Replace religious education

I was pleased to see the schools inspector Ofsted weighing in on religious education (RE) in schools. The report Making sense of religion: a report on religious education in schools and the impact of locally agreed syllabuses [release / report] is interesting - though stops short of a full broadside on the very idea of RE. Ofsted summarises:

The report argues that RE should not ignore controversy or the changes in the role and significance of religion in the modern world. Pupils should be taught that religion is complex, that its impact is ambiguous and should be given the opportunity to explore that ambiguity.

Amen to that!



RE is in the strange position of being mandated by law (Education Reform Act 1988) but also outside the National Curriculum. As a minimum it should come into the National Curriculum with solid guidance about what is to be taught and how - ie. only as a starting point for debate about values ('learning from religion') and as a factual account of what many people believe, however irrational and perplexing ('learning about religion'). I don't think there is justification for emphasising one religion over another, despite the legal requireemnt to favour Christianity and the dominance of Christianity in declared religion (see chart - source ONS )*. If people want to develop their own belief system, isn't that what churches, Sunday schools, temples, mosques and madrassas are for?

History of ideas
I would get rid of RE completely. Much better would be to replace it with more neutral study of the 'history of ideas' - of which the major religions are a undoubtedly part. It would be great, for example, to see comparisons made between the majestic Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the feeble 10 commandments, with their four commandments devoted to demanding exclusivity and restraint of religious freedom, silly ideas for universal laws like not working on Sundays, unhelpful strictures about killing that give no clue to when it is alright or even essential, and a lot of stuff about not eyeing up your neighbour's ox or male servant. It would be great to see huge ideas like evolution, democracy, human rights, globalisation, Marxism, capitalism etc. taught and discussed. Great debates are to be had about everything from euthanasia and abortion, justification of torture and the case for terrorism, the limits to free speech to the abolition of slavery, racism and positive action.

Schools have one main job to do, and that is to teach kids to think critically and for themselves - in the arena of big ideas there is no case for limiting that to the largely failed or wrong ideas of religion. RE represents a wasted opportunity to engage young people in the really big ideas in the real world.

* Much has been made of the 2001 census finding in the chart that about 72% of Brits say they are Christian - evidence that the church is alive and well? But what do people really mean when they say 'Christian' in response to this question? I think they are probably identifying themselves as part of an ethnic group rather than declaring a belief system. If the question was "what religion do you practice?", I wonder what the answer would be? Also, for these numbers to be correct, parents must have filled in the form for their kids - but what does it mean when an intellectually defenceless 5-year old is classified as subscribing to a belief system like Christianity?
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Thai resauranteur overcoming Act of God

I visited Nim's Kitchen on Saturday evening, a splendid Thai restaurant in Norwood near Crystal Palace - very tasty food, good ambience and buzz, with excellent attentive service. Nim's Kitchen is a very good dining experience, but the truly remarkable thing about Nim's Kitchen is the eponymous Nim herself.

More than 10 years ago she met an Englishman (an economist from the Department for International Development) in Thailand while she was a teacher and he was learning to speak Thai. They fell in love, married and had three children. In 2004 her family was visiting Thailand, but on the 26th December that year, the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck and they were in its path. 

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What are you optimistic about?

Edge, the quite-pleased-with-itself forum for "some the world's most interesting minds", has posed its 2007 World Question: what are you optimistic about and why? [World Question Center] And it's worth dipping into.

I particularly liked the contribution from Daniel Dennett, the American Philosopher, that combined urgency about real-world concerns like climate change and development, with inspiration from society's capacity to change attitudes and behaviours (drawing on experience with smoking), to justify a robust optimism about what he calls The Evaporation of the Powerful Mystique of Religion as knowledge technologies and communication blast away at the enclaves that can still shelter the strange systems of belief that constitute the main world religions. As he puts it, "eventually the truth will set us free".

It left me wondering what I am optimistic about...

Actually, I take a lot for granted that for most of human history (or even the last 100 years) would be regarded as optimistic. I don't expect to be sent off to fight a war, be bombed with nuclear weapons or die of an infectious disease - not even avian flu. I expect to be richer, and if not that will be by choice to achieve better well-being. I'm not expecting unemployment or worried about downsizing, even if its me that's downsized! Despite the slow-motion catastrophe of climate change, many environmental trends are heading the right way [UK sustainable development indicators indicators], though the big picture is quite gloomy [WRI Earth Trends]. More progress expected on the Millennium Development Goals, though with depressing exceptions in Africa. I'm looking forward to a decline in American and British adventurism in favour of a more multilateral approach to the new UN concept of the 'responsibility to protect'. I expect to enjoy a lengthy season of political theatre - with a new PM following a contest, bustle for Cabinet positions, overhaul of Whitehall, and an SNP victory that will spoil the fun for the incoming PM and create an excellent debate about the West Lothian question. I love the Internet and think that will just get better - who imagined Wikipedia, Google, Blogger, Skype and iTunes - to name a few - even just 10 years ago?

Like Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris I'm optimistic that religion will begin a precipitous decline in the face on a new knowledge-driven enlightenment, and I think it will start (or rather continue) with Christianity in Britain - see chart for the trend in church-going.

Above all, I'm optimistic that England's cricket performances will improve, though probably not until we depart from Australia.

What are you optimistic about?
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The despairing nihilism of intelligent design - please keep away from schools

Oh dear.... the creationists have returned to planet earth and appear to be fanning out from their landing site in the United States. After a week away, I see a Newsnight podcast on creationism in schools, following a Guardian report, Revealed: rise of creationism in UK schools stating that 59 schools are apparently using new materials about 'intelligent design' that had been circulated by a British creationist group called Truth in Science.

The language of the proponents of intelligent design is infuriating: it appropriates the ideas of challenge and open-mindedness to counter-argument, testing theories by evidence and examination of paradoxes, opposition to dogma and even offers a scientific justification for intelligent design ('irreducible complexity'). In fact it is anything but scientific and anything but a useful or valid challenge to the alleged dogma of Darwinism and the theory of evolution.

Darwin's challenge to Darwin
The creationists' theory of intelligent design relies on Darwin's own formulation of a credible challenge to his theory of evolution (see Origin of the Species p.90 - an admirable thing for a scientist to do, by the way, and completely lacking in formulation of intelligent design):

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

Irreducible complexity - the creationists' trump card
This has given rise to the idea of 'irreducible complexity' - things found in nature that cannot have been formed through the process of evolution, namely incremental change brought about by mutation causing changed traits which face selection pressures which allow reproduction of traits that confer a survival advantage - see Wikipedia on evolution). If something that we observe today cannot have formed gradually, then evolution fails as a theory - enter the triumphant intelligent designer, who wanted it that way from the start. Some have cited the human eye or winged flight as examples (what use is half an eye, so how could it have evolved?). But they are wrong... in both cases it is possible to show that gradual increases in the ability to see (eg. starting with recognising nearby movement) or to fly (falling out of a tree in a more controlled way) confer survival advantages and suggest that highly complex organs like the eye and wings could have evolved gradually starting from these basic traits.

A very strange organism - but is it evidence that it's all been designed intelligently...?
The current favourite of the intelligent designers to challenge evolution is the 'bacterial flagellum' - a kind of pump and motor mechanism found in a single cell organism (article / animation). And it is indeed a remarkable microscopic structure! The school materials distributed to schools by 'Truth in Science' make much of this little machine. The Teachers Manual part 3, gives the game away... notice how prescriptive it suddenly becomes. Students will:

• Understand the concept of “irreducible complexity” – that some machines are made up of many parts, all of which are necessary for function
• Recognise the bacterial flagellum as an example of an irreducibly complex system
• Understand that irreducibly complex structures cannot evolve by slight, successive, advantageous variations, because at certain points in their evolution they will lose function altogether

Note there is no question here of debating whether this mechanism actually is irreducibly complex - students will 'recognise' and 'understand' it to be irreducibly complex and 'understand' that it cannot have evolved. There are two problems here: first there are plausible explanations for how this amazing mechanism might have evolved gradually (see Pallen & Matzke, Nature Reviews of Microbiology, 2006 / more accessible account / blog devoted to this). Second, is that the fact that something is difficult to explain, doesn't establish the counter theory - it means that it is difficult to explain and that it is a worthwhile challenge to test the dominant theory.

Things I dislike about all this...

1. It's almost embarrassingly facile to point this out, but the intelligent design argument is circular - the intelligent designer (apparently labouring over the spec of everything from a strange bacteria to the human ability to smell a rat) must be more complex than anything imaginable. Sorry, but where did this come from? Who or what is the designer and how did it emerge?
   
2. It denies the wonder of science and the power and elegance of Darwin's big idea, replacing inquiry with a form of defeatism. Rather than seeing gaps in knowledge or evidence as legitimate challenges to evolution it has immediate recourse to a bizarre supernatural explanation.
   
3. No evidence whatsoever is offered for intelligent design. Unlike evolution, its proponents offer no means by which the idea can be verified or falsified. It should not be dignified as a 'theory' as no test is offered to falsify it. Like an invasive weed, it just fills any gap in understanding of the world with a one-size-fits-all super-explanation. This is what religion has done through the ages - enabling priests to explain the unknown by invoking gods and the supernatural.
   
4. Whatever they say, it is religious propaganda. Numerous biases and assertions of 'truth' can be found on the 'Truth in Science' pages, despite the PR effort to argue that this is all healthy debate. Eg. the news page somehow omits the Guardian's searing article in favour of more favourable coverage.
   

Let me reserve some remaining concern for the attitude of Prime Minister Blair. In a recent interview with New Scientist he was asked about the teaching of creationism in schools. His reply...

If I notice creationism become the mainstream of the education system in this country then that’s the time to start worrying. As I’ve said, it’s really quite important for science to fight the battles it needs to fight. When MMR comes out, or stem cells, or GM, that’s the time to have a real debate

Doh!! If it becomes the mainstream, it's way too late 'to start worrying'. Blair's complacency about the place in schools of one of the greatest ideas in human history is astonishing. Except as part of a discussion on bogus science and the failure of religion to offer any useful explanation for our origins, creationism and it's slick alter-ego, intelligent design, have no place in schools.





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Civil partnerships - increasing the sum of human happiness

I attended a civil partnership ceremony this weekend - an arrangement for same-sex couples to make a life-long commitment and to secure the same sort of legal rights as married different-sex couples. These came into being in December 2005 through the Civil Partnership Act 2004. The ceremony and whole day was absolutely terrific and congratulations to James and Andreas who looked happy, relieved and resplendent in their D&G jackets.

What struck me most was the simple elegence of the words of personal commitment between the two, unsullied by the intrusion of a mythical supernatural creator; the entirely secular but very moving readings; the merciful absence of sermons and hymns (does anyone ever read the words of these absurd chants before singing them?) and replacement of the baying flatulance of the church organ with a sublime solo harpist. It was altogether a much more uplifting and 21st century experience than any wedding I have ever attended in a church.

Perhaps this sort of experience will help to bring 'union' back into favour - and arrest its long term decline. Understandably, decline has been especially pronounced for religious marriages, which are now a small and dwindling minority (see chart from ONS data). I was proud of the widespread openness to this in Britain (contrast with the US) - the public and even tabloid newspapers got behind it. Needless to say, misguided Christian groups, such as the Christian Institute, lead the opposition to this important social innovation. The Church of England did all they could to marginalise and diminish it short of outright opposition (note the incredible pomposity and opacity in the statement at this House of Bishops link). That sort of thing might have impressed 16th Century peasants, but I don't think it will carry much weight now.
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Faith no more

I'm just reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (Guardian review). For those of us that spent our school days making intense, and supposedly clinching, arguments to religious friends of the type: "if God made the world, then what made God?", Dawkins' polemic offers an unvarnished orgy of smugness - the simple joy of having what you have long held to be certain read back to you with great erudition and scholarship. One of his best and angriest propositions relates to the indoctrination of children with religious ideas.

"I want everybody to flinch when they hear a phrase such as 'Catholic child' or 'Muslim child'. Speak of a 'child of Catholic parents' if you like, but if you hear anybody speak of a 'Catholic child', stop them and point out that children are too young to know where they stand on such issues, just as they are too young to know where they stand on economics or politics."

On the same note, I really can't bear the idea of 'faith schools'. And there are a lot of them (6276 primary and 588 secondary - see chart above & DFES stats for England). A dictionary definition of 'faith' is 'complete trust or confidence'. But the essence of good education is curiosity, scepticism and open-mindedness - the antithesis of faith. A range of arguments is advanced for these institutions, such as better performance etc (see discussion here). I don't think they add up to much and certainly not enough to justify contaminating an education with a predefined belief system granted immunity from scrutiny and challenge.

Despite so much religious madness in the United States, the founding fathers were wise enough to keep religion and government apart. The 'Establishment Clause' of the First Amendment of the American constitution both provides for religious freedom, but requires separation of church and state - a principle regularly upheld by the Supreme Court. I really wish we had a simple constitutional separation like this... There is nothing to stop children indulging in folklore and fantasy outside school, if their parents can make them. ... continues. Read full post.