School Gate: What our children should learn about the big bang

The prospect that creationism may find a place in science lessons promises not so much to stir ripples of controversy as to toss a handgrenade into the fishpond of British science. But the man behind the idea, Michael Reiss, is education director at the Royal Society, which is Britain's crème de la crème science institution. (Respect.) Actually, let's be clear: Michael Reiss, who is a professor of education as well as having a doctorate in biology, is suggesting merely that teachers be open to the possibility of discussing creationism in schools if pupils bring it up.

That is not quite the same as teaching it on an equal basis with evolution but it's still going to stir up controversy about the extent to which science should defer to cultural and religious views that happen to be - how can I put this nicely? - wrong.

In his speech to the British Association Festival of Science yesterday Professor Reiss pointed out that “an increasing percentage of children in the UK come from families that do not accept the scientific version of the history of the universe and the evolution of species”. His answer is for science teachers not to ridicule their beliefs but to endeavour instead to explain the theories of natural selection and big bang. He would, himself, be willing for the children to see evolution as just one way of understanding the universe. This is not the robust approach that most evolutionary scientists would favour.

The assumption made by British commentators is that creationism goes hand in hand with an American-flavoured Christian fundamentalism. But hold it right there. In a British context, the children most likely to turn up in school with a problem about evolution - about one in ten - are not little Evangelicals but Muslim children.

And while most people are willing to be cheerfully abusive about Christian fundamentalists, other rules apply when it comes to how we handle the Islamic view of creation. In this context, as Professor Richard Dawkins has pointed out, we're talking about cultural sensitivities, which ministers are unwilling to ride roughshod over.

There are, of course, Muslim scholars who seek to reconcile evolutionary theory with the divine plan for the universe, but this is not the tradition that Michael Reiss is trying to tackle. But on the bright side the problem is even greater in some parts of the US, where as many as 40 per cent of pupils have problems reconciling evolution with biblical literalism.

Personally, I can't see the problem with discussing creationism in the classroom or anywhere else, so long as the science is not compromised and the evidence is respected.

And, so far as I understand them, the facts of science undermine the literalist account of creation, no matter how respectfully you put them. But then, I'm with Galileo's sparring partner, Cardinal Bellarmine, on this one. He took the view - as Galileo did himself - that God is both the author of scripture and the author of nature, and if the plain facts of nature contradict the accounts of scripture, why, it's the Bible that has to be reinterpreted.

This question of whether we need to tiptoe respectfully around particular beliefs as somehow culturally privileged has been recently addressed by the science writer Kenan Malik in his interesting book on race, Strange Fruit.

His verdict is “no”. He cites the heated debates in the US about when and how the continent of America came to be peopled - whether by colonists taking a land route across the Bering Strait or by sea from Europe, and whether there were peoples who predated the native American Indians and if so, whom they most resemble. Successive theories have been presented, and debunked as new evidence emerges.

But there is a strand of thinking among radical Native American activists which maintains that this whole debate would deny them their moral ownership of the continent and that scientific theories should be refashioned to promote their own view of their origins. Astonishingly, some scientists are willing to back away from the issue. Now that sort of trumping of evidence by cultural special pleading is just scary - we don't want to go there.

Professor Reiss is a former teacher and is probably right to say that it is better to deal politely with children's beliefs than risk having them walk away from science altogether. Respect is something that they all grasp. It seems simple pedagogic tact for a teacher not to pull rank over a child. And if evolution is not presented from the outset as dogma but as a scientific theory with this, this and this evidence in its favour, pupils may be more receptive to it. But we should be wary of compromising the whole concept of scientific truth in our pursuit of pluralism.

Did I mention that Professor Reiss is also an Anglican clergyman? Proof that what we're talking about in this debate is not religion versus science, but a particular radical understanding of religion versus a long tradition of scientific inquiry. And God is not necessarily on the side of the fundamentalists.

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