{"id":153838,"date":"2012-01-16T12:55:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-16T08:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=153838"},"modified":"2012-01-16T12:55:48","modified_gmt":"2012-01-16T08:55:48","slug":"uk-schools-that-teach-intelligent-design-over-evolution-will-lose-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/01\/16\/uk-schools-that-teach-intelligent-design-over-evolution-will-lose-funding.html","title":{"rendered":"UK Schools that Teach &#8216;Intelligent Design&#8217; over Evolution will Lose Funding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leading scientists and naturalists, including Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough, are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution groups from teaching creationism in science classes, <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/education\/2012\/jan\/15\/free-schools-creationism-intelligent-design\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>guardian.co.uk<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> reports.<\/p>\n<p>The <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.education.gov.uk\/schools\/leadership\/typesofschools\/freeschools\/freeschoolsfaqs\/a0075656\/free-schools-faqs-curriculum#faq4\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>Department for Education<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> has revised its model funding agreement, allowing the education secretary to withdraw cash from schools that fail to meet strict criteria relating to what they teach. Under the new agreement, funding will be withdrawn for any free school that teaches what it claims are &#8220;evidence-based views or theories&#8221; that run &#8220;contrary to established scientific and\/or historical evidence and explanations&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The British Humanist Association (BHA), which has led a campaign against creationism \u2013 the movement that denies Darwinian evolution and claims that the Earth and all its life was created by God \u2013 described the move as &#8220;highly significant&#8221; and predicted that it would have implications for other faith groups looking to run schools.<\/p>\n<p>Dawkins, who was one of the leading lights in the campaign, welcomed confirmation that creationists would not receive funding to run free schools if they sought to portray their views as science. &#8220;I welcome all moves to ensure that creationism is not taught as fact in schools,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Government rules on this are extremely welcome, but they need to be properly enforced.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Free schools, which are state-funded and run by local people or organisations, do not need to follow the national curriculum. Scientific groups have expressed concerns that their spread will see a reduction in the teaching of evolution in the classroom.<\/p>\n<p>Several creationist groups have expressed an interest in opening schools in towns and cities across England, including Bedford, Barnsley, Sheffield and Nottingham. Critics say they seek to promote creationism, or the doctrine of &#8220;intelligent design&#8221;, as a scientific theory rather than as a myth or metaphor.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leading scientists and naturalists are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the UK government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":153717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[36824,36822,36823,36820,36821,36818,36819],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}