There are some things that you just know would never be allowed today if we had only known then, what we know now. If somebody today had invented alcohol or tobacco, you know they would never get passed for general public consumption, and would only be allowed to be developed for secret military purposes. Their effects are too toxic (as well as pleasurable). But somehow, we didn’t know about the dangers then, and they crept into some sort of normality.
When creationism was first introduced it had pleasing effects. It was soothing (regardless of truth) for people to think that they knew how they had come about originally, and for them to think that some divine being had taken a personal interest in their being and placed their species (surprise, surprise) at the pinnacle of existence.
The validity of the myth, of course, was based on the say-so of the bible, and while the bible was accepted as the word of god, there was nothing to challenge the story. However, regardless of any usefulness and comfort, the validity of the myth started to crumble. ’Created’ beings with minds dangerously started to investigate evidence. They started to find very old fossils which challenged those who had always read the poetic account as a science manual. And these same people with minds started to realise that the bible was a human rather than a divine creation reflecting the personalities, talents, desires, and beliefs of the human authors.
Perhaps it was at this point that the creation myth started to become increasingly toxic. People started to insist on its literal truth in the face of clear contradictory evidence. For some, it became the litmus test of orthodoxy and faith. If you deny creation, you deny the reliability and authority of the bible, and if you do that the whole pack of cards could tumble.
And so it became dangerous, because people were expected to believe it in the face of evidence. And encouraging people to believe things in the face of evidence is personally and socially damaging. It encourages the Dark Ages and prevents personal and social growth and progress. It clogs up cognitive evolution. Because of that, all thinking people should resist the spread of creationism. We owe it to ourselves and our children.
I was saddened to read the following in the NSS newsletter:
Creationism threatens to slip into science lessons in Hampshire secondary schools if the local Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) is allowed to have its way.
The SACRE (a multi-religious advisory body, required by statute, that guides local schools’ religious education policy) has recommended that evolution and creationism be taught jointly in RE and science lessons.
The aim, says the SACRE, is for pupils to explore the science and theology together, then come to their own conclusions.
On the face of it there is nothing too sinister about children discussing creationism. Let there be free debate about ideas in an educational setting. However, as the NSS authors point out, it is one thing for teachers to respond to questions about a topic. It is another thing to specifically introduce that topic as part of the school curriculum. It gives creationism an authority it doesn’t deserve.
If time is given to creationism in an overburdened school curriculum, why not make space too for the following: the flat earth society, the history of morris dancing, belief in fairies?
Source: National Secular Society
Have just discovered, and am thoroughly enjoying your blog,
GG
I also keep returning to enjoy a good read and nice selection of photographic ‘illustrations’. It’s a well kept blog, which should serve as a pattern and inspiration to netizens. Good craftsmanship, enthralling content.
Being a former scientist in Biology, and now working with science information and arranging talks, helping out with TV productions etc. in relation to the Darwin year here in Sweden, I fully share your worries.
However, as you may be aware of, many evolutionary scientists have suggested that we’re actually predisposed to become creationists, searching for patterns and reasons to help us grasp our environment and everyday hardships. Education sometimes (though not always) helps.
Kids keep projecting their own feelings onto dead objects or propose reasons for things being as they are for specific reasons. Lifeless shapes on screens are perceived as having moods or ‘being chased’ or ‘bullied’ by other lifeless shapes. Statements like ’stones are jagged so that animals can scratch their fur against them’ are commonplace. Even many grown ups make similar statements when pressed for time. See, for example research reported in last week’s edition of New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16687-humans-may-be-hardwired-to-believe-in-creation.html
Even if you try to convince or prove to people that there are no supernatural explanations, they stick to it, provided that they want to.
For example, Canadian researchers could recently show that a certain same area of the brain was affected (displaying activity in a brain scan) regardless if you were one of the praying catholic nuns or a meditating buddhist.
To most of us that would point to a physiological explanation for religious experiences, regardless of affiliation. To the nuns, however, it was ‘proof’ of their contact with God. A ‘God-spot’ He has provided us with.
Even worse, perhaps, that’s what the scientist himself claims (!). He’s now out on a non-materialist crusade, which has stirred up some debate over there at the continent where we Europeans shipped our most hard-driving zealots.
Again, much of it can be found in New Scientist, which is always a worthwhile bookmark to visit or include in ones rss-subscritions.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026860.100-materialist-mind.html
Keep up the good work,
Jonas
GunnersideGill
Thanks for the encouragement. I wish you success in your own blog.
Jonas
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Thanks for your support and interesting and informative comment. I agree wholeheartedly that human beings have this desire to create meaning out of chaos, regardless of the facts
It baffles me to be honest why we still devote so much of the curriculum to religion and outdated viewpoints, like creationism. I do not withdraw my children from RE lessons, or object to discussions about creationism however it is presented simply because I know these lessons will probably reinforce their impatience with religion because of the type of discussions we have at home. But some children are perhaps more vulnerable to believing what they hear. Religion should be kept out of state schools or rather taught as part of things ie reasons behind wars and such like.
There are so many more interesting and useful things that children could spend time on in school.
Silver Tiger wrote an interesting post recently about the New Scientist article that Jonas has linked to above.
I can really see how the FSM campaign hit the nail on the head. If you can teach religious babble as though it were on equal footing with science, who’s to say what religious babble is acceptable?
It’s not like creationism by Judeo-Christian god has that much of a leg up on creationism by any other deities, ancient revered theological texts aside.
This for me is a very hard blog to answer.
I can see much of what you say.
Yes, the Bible is a creation of words from and by people their thoughts/ beliefs at the time.
Yes, evidence is so very important. Vital infact. Factual as apposed to fantasy. I am all for that.
Yet for me I am realising that this whole subject is so un-clear cut. Confusing and yet fascinating.
Could science just be one way of looking at the truth?
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the God seen in children’s Bible stories, as a figure we can interpret, is so off the scale. A deity that does not exist at all.
Yet, there are so many un-answered questions. We can look at fossils and we can analyise facts but nobody really knows if some “higher” force is/ was really behind our massive creation.
How did it all just come by mere chance and if so why?
Why are we hear? Who what created us?
You say that you do not object to teachers answering questions about this subject, yet would not want to see it as part of curiculum.
I know your views are very exact and rigid. So many other blogs and opinions, reads on twitter convinces me that you know you are right and that is it, with respect to this whole subject.
All I am trying to say is that I am struggling to find the answers to the meaning and purpose of our exisitence and whether a much wider thought process needs to be applied here.
I am all for imaginative debate. ( I related to Jonas third paragraph comment). Ok not false lies or distortion of facts and figures to make the Bible story fit. But why not more discussion linking both sides of the coin. Creatonism V evolution etc.
It is an exciting time for me as I grapple with science, evolution and where, what and how did we arrive at where we are.
For me, I am not so un-convinced that there is something so much bigger out there, that science has not even begun to touch on. But I don’t mean a bearded man in the sky.
I don’t know what.
I just wish I knew.
Reluctant Blogger
We are in agreement. The tragedy is that with so many demands of the curriculum, it seems such a waste to use precious space for this, when so many more useful things (beer making?) could be included.
Anatoli
Thanks for dropping by. I agree. If we give space to creationism then logically we should also give space to so much else that is equally absurd.
onethoughtfulwoman
I don’t have a problem with discussion - after all, that is what education ought to be about. There are two issues here for me. First, including it on the curriculum takes up valuable space and gives it importance it doesn’t merit. Secondly, whatever your personal beliefs, I don’t think it is the job of the school to encourage a religious belief. Others can do that if they want to, without state funds.
And so it became dangerous, because people were expected to believe it in the face of evidence. And encouraging people to believe things in the face of evidence is personally and socially damaging. It encourages the Dark Ages and prevents personal and social growth and progress. It clogs up cognitive evolution
I couldn’t agree more. If I bury somewhere in the brain my doubts of the creation story, then it will be increasingly easy to deny real problems like alcoholism, pedophilia, anger, and other issues that need to be stared right on the face to be overcome.
On the face of it there is nothing too sinister about children discussing creationism.
Actually, I see one danger. The story of Adam & Eve is palatable to a child, fascinating, if you will. It is, I think, a children’s story after all. Something you could read to your kids at bed time.
So, a child may be more inclined to believe creation than evolution, since the latter is harder to understand. It requires a screwed-on head to truly follow an evolutionary explanation.
I agree with various sorts of storytelling being performed for kids. It’s essential for our development, and through good writing we can ‘meet’ and sympathize with people whom we’re never going to see in person. Or who are no longer sharing Earth with us.
Actually this story telling is perhaps what really sets us apart from other species. I would be really surprised to find another species capable of that skill. The dancing patterns of bees or pointing or grunting sounds of primates are fascinating, however don’t really cut it for me.
However, I strongly disagree with the meager story telling of the creation myth (or myths, there are two different ones, compare verse 1 and 2 of ‘Genesis’ the Great book) being forced upon hapless youngsters as some kind of ‘truth’ about the factual world.
There have been much more talented writers around since those verses were put down. And with modern science, underpinned by Darwin’s great ‘thought reform’, a vastly more rich fascinating story is continuously being spun and developed.
Though, it has to be admitted, not every writer is a poet with their wording. But I do admire this passage, in the final section of that Shrewsbury chap 150 years ago:
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
(Yes, sometimes I get a bit pretentious
)