This was first published in December 2010. I have re-published here so I can
consolidate my blogs and delete the ones not to be updated.
On 27th of November 2010 Victorian went to the polls and good science education took a battering. The wining Liberal and National Parties told the Dominionist Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) prior to the election that they would allow so called “faith based” schools to continue to teach unscientific creationism within science classes.
Australian Christian Lobby’s Push Survey
The ACL has been surveying individual political parties at every state and federal election since its foundation in 1992. ACL’s use push polling techniques is shown by question 16 of the recent Victorian state election poll. It was entitled “Education – Freedom to Teach”.
The South Australian Non-Government Schools Registration Board recently caused avoidable controversy by drafting guidelines to explicitly prevent the teaching of creationism in school science classes. The guidelines were later withdrawn. Will your Party ensure that the Victorian Regulations and Qualifications Authority respects the independence of faith-based schools to teach from a Christian perspective across all subject areas?
The Political Response
That South Australian debacle was the subject of this blogs first post, South Australia School Students Loose! This is the first state or federal election since that failure. The ACL surveyed six parties standing in the Victorian election. The two parties possible governing parties, the Labor Party and the ‘Coalition’ (consisting or the Liberal and National parties) were surveyed. Three so called ‘Christian’ conservative political parties were surveyed. The Democratic Labor Party (DLP), Christian Democrats and Family First did not win any parliamentary representation with the DLP losing its only upper house seat. The other party surveyed was the Greens. They retained two of their three upper house members.
Sadly, only the Greens rejected the ACL. The Greens “would not support faith based schools teaching creationism in science classes or instead of science”.
The winning Liberal National Coalition response was typical of all the other parties surveyed. They “will respect the independence of faith based schools to teach from a religious perspective in all subject areas”.
The Education Social Contract
ACL education agenda breaches the social contract we impose on our children. Schools of all persuasions are extensions of society’s demands to ensure we have an educated population. As a result the state forces all children between the ages of five and fifteen to attend an approved school. The state pays for this imposition by supplying low cost government schools and providing substantial subsidies to non-government schools, including the so called ‘faith based’ schools. Therefore, state guarantees the students will be taught according to the best most commonly accepted knowledge in every subject with imposition of a set curriculum or syllabus on all schools. regretably, this does not extend to science. Few scientists accept creationism or, its bastard, intelligent design creationism. The Australian Museum, Australian Academy of Science, and the Geology Society of Australia are examples of peak scientific organisations which have issued statements that rejecting both.
Further, the best that could be said for creationism within Christian belief is that it is contested. The vast majority of Christians reject the creationist interpretation Genesis. To Christians, Genesis One has nothing to do with the physical origins of the Universe.
What Can We Do?
It is too late for this Victoria election. During an election it is too late. The hot house atmosphere of winning voters gives ACL's requests life. Any solution will require an organised body dedicated to defending science. Individuals have provided this in the past. I admire the work done by both Ian Plimer and the late David Price. The current work of the Australian Atheists through the Canberra Reptile Sanctuary is commendable. My Christian based work cannot be anything but sporadic because of other issues in my life. This organisation needs to bring together different belief perspectives so it can represent so called ‘Christian vote’ as well as everyone else’s vote. It needs to lobby in the reasonable space between elections and yell during vote grabbing elections. It needs to do this on the too numerous fronts to list. One example is that I am not aware of any anti-creationist work on the development of the national curriculum.
That body needs to educate the public about science. One of the greatest science educators of all time was Stephan Jay Gould (1941-2002). We must get opinion makers who are bigoted atheists to read his Non-overlapping Magisteria while bigoted Christians to read his Non-Moral Nature. We must allow science educators to teach how the heavens go and prevent them from teach whether we can go to heaven!
