Within two months Education Minister Lord Adonis is to issue guidelines for the teaching of "intelligent design" in schools. This theory from America contradicts Darwinian evolution, the basis of all modern biology, and there have been legal battles to stop it being taught in American schools.
Whereas Creationism believes that the Bible is literally true and that God really did create the world and everything in it in six days (it was supposed to be a week, but He got a day off for good behaviour), many of its devotees have come to realise that this is just too silly, and that there's a need to tone the idea down a bit if they want anyone to take it seriously. So Intelligent Design was born, claiming that life didn't evolve by itself but was deliberately "designed". Who by is anyone's guess - aliens, perhaps? Fairies? Or how about Bill Gates? Or some old bloke with a beard?
To be fair, Lord Adonis is not suggesting that Intelligent Design should be taught as a science, but that it may be discussed in Religious Education lessons along with Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and other loony ideas. The GOS rather liked the comment by Canon Davies, Precentor of Salisbury Cathedral: "I don't see why religious education should be a dumping ground for fantasies." Right on, Canon. Er … loaves and fishes? Virgin birth? Bread and wine into flesh and blood? No room for fantasies there, then.
And what was the logic that prompted Lord Adonis to make this decision? It seems to have been a statement in Parliament by Lord Pearson, a Tory peer and a supporter of Intelligent Design, who said "Advances in DNA science show that the DNA molecule is so complicated that it could not have happened by accident. It shows there is design behind it". God, you have to admire the remorseless logic, don't you? Mind like a steel trap, that Lord Pearson. It's complicated, so it must have been planned by fairies. Or aliens.
Except that nobody has ever suggested evolution is accidental. The GOS is no scientist, but even he has no difficulty with the idea that beneficial variations will perpetuate themselves and non-beneficial ones will, over time, die out (cue song: "Da da, di da da daah, that's e-vo-lu-shun!").
Mind you, the GOS is an old bloke, and He has a beard. Hmm …. now there's a thought …
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