The United Kingdom has gone ahead and banned the peddling of "pseudoscience" to students. That's right, all publicly-funded schools—present and future—are now prohibited from teaching Creationism in the classroom.
The new laws are part of the new Funding Agreement—passed early last week—and leave little room for interpretation:
The parties acknowledge that clauses 2.43 and 2.44 of the Funding Agreement [which preclude the teaching of pseudoscience and require the teaching of evolution] apply to all academies. They explicitly require that pupils are taught about the theory of evolution, and prevent academy trusts from teaching 'creationism' as scientific fact" ...
'Creationism' . . . is any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution. The parties acknowledge that creationism, in this sense, is rejected by most mainstream churches and religious traditions, including the major providers of state funded schools such as the [Anglican] [Catholic] Churches, as well as the scientific community.
It does not accord with the scientific consensus or the very large body of established scientific evidence; nor does it accurately and consistently employ the scientific method, and as such it should not be presented to pupils at the Academy as a scientific theory.
Sorry, G-o-d, but science says you're gonna have to take a backseat on the evolution conundrum. We know it'd be a nice feather in your cap and all, but I think we'll stick with the whole, "we've been around for billions of years and all crawled from the primordial goo resulting in biological diversity" theory. (Although that Garden of Eden thing sounds pretty good. Oh . . . except for the banishment/punishment for all of humanity's lifetime part. And the "it's all a stupid woman's fault" part. That's rough.)
Anyway. The U.K. has had anti-creationism irons in the fire since 2011. That's when the campaign/petition "Teach Evolution, Not Creationism" was launched, which argued that the prohibition of "intelligent design" curriculum should be "made statutory and enforceable." Efforts were furthered again in 2012, when the U.K. government banned all future free schools from teaching Creationism, requiring them to teach natural selection instead. (Privately funded academies and current free schools were not required to alter their curriculum, however; the new law now includes every Limey public school under the sun.)
Meanwhile, Over in the U S of A
While the majority of U.K. and United States citizens identify as Christians (58% and 77%, respectively) it seems that England understands a tenant that is supposed to be a governing principle of our own constitution—ya know, separation of church and state.
Meanwhile, both South Carolina and Missouri proposed anti-evolution bills recently, which were shot down.
Thank God.
Image: ThinkStock
