richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
C H I L D H O O D , A B U S E A N D R E L I G I O N 335because Layfield is educated in science. Here's another astonishingpassage::As we stated at the beginning, Christians, with very goodreason, reckon the Scriptures of the Old & NewTestaments a reliable guide concerning just what we are tobelieve. They are not merely religious documents. Theyprovide us with a true account of Earth history which weignore at our peril.The implication that the scriptures provide a literal account ofgeological history would make any reputable theologian wince. Myfriend Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, and I wrote a joint letterto Tony Blair, and we got it signed by eight bishops and nine seniorscientists. 147 The nine scientists included the then President of theRoyal Society (previously Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser), boththe biological and physical secretaries of the Royal Society,the Astronomer Royal (now President of the Royal Society), thedirector of the Natural History Museum, and Sir DavidAttenborough, perhaps the most respected man in England. Thebishops included one Roman Catholic and seven Anglican bishops- senior religious leaders from all around England. We received aperfunctory and inadequate reply from the Prime Minister's office,referring to the school's good examination results and its goodreport from the official schools inspection agency, OFSTED. Itapparently didn't occur to Mr Blair that, if the OFSTED inspectorsgive a rave report to a school whose head of science teaches that theentire universe began after the domestication of the dog, there justmight be something a teeny weeny bit wrong with the standards ofthe inspectorate.Perhaps the most disturbing section of Stephen Layfield's lectureis his concluding 'What can be done?', where he considers thetactics to be employed by those teachers wishing to introducefundamentalist Christianity into the science classroom. Forexample, he urges science teachers tonote every occasion when an evolutionary/old-earthparadigm (millions or billions of years) is explicitly
336 THE GOD DELUSIONmentioned or implied by a text-book, examinationquestion or visitor and courteously point out the fallibilityof the statement. Wherever possible, we must give thealternative (always better) Biblical explanation of thesame data. We shall look at a few examples from each ofPhysics, Chemistry & Biology in due course.The rest of Layfield's lecture is nothing less than a propagandamanual, a resource for religious teachers of biology, chemistry andphysics who wish, while remaining just inside the guidelines of thenational curriculum, to subvert evidence-based science educationand replace it with biblical scripture.On 15 April 2006, James Naughtie, one of the BBC's mostexperienced anchormen, interviewed Sir Peter Vardy on radio. Themain subject of the interview was a police investigation ofallegations, denied by Vardy, that bribes - knighthoods and peerages- had been offered by the Blair government to rich men, in anattempt to get them to subscribe to the city academies scheme.Naughtie also asked Vardy about the creationism issue, and Vardycategorically denied that Emmanuel promotes young-Earth creationismto its pupils. One of Emmanuel's alumni, Peter French, hasequally categorically stated, 148 'We were taught that the earth was6000 years old.'* Who is telling the truth here? Well, we don't know,but Stephen Layfield's lecture lays out his policy for teachingscience pretty candidly. Has Vardy never read Layfield's very explicitmanifesto? Does he really not know what his head of science hasbeen up to? Peter Vardy made his money selling used cars. Wouldyou buy one from him? And would you, like Tony Blair, sell him aschool for 10 per cent of its price - throwing in an offer to pay allhis running costs into the bargain? Let's be charitable to Blair andassume that he, at least, has not read the Layfield lecture. I suppose itis too much to hope that his attention may now be drawn to it.Headmaster McQuoid offered a defence of what he clearly sawas his school's open-mindedness, which is remarkable for itspatronizing complacency:the best example I can give of what it is like here is a sixthformphilosophy lecture I was giving. Shaquille was sitting* To get an idea of the scale of this error, it is equivalent to believing that thedistance from New York to San Francisco is 700 yards.
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C H I L D H O O D , A B U S E A N D R E L I G I O N 335
because Layfield is educated in science. Here's another astonishing
passage::
As we stated at the beginning, Christians, with very good
reason, reckon the Scriptures of the Old & New
Testaments a reliable guide concerning just what we are to
believe. They are not merely religious documents. They
provide us with a true account of Earth history which we
ignore at our peril.
The implication that the scriptures provide a literal account of
geological history would make any reputable theologian wince. My
friend Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, and I wrote a joint letter
to Tony Blair, and we got it signed by eight bishops and nine senior
scientists. 147 The nine scientists included the then President of the
Royal Society (previously Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser), both
the biological and physical secretaries of the Royal Society,
the Astronomer Royal (now President of the Royal Society), the
director of the Natural History Museum, and Sir David
Attenborough, perhaps the most respected man in England. The
bishops included one Roman Catholic and seven Anglican bishops
- senior religious leaders from all around England. We received a
perfunctory and inadequate reply from the Prime Minister's office,
referring to the school's good examination results and its good
report from the official schools inspection agency, OFSTED. It
apparently didn't occur to Mr Blair that, if the OFSTED inspectors
give a rave report to a school whose head of science teaches that the
entire universe began after the domestication of the dog, there just
might be something a teeny weeny bit wrong with the standards of
the inspectorate.
Perhaps the most disturbing section of Stephen Layfield's lecture
is his concluding 'What can be done?', where he considers the
tactics to be employed by those teachers wishing to introduce
fundamentalist Christianity into the science classroom. For
example, he urges science teachers to
note every occasion when an evolutionary/old-earth
paradigm (millions or billions of years) is explicitly
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