British IDists prove efficacy of Spam.

I'm not sure if it came up on this site before but some months ago an organisation in the UK called 'Truth in Science' sent a package through the mail to every secondary school in the country. This package contained 'educational' materials including two DVDs ”Unlocking the Mystery of Life’ and ”Where does the evidence lead?’. I'm sure that at least 'Unlocking the mysteries of life' is familiar to many here.It now appears that ~59 schools in the UK have decided to use these teaching materials as 'a classroom resource' now this could mean anything from the basis for one or more lessons to a makeshift frisbee but I fear it suggests the former more.The guardian has coverage of the issue here.To be honest the government has some credibility issues given their readiness to hand the curriculum over to private interest in return for hard cash. The largest creationist educational scandal before this was based around 'academy' schools partially funded by Peter Vardy
but mostly funded by the government, story here.So while 59 may not be a big return for out of all the schools in the country it is certainly enough to produce plenty of publicity for ID. It may mostly be people saying what bull it is, but you know what they say about publicity.TTFN,WK

A comment made by the headmaster of Emmanuel Academy is, I think, quite telling:

quote:

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To teach children that they are nothing more than developed mutations who evolved from something akin to a monkey and that death is the end of everything is hardly going to engender within them a sense of purpose, self-worth and self-respect.

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Sentiments similar to these seem to be quite common within the religious anti-evolution communities; it makes me wonder whether much of the visceral nature of the anti-evolution movement arises from the personal "self-esteem issues" of its members. If one suffers from low self-esteem it might be psychologically useful to imagine that you are the special creation of an all-powerful God.Interestingly, the more extreme religious movements often couch the importance of their religion in these terms. For example born-again advocate Robert Schuller writes, It's a shame that these people feel the need to screw with children's education in order to deal with their personal self-esteem problems.MickEdited by mick, : No reason given.

I'm totally donating. I might not agree with everything he says - but the propaganda war is just building and building. Sign me up.

Here's one of the responses TiS have interpreted as positive."Thanks for sending the two DVDs to the science department. I watched one today and will be using it in critical thinking lessons to illustrate flaws in arguments."BWAHAHAHAHA!

That's fantastic! I hope the person who wrote that finds out that it's been published on the site.

This material is no longer allowed to be used in schools.Ministers to ban creationist teaching aids in science lessons | UK news | The Guardian At least our government remains competent enough to give this short thrift it deserves.Edited by Sour, : subtitle