter browsers), rather than simply because their necks happen to be long.

A small victory for common sense, then.

My first lesson in giraffe evolution occurred when I was about six years old. My primary school teacher explained to the class how giraffes tried to stretch their necks to reach the higher leaves and, over time, all giraffes ended up with longer necks. Little did I realise at the time that I was being taught a Lamarckian version of evolution. I’m sure this was not a deliberate mistake on my teacher’s behalf: she probably thought she was introducing us to Darwinian thinking.

Come to think of it, that was the only lesson I ever received in evolution at either primary or secondary school. English school biology in my day was all about the organs of species, not their origins. I wonder if it has changed much.