Schools get advice on creationism

Creationism is to be debated alongside the theory of evolution in science and religious education lessons in secondary schools across Hampshire.
Teachers are being given advice on how questions about evolution and God can be explored with 11 to 14-year-olds.
Critics said the advice was “a retrograde step” and should be dropped.
But Hampshire County Council said the report advised schools about resources they may wish to use to encourage “reasoned enquiry and open discussion”.
The report was put together by the county’s standing advisory council for religious education (Sacre), in an attempt to address the public debate about the relationship between evolution and faith.
The report says the county is “always looking for our students to explore complexity” and sets out how schools may want to take the debate forward in science and religious education (RE) lessons.
Intelligent design
The guidance – issued to 70 secondary schools in Hampshire – covers Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, as well as creationism which upholds the biblical story of creation.
It suggests teachers explore with pupils the reasons why Darwin’s theories were dismissed and ridiculed in the 19th century.
The advice examines whether it is possible to believe in evolution and a creator God and looks at the concept of intelligent design, which suggests the complexity of the world makes God’s intervention the only reasonable explanation.
It considers the heated debate on evolution between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Professor Thomas Huxley, as well as the Roman Catholic Church’s stance that mankind may have evolved but that God created the soul.