14 DAY TRIAL // Teachers and university lecturers in the United Kingdom have recently filed a complaint with the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), in which they argued that the wording used in one of the questions on the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) tests was misleading to students. The phrase asked students to describe how the theory of creation in the Bible attempted to explain the origins of life, which is an erroneous formulation, because creation is not a scientific theory, but the product of superstition, and therefore should not be taught in public schools.
The AQA itself acknowledged that, for starters, the students taking its tests were not required to study creationism as a theory. It also admitted to the fact that the wording it used to formulate the subject might have been ambiguous and misleading, and promised to revise the problematic question, following complaints from a large number of teachers, the BBC News informs.
“Merely asking a question about creationism and intelligent design does not imply support for these ideas. Neither idea is included in our specification and AQA does not support the teaching of these ideas as scientific,” the Alliance said in a press release, following the incident. “The use of the term 'theory' was intended in its common, everyday sense. However, we accept that in the context of a science examination this could be misleading and we will be addressing this issue for any future questions,” the organization added.
In the UK, just like in the US, Christian religious fundamentalists such as Evangelicals believe that creationism has been intently pulled out of the classrooms so that their children do not learn about God. Therefore, they are currently engaged in an all-out confrontation with authorities, debating the fact that creationism should be taught alongside the theory of evolution, and the children left to decide for themselves. However, critics argue that the idea according to which the Christian God created the Universe and ourselves cannot be possibly considered to be scientific, because it's based on unprovable theories, and completely lacks evidence.
For instance, creationists and adepts of intelligent design believe that the planet is only 6,000 years old, whereas radio dating placed the age of the Earth at about 4.5 billion years. It doesn't stand to reason at all, even if the Bible is true, that Adam appeared six millennia ago, considering that, by that time, the Chinese people had already invented acupuncture as medicine. And, to move from a time when only two people inhabited the Earth to a well-developed society that already had another religion in just a millennia or two is preposterous, critics say.