{"id":98,"date":"2011-08-01T07:52:07","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T06:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/?p=98"},"modified":"2011-08-01T07:52:07","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T06:52:07","slug":"and-i-thought-it-couldn%ca%bct-happen-here%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/?p=98","title":{"rendered":"And I thought it couldn\u02bct happen here\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bad<\/p>\n

By Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A classic view of human evolution<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I used to be smug that the ridiculous \u2018controversy\u2019 in North America about the Theory of Evolution was confined to the opposite side of the Atlantic. I really believed that the more secular societies of Europe would laugh the ideas of biblical literalists and creationists out of public discourse. It just couldn\u2019t happen in a place like the UK.<\/p>\n

Okay, I once overheard a man taking his granddaughter round the musuem where I work and explaining to her how \u201cthey\u2019ve got it all wrong<\/em>\u201d in our Palaeolithic and Mesolithic display \u201cbecause the world didn\u2019t exist so long ago<\/em>\u201d. I struggled with my conscience: should I step in and say why her grandfather was talking nonsense or just leave it? I decided to leave it, probably correctly, but I still feel guilty for missing an opportunity to counter a religious viewpoint that has no basis in reality. That was an isolated incident and I know that our public museums don\u2019t bow to sectarian beliefs and that our education system rightly teaches the Theory of Evolution by Common Descent as the best available explanation for the diversity of life on earth. I also know that religious creation stories are taught in religious education lessons.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nelson McCausland MLA, Culture Minister for Northern Ireland<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So when I learned that Nelson McCausland MLA, the Minister for Culture in Northern Ireland<\/a>, had written a letter to the governors of The Museum of Ulster<\/a>, asking it to include references to special creation, I was staggered. It was worse than I thought, though. According to his blog<\/a>, the letter \u201casked the trustees to consider the representation of the Orange Order and othen <\/em>(sic) fraternal organisations<\/em>\u201d, complained about \u201cthe omission of any mention of the Ulster-Scots<\/em>\u201d as well as \u201cthe consideration of alternative views on the origin of the universe and the origin of life<\/em>\u201d. According to a report carried by the BBC, Mr McCausland has complained that the letter \u201chad been leaked to the media by a “malign” individual<\/em>\u201d who \u201chad “showed a lack of respect” for the trustees of the museum and the institution itself<\/em>\u201d. To me, the greatest \u201clack of respect<\/em>\u201d is Mr McCausland\u2019s, who seems to think it appropriate for a government minister to interfere in how things are displayed in a national museum.<\/p>\n

Alas, he\u2019s not the first Northern Ireland Minister to try this tactic. Mervyn Storey MLA tried another creationist tactic in August 2008, when he said that it would be “ideal” if evolution was not taught at all<\/a> in science classes. In February 2009, he threatened legal action over a display at The Ulster Museum dealing with Charles Darwin, calling for an “alternative exhibition” promoting creationism to be staged alongside<\/em> it<\/a>, using equality legislation as his weapon of choice. He has also criticised noticeboards on the 550,000,000 year old Giant\u2019s Causeway for not giving the \u2018alternative\u2019 view that the earth is only a few thousand years old.<\/p>\n

The Ulster Museum includes discussions of evolution among its displays of zoology<\/a>. This is only sensible. To pretend, as a correspondent to the Belfast Times does, that there is \u201cstrong scientific evidence for the Christian position according to the Bible<\/em><\/a>\u201d is either misinformed or a deliberate lie. There is no such evidence. However, Mr McCausland seems to have been influenced in his views by Wallace Thompson of The Caleb Foundation<\/a>, who wrote to him that The Ulster Museum\u2019s displays demonstrate a \u201clack of balance which had tipped sideways so far, it had fallen right over<\/em> and was \u201cabsolutely appalled<\/em>\u201d at \u201cwholly misleading propaganda<\/em>\u201d aimed at \u201c[t]hose who visit the Nature Zone, including impressionable young children, <\/em>[who] will be seriously misled and misinformed<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Giant\u2019s Causeway (Antrim, Northern Ireland)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A quick perusal of The Caleb Foundation\u2019s website shows it to be a self-proclaimed fundamentalist evangelical protestant organisation. It has a special page<\/a> dedicated to the Ulster Museum and a form letter<\/a> complaining that the display at the Giant\u2019s Causeway is \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d in only presenting geological data about its age.<\/p>\n

Although these statements have produced little more than criticism from museum professionals and other educators, there is the danger that this is the thin end of a very dangerous wedge. Nelson McCausland MLA and Mervyn Storey MLA are speaking for a sizeable proportion of the population of Northern Ireland and their statements will have resonance among others with a similar conviction in biblical literalism. Their use of equalities legislation to try to force museums and teachers to present \u201calternative viewpoints\u201d is worrying. Is not the point of education \u2013 and I include museums as an element in education \u2013 to confront people\u2019s prejudices, to show them uncomfortable truths and to explain that the world isn\u2019t quite as simple as some Iron Age goat herders living three thousand years ago in the Middle East believed it to be<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews A classic view of human evolution I used to be smug that the ridiculous \u2018controversy\u2019 in North America about the Theory of Evolution was confined to the opposite side of the Atlantic. I really believed that the more secular societies of Europe would laugh the ideas of biblical literalists and creationists out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaeology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p17eR9-1A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kmatthews.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}