2006-07-14

Flying under the radar

I have on occasion met Swedish Creationists and there have even been some instances of them sneaking in creationist teaching in private schools, but mostly I have assumed that they can be safely ignored as a harmless fringe phenomenon. So I was startled by Thomas Anderberg noting in a column in Dagens Nyheter that the Swedish National Agency for Education recently condoned teaching of "intelligent design" in a Christian high school. Lärarnas tidning has an article on the subject and Arbetaren also has noted this. These articles are worried if not upset. There also has been a debate on Yelah, which mostly has been sensible. The headmistress of the high school in questions defends herself in a debate article in Expressen.

I was myself sufficiently outraged to send a letter to the responsible councillor at SNAE, Ingela Gullberg, pointing out that this is yet another attempt to chip away at rational thought and that backing of "intelligent design" is a sign of such a lack of scientific understanding that it cannot be accepted in a teacher in a state-sponsored school.

You may also want to discuss the matter. The email address is firstname.lastname@skolverket.se.

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