The British Centre for Science Education has posted an excellent blog article (British Centre for Science Education: Creationism in the Deep South (of England)) reviewing the background to a disturbing incident at St Peter’s Church of England Aided School in Exeter. A whole year group of year 11 children are brought together and have a
The British Humanist Association notes the alarming speed at which secondary schools in England are transferring to Academy status (Expansion of Academies Programme Continues Apace Despite Lack of Safeguards). The Department of Education has announced that 1 in 6 secondary schools in England have now converted to Academy status (547), a large jump from January this
The British Humanist Association has been campaigning for UK citizens to accurately respond to the census question on religion. Why should I answer the question at all? Well, this is a personal thing and I wouldn’t pressurise people into any specific answer or none. But census data get used for all sorts of policy decisions,
Season’s greetings to the victimised former Archbishop The Rev Dr Peter Hearty of the excellent ‘Platitude of the Day‘ website is clearly concerned that former Archbish Carey is rather upset at the (supposed) continued victimisation of christians in the UK*. He thinks we should send Christmas cards to the poor old soul. It’s been suggested
Just a quick note to observe the report over at the National Secular Society site regarding the likely expansion of faith schools under Michael Gove (Michael Gove in religious schools rethink | National Secular Society). Turns out that our Education Secretary’s grand vision of widespread secession of academies from local authority control has been less
The New Humanist blog is one of many web sites reporting on a fracas involving criticism via Twitter of Scientology (Welsh councillor in trouble for calling Scientology “stupid” on Twitter ). The synopsis of this story is that When Cardiff councillor John Dixon visited London last year to buy a wedding ring for his wife
Just a quick post as I’m cycle touring and Internet access is infrequent. Yesterday’s Guardian had an article describing the Culture Minister Nelson McCausland’s view that the Ulster Museum should better reflect creationist views. McCausland’s reported to have said that this is a “human rights issue”, as he claims that around a third of the
The BBC News website reports the adoption of a right wing christian syllabus in Texas (Texas schools to get controversial syllabus). The article lists a bunch revisions to US history, but not the creationism issue. Students in Texas will now be taught the benefits of US free-market economics and how government taxation can harm economic
As The Scotsman reports (Anger as Primate refuses to resign – Scotsman.com), Cardinal Brady won’t resign over the Catholic child abuse scandals. Apparently Cardinal Brady, 70, was in defiant mood outside his residence at Armagh Cathedral, vowing to stay on and lead the Church’s efforts to improve child protection safeguards [my emphasis]. The irony does