Damn Bible Belt hardcore...Brits?

[TGSC]

Posted this on the K! boards as well

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4648598.stm

Over half of Britons say that the theory of Evolution does not accurately describe their beliefs on the origins of life, instead choosing creationism or ID.

Also over 40% of Britons said that creationism and ID should be taught in school science lessons.

And I though religion was on the decline in Britain, I thought only the conservative Bible Belt of America held this view, but apparently not.
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Also posted this in pre-emption



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OK, I'm just going to make one point that some (not all) creationists/ID'ers bring up when this gets debated.

I'm fine with ID or whatever being taught in RE lessons, but not in science lessons. The argument that "creationism is theory just as much as evolution". No. Theory in the scientific sense means a provable and more importantly disprovable hypothesis supported by evidence, that can be used to make dispovable predictions about future events/experiments/the nature of further findings. Creationism doesn't do this, its a theory in the layman's sense, in that its a guess as to what happened, based on very little evidence, and cannot be disproved, as the existence of fossils and other contradictory evidence is just "testing our faith".
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Views?

[IBBoard]

First view? Quote tags

Second view: That many people are religious in Britain? They must not have picked on the student population! We had MUUCU (I think that was its name, something like 'Manchester University and UMIST Christian Union') and any time they did little talks and presentations, we all avoided them even though they offered free food!

I agree, though. Teach Intelligent Design in with RE and Creationism (I think it gets a mention, possibly at primary school) but it shouldn't be allowed near Science. I think some of Pratchett's ideas have more possibility of being correct than Creationism (things like inspiration flying through the universe as particles, waiting to hit brains!)

[MadMaffMan]

When i was a sprog at school, i once asked my RE teacher 'how does the Bible explain dinosaurs and man evolving from apes?'......

She threw me out the class and sent me to the Headmaster with a note calling me a trouble maker.

That kinda ended any interest in Religon for me. I did read in the paper that a survey reckons that populace in general are getting more ignorant of things (the TV/binge drinking generation) maybe we're heading for the Dark Age in WH40K where people are told what to think and not to think themselves.

[IBBoard]

People say education is getting a little like that anyway. I'll admit that I struggled on past papers from more than about three years ago at A Level (well, the maths ones I remember), but that was because I didn't have a clue what they were asking for - at least the newer questions directly asked for what they wanted to know!

Doesn't suprise me about being thrown out of RE though If any Witnesses of Jehova-ish-ness came round to my family's house and I was the only one in (back in the good old college days) I'd try and point out major flaws in their arguments, and they'd either ignore it and say something about god's will or they'd say that the Bible said something else. The one I remember is about the Earth being flat - I pointed out that it was a bit of a mistake, they just said "no, the bible says it is round, and religion knew for a long time before science". That must be the reason why some scientist (whose name I can't remember) was imprisoned in his house by the church for suggesting the world was round...or something like that, I can't remember exactly

And on an Eddie Izzard inspired thought - of all of the main religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) at least two of them have to be wrong - they all claim Jerusalem and the general area as given to them by their god, so either we've got a lot of gods all claiming ownership of the land, one god being a bit of a git and lying to people, one god and two misinterpretations or no god at all.

And back to the original topic more ...

Participants over 55 were less likely to choose evolution over other groups.

Sounds about right - older people do tend to be more religious, because at over 55 they tend to have gone to school back when it was all still majorly religious. Nowadays I think they've mainly given up on it It does still suprise me how science-types can still believe in things like Creation. We have pointer towards Evolution (even if not full proof) and nothing but a book for Creation. How does religion stand up to scientific investigation for them? or are we back to the "it's god, don't question it" thing?