Gateshead and the Horizon BBC Ipsos MORI Poll January 2006

At 9.00 pm on BBC2 back on January 26, 2006 Horizon presented a programme called “A War on Science”. The programme was concerned with the evolution/Intelligent Design debate in the USA with regard to teaching ID or Creationism in schools.

Christian belief is much stronger in the USA than in the UK. In November 2004 National Geographic referred to the Gallup Poll that took place in February 2001. The author lamented the fact that no less than 45% of the responding adults were creationists. Only 37% of Americans allowed room for both God and Darwin. And most interesting was that only 12% of Americans believed life came about apart from God. We have seen UK scientists and lead writers in the newspapers and TV presenters pouring scorn on the USA for what it calls its “religious fundamentalism”.

But what surprised the British science community was the outcome of the MORI Poll that followed the Horizon programme presented on BBC2 on January 26, 2006. Only 48% of those questioned said evolution best described their worldview. That is much more than the 12% of Americans, but still a lot less than expected. What was equally surprising was the 22% who chose creationism. While one could expect even more than the 69% who wanted evolution as part of the science curriculum, a massive 44% said they wanted creationism included in the school curriculum and 41% wanted to see Intelligent Design included.

This was a surprise to the scientific community here in the UK. The President of the Royal Society, Lord Martin, said that 150 years after Darwin, “It is surprising that many should still be sceptical of Darwinian evolution”.

On 21 February The Guardian reported: “A growing number of science students on British campuses and in sixth form colleges are challenging the theory of evolution and arguing that Darwin was wrong.” On 15 August 2006 The Guardian printed a survey titled, How Did we Get Here, with its subtitle informing its readers that more than 30% of students in the UK believe in creationism and intelligent design. Unsurprisingly, the Christian Vardy Foundation found itself referred to in The Guardian report.

The MORI Poll of January 2006 was not the first time the science community here in the UK were taken by surprise by the subject of creationism. The headlines were in the national newspapers and TV reports in March 2002, with matters coming to Prime Minister’s Question Time. The Vardy Foundation’s sponsorship of Emmanuel College, Gateshead, with a possible further six colleges to come, had generated a furore among leading academics and even clergy that might be seen as a background to the controversy still ongoing.

Creationist organisations had been mushrooming and expanding in their influence some years prior to Gateshead, but it was ‘Gateshead’ which really surprised the science community with March 2002 becoming what can be considered the starting point in the current creation/evolution debate, and even the attack on religion in general. The Intelligent Design movement in the USA was making its influence being felt in parallel to the creationist movement in the UK but it was still being looked upon by newspaper columnists as, ‘not over here’.

Surprisingly, there were newspaper columnists still expressing that opinion about Creationism, despite the furore over Gateshead. The evolutionary science community and the media seemed to be in denial about the strength of its presence. However, we now see an all-out war in the media with the use of television in particular. Besides the many books, videos, and DVDs now available on the subject of creationism, one only has to go on the Internet and into the Google search engine and key in <Emmanuel College, Gateshead>, <creationism> or <evolution> and see how active creationism is – and anti-creationism; the list is endless both pro and con. Even the anti-creationist overkill is all evidence that creationism is seen as a real threat by creating such an interest as a rational alternative to Darwinism as an explanation of our origins. And the MORI Poll of January 2006 confirms how successful the creationist revival has been in the UK.

First published in 2002 following Gateshead Kevin Logan’s Responding to the Challenge of Evolution is one of the best introductions to this debate in the UK. He tells us that the growing forces of creationism are becoming formidable in their opposition to the monopoly that atheism has exercised for so long, especially in the state school system.

The title of the first chapter of his book, ‘Battle Lines are Drawn’, is what the book is about. Republished in March 2005, it is a very informative report for the reader on the clash between the two basic views of origins that is ongoing here in the UK and in the USA. Logan takes us back to the furore that took place in March 2002 when the Creationist organization Answers in Genesis gave creation presentations at Emmanuel College, Gateshead. The opposition was so strong and caused such a stir among academics and clergy that it struck the headlines in the national papers and on TV.

Professor Richard Dawkins at Oxford and Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics at University College, London, got involved – seven senior bishops, including Richard Harries the then Bishop of Oxford, and eight fellows of the Royal Society, including its president, Sir David Attenborough, sent a letter of protest to the Prime Minister. When it got to Prime Minister’s Question Time in Parliament Tony Blair defended the college in the interests of a diverse school system. Concern over the Prime Minister’s defence of Emmanuel College has been repeated several times in the media, mostly in the context of criticism and resentment against the PM. Logan remarks on page 11 that “It was one of the shortest PM Question Time queries on record, yet, together with the PM’s answer, it generated one of the biggest furores in the media. The ripples are still stirring science, religion and education.”

The whole airing of the issue seemed to favour Emmanuel College with its high academic success rate. In making such a defence of the school Tony Blair was in effect seen to be putting the teaching of creationism on a par with the teaching of evolution. The school Head was given a very positive interview by David Frost on his BBC1 programme the following Sunday.

In the Educational section of The Times on June 20 2004 there was a half page section entitled Questionable foundations. The introductory paragraph read, “Providing millions of pounds to schools to teach creationism is dangerous, say atheist, Richard Dawkins and the Bishop of Oxford.

Sir Peter Vardy, an evangelical Christian, who was described in the article by the Bishop and Richard Dawkins as one of Tony’s old cronies, was knighted by Tony Blair for services rendered to business and education. The Vardy Foundation is sponsor to Gateshead Emanuel College (Link to) and is known from previous news reports to have been invited by the government to be more involved with education. This led to the possible sponsorship of six more schools. These schools would allow creationism to be taught along with evolution as a view of origins. The development in the conflict was over the Vardy Foundation adding Doncaster Northcliffe Comprehensive to what Bishop Harries and Richard Dawkins described with hyperbole as “its growing empire of schools noted for their controversial teaching of creationism”. In the article, both the bishop and Dawkins employed the tactic of ridicule and derision to demean creationist teaching.

A year on, the Gateshead scenario was causing such waves for the opposition to get a scathing attack from Stephen Pollard in the THUNDERER column on the Comment page of The Times (Monday, 28 April, 03). Despite the school’s exam results, passing the OFSTED inspection with flying colours, and always heavily over-subscribed, with many of its pupils being Muslim, it is attracting the criticism of the intolerant, narrow-minded and yes, says Pollard, “racist liberal secularists” who are demanding the abolition of schools such as Emmanuel College.

That was 2003. From media reporting on this debate since then, the issue arising out of Gateshead has become critical to the educational arena. ‘Gateshead’ has become a symbol word for what Logan calls ‘Battle Lines’ between the dominant atheism of our educational system and the revival of creationism. Emmanuel College found itself revisited again in 2006 on TV by the journalist Rod Liddle

One can argue that it was the presentation by creationist organisation Answers in Genesis (AiG) at Gateshead that generated public interest in the creationist/evolution issue. This was mostly due to the publicity given to it by the science community who favoured evolution, through its ready access to the news media. In its report for July-Sept 2004, Answers in Genesis claimed its Website to be one of the most popular Christian websites in the world. March 2004 showed 1,057,000 visitors, plus many millions more hits, which is said to be another popular but less accurate measure of site popularity. It claimed that, “it is now widely recognized as the most-accessed source for up-to-date information on science and Bible issues.” In its September 2006 Newsletter, AiG reported that traffic on its website has been increasing dramatically and that it had recently received the ‘website of the year’ award from the National Religious Broadcasters in the USA. However, 2006 has also seen a split in AIG caused by difficulties in administrative philosophy and policy between Australia and the USA.

This appears to have resulted in even greater expansion of their creationist ministries. AIG UK is affiliated with the American base while Canada, South Africa and New Zealand are linked with the Australian base, but the influence of both is still universal. AIG, USA, is now producing a new full colour magazine called “Answers”, while the Australian base, rebranded Creation Ministries International (CMI), is still producing the full colour publication Creation, which is distributed throughout 140 countries. It is also still producing the technical journal, Journal of Creation. When one reads of the impressive growth and expansion of creationist organisations and as leaders in this kind of ministry, one can appreciate why the results of the January 06 MORI Poll show what they do, despite media opposition. Besides the materials published by creationist organizations, the Web itself is becoming a very effective way of opening up the issues to the general public.

Although recognizing differences, a respect is evident among creationist societies in advertising other creationist websites. This is seen on www.pathlights.com and on www.grisda.org in providing an international directory of other creationist websites and by the St Alban’s based Roman Catholic journal, Daylight, printing a list of Protestant websites in the UK in its catalogue of creationist resources. But there are creationist websites such as http://www.creationism.org/index.htm that are dedicated to publicising many of the major creationist websites. The growing forces of creationism are becoming formidable in their opposition to the monopoly that atheism has exercised for so long, especially in the state school system. Did the January 2006 MORI Poll shown the public wanting to correct that imbalance?

Just as Kevin Logan was converted to creationism after being an evolutionist for 25 years, so the evidence shows that while still a minority, many scientists are moving across from an evolutionary stance to that of creationism. In Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics (1993), by Duane T. Gish, the late Henry Morris wrote in the Foreword that Gish’s “credentials are impeccable; (PhD in Biochemistry from UC Berkeley, with many years' research experience in university laboratories and with a leading biochemical firm),” and Director of the Creation Research Society, he is not alone. CRS has grown to1700 members, 700 with post-graduate degrees in science, since it began in 1963. There are numerous creationist organizations in the USA, with at least 25 other nations outside the USA with similar organizations. The Internet has made these universally accessible. As we are seeing with the Vardy Foundation, it is creating a battle in the educational arena. The opposition has made it into a ‘war’ on the Web, which can be seen in the list provided by Google on ‘creationism’.

Despite Gateshead, there has been a tendency for the British Media – newspaper and TV – to play down the role of creationism in the UK. Melvyn Bragg in his programme “Back In Time” (Books that changed the world), earlier in 2006, at 10.45 pm on 23 April on ITV1, said things like, Darwin’s ideas are no longer controversial. Perhaps that could be excused if his programme was made before the MORI Poll that followed the HORIZON programme “A War on Science on January 6. “A War on Science” was followed by more adverse reporting at 8.00pm, Channel Four on Monday 6 March with the journalist, Rod Liddle as above. As The Times reported the programme:

“Today, religious fundamentalism is an ethos usually associated with Islam, but journalist Rod Liddle challenges this belief in a polemical documentary. He examines the extreme principles held by some Evangelical Christians, such as the denouncement of homosexuality and sex outside of marriage, and unquestioning acceptance of creationism.”

Liddle presented the programme, “Dispatches: The New Fundamentalists”. Going back to Emmanuel College, the Radio Times found itself asking, “ Evangelical Christianity and its literal interpretation of the Bible is on the increase, but does its growing influence clash with Britain’s typically liberal values?” It is worth reading the article in John Ray’s Diary and Gateshead Revisited on this website.

However, since ‘Gateshead,’ anyone in the media will have been aware of the increased intensity of the creation/evolution debate that has developed and continued here in the UK since then. Key in <Emmanuel College, Gateshead> into your favourite search engine and you can still see abundant evidence of the controversy over five years on. That the high percentage of those polled in the January 06 MORI Poll surprised the scientific community shows that despite the media being partial to the evolutionist, the creationist and ID movements are having an impact. One can only imagine what the impact might be if the media gave impartial coverage to both sides of the debate.

Revised 18/03/07