Intelligent Design in the Liverpool Daily Post

I don’t often read local papers, as they’re generally awful, but I picked up a free copy of the Liverpool Daily Post today just to maintain an open mind.

Unfortunately my low expectations were confirmed by a two page spread on the “debate” surrounding intelligent design, inexplicably titled “Should religion be part of science teaching”. Actually, thinking about it, the title it is brilliant. There’s nothing like calling a spade a spade. This is of local interest after a teacher at Liverpool’s Blue Coat school distributed intelligent design propaganda in a science class. That teacher was Nick Cowan, head of chemistry at the school. This is the same Nick Cowan who is also head of the Christian Institute, an evangelical Christian organisation dedicated to “the promotion of Christian faith in the UK”. To my complete unsurprise, the Daily Post failed to report that last fact (though to be fair, so did the BBC).

The paper’s handling of the debate is to give two opposing speakers equal space to air their views - in this case it was and Dr Richard Buggs and Brian Christian, gunning for and against ID in science classes respectively. Normally, this is the right way to do things. But in this case, the Daily Post have already fallen into the creationist’s hands by giving them a hearing they don’t deserve. There is no debate. There is no science in ID. How many different ways can we restate “this is nothing but well-funded Christian propaganda”? The voxpop comments that accompany the article are equally depressing, and range from ‘missed the point entirely’:

I’d like to see more religious-based teachings taught in school in Liverpool. This can only enhance pupils understanding of the diversity of religious cultures that exist in our ever-increasing cosmopolitan city.
Joel Jelen

to ’suckered by ID spin’:

I feel it is irrelevant whether the subject is discussed in religious lessons or science lessons. There’s no indoctrination going on here, just a broader spectrum of education being offered as should always be the case.
Craig McCoy

If these were the most well-informed opinions they could find, our kids are fucked. But perhaps the Post didn’t adequately explain to them what exactly was at stake. This is the rub with ID - at a brushstroke, it seems pretty reasonable to most people. Without more in-depth reporting, the sinister motives of those behind Intelligent Design will go unnoticed and unchallenged.

2 comments December 5th, 2006