h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"So, to be clear, this man is actively telling teachers to depart from the national curriculum"

Actually, no. I think one of his many delusions is that teachers have plenty of time to teach the national curriculum PLUS whatever else it occurs to them to mention. I think he's saying teach this backward middle-eastern death cult bullshit AS WELL AS real science, "teach the controversy", as certain idiot yanks had it, and let the kids decide what to believe.

"That strikes me as a much more injurious piece of mischief than, oh, attempting to bribe a police officer, say."

Nah. There's no financial incentive involved. There's not even, if you read it, any mention, I think, of God, Christ, the Bible, the tooth fairy or Santa Claus, or whatever it is those wackjobs believe in. Just "look, there's a bunch of "facts" here I think you should be teaching!!!1!!".

It is, I'd like to think, essentially harmless. However, I worry slightly that the head of science I live with is actually one of the brighter, more intelligent, sceptical ones, and the stories she tells me of teachers in her department and other heads she meets at conferences reading their horoscope in "Heat", visiting psychics for career advice, dowsing to find water pipes in their gardens and taking homeopathic remedies for headaches are exaggerated.

Sounds to me like the letter is little better than trolling. If the author of the letter really understood the contents of the letter, he wouldn't have sent it.

I would imagine that any response would be taken as encouragement and would be followed up with more of the same gibberish. I think this is one the reason why Dawkins (and others) just declines to engage with people like that. Similarly with climate 'sceptics', racists, and various other lunatics. It's possible to invent fifty or sixty different untruths, distortions, and irrelevancies in the time it takes to dismiss one.

I guess there's also a bit of a danger when engaging with people like that, because you can end up on the radar of people like that, and I can imagine a scenario where the kind of response that you'd really like to send would be met with complaints to the Head, Governors etc. Perhaps a teacher is just enough of a public official to be regarded as having some kind of broader duty beyond to children and their parents - dunno. Probably for some people, anyway.

Having said all that, I do like the idea of a reply saying "forwarded to the RE department". But better not to.

The chap doesn't really understand what he is talking about with regard to his "list". He is just collecting bits and pieces in order to "discredit" evolution as an explanation for life on Earth. Presumably he believes that by "discrediting" evolution, we would be more likely to accept the biblical version of creation.

He probably thinks that if one believes in biblical creation, one would then accept Jesus as the "son of God". He probably also thinks that believing in the "son of God" will turn us all into loving, caring "good people". By being good people and believing in Jesus, we might then all meet up again in a nice and cosy and loving place.

Of course I might be wrong about his motives. I am just guessing.

What scares me is that Michael Gove seems quite happy to who share this guys homeopathic view of science (a drop of half-truth in a olympic swimming pool of superstition, false premises and prejudice) set up free schools.

Whhops I meant....

What scares me is that Michael Gove seems quite happy to allow people who who share this guys homeopathic view of science (a drop of half-truth in a olympic sized swimming pool of superstition, false premises and prejudice) to set up free schools

This article is directly related to what that letter proposes.
It tells about different tactics to give response and how creationism is present in different schools curriculums.
They also say that it would be interesting to use those"facts" to explain and reinforce the scientific method, etc.
But... are teachers prepared for that? The picture your girlfriend gives is not very hopeful.

<<<But that does not mean that the issue does not come up in the public school classroom. In one survey around 40 percent of teachers reported being challenged by students about evolution, suggesting that there needs to be solid training for U.K. teachers whose general "understanding of evolution is very, very poor," Williams says.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=evolution-education-abroad

As Hoov suggests, I am purely the sort of person who might derive some innocent amusement from this gentleman, and have sent the following epistle winging its way into the ether:

---

Dear Mr Davies,

Thank you for your letter with suggested content on evolutionism as taught in Science lessons.

You seem to be labouring under a number of misapprehensions, not least of which is that science teachers have any sort of control over the content of their lessons. This is dictated by the government and exam boards, and much though many of us would like to undertake frivolous digressions on 'pet' topics, there really isn't the time to do so.

Given that we do indeed teach pupils the nature of scientific enquiry and scientific method, including analysis of primary and secondary sources, I am sure that many of my more able students would be able to address three primary concerns in your preamble:

1) Why do you not cite the MPs' quotes by name?
2) What was the response of the other 648 MPs?
3) Why, if you acknowledge that evolution is an important part of the curriculum, do you only focus your arguments on disproving it?

As for the bulk of your letter, it seems difficult to reconcile all the detail therein with any of our academic courses. It is too advanced for the great majority of GCSE students, and much of it is not within the specification for A-Level Biology, where theories of evolution are taught in more detail. Please note that evolution - on all specifications - is taught as a scientific theory and a means of explaining existing evidence. It is not preached as a mantra and we are more than happy to let sufficiently able students make up their own mind whether the theory is credible or not. In other words, no science department teaches 'evolutionism', and as you rightly say the views are discussed more in Religious Education lessons.

Most of your alleged 'facts' do not appear to be cited or cross-referenced, and have very little to do with the teaching of evolution, which is a scientific theory advanced by Lamarck, Darwin and others to explain variation in living things. Indeed, most of your list appears to consist of suppositions and unproven theorems which are the very thing you are attempting to attack. Your call for 'these facts to be answered' when - by their very definition - facts are unanswerable, is absurd.

Yours,

Ben Bateson

Well, if you have the time. But what are you hoping to achieve?

"What was the response of the other 648 MPs?"

I suspect it would have consisted of something along the lines of: "you're not one of my constituents, therefore I'm going to ignore you". Or a nicer version thereof....

I have had an email response.

Sadly, it is nowhere near as well-thought-out(!) as the initial letter, wherein he demonstrates some fundamental beginners' errors about the theory of evolution. It would be an embarrassment to both me and the old man (for he is a grandfather) to post it here. I have sent him a second reply of email advising him to read some Dawkins and to let the matter lie until he has addressed his misconceptions.

B

Instead of Dawkins, how about some Steve Jones? The book Almost Like A Whale would be a good introduction to evolution I'd say.

"It would be an embarrassment to both me and the old man (for he is a grandfather) to post it here."

Oh no!
Come on! Please?

Anyhoo, I thought embarrassing the old man was the entire point of the exercise? I don't see how anything else he could have written could be any more embarrassing than the tirade of shite in the first letter.

Kudos to Mu Beta for following up on this and testing the waters so to speak. I thought the ending of the last sentence of the email was perhaps a little harsh but it was sure to elicit a response.

"advising him to read some Dawkins and to let the matter lie until he has addressed his misconceptions"

Care for a bet as to how much notice he'll take of that advice?

None. But what's the problem here? There're all sorts of daft people in the world. Do you expect one of them to get less daft?

"There're all sorts of daft people in the world."

... and many of them have been elected.

Of course I don't expect him to get less daft. I know of old what these people are like.

My only concern is that the precious time of even one science teacher might be wasted taking this kook seriously. I don't think I can affect even that, unfortunately. However, the more of HIS time that can be wasted dealing with people who are using him for entertainment in the manner of the inmates of bedlam, the better.

Oh, I'd have thought he'll have already peaked with his mailshot.

What you *could* do is mailshot schools to point out (if they haven't realised it already) that false information is being sent out. That or just leave them to teach the National Curriculum. I doubt even the more gullible teachers you mention are going to deviate from that on the basis of a mailshot - are they?

I know - it's silly, it's galling - but how much real danger does the letter represent?

You guys have so much respect for the teaching profession, it's awesome.

B