Truth in Science is a United Kingdom-based creationist organisation which promotes the Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign, which it uses to try to get the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design creationism taught alongside evolution in school science lessons. The organisation claims that there is scientific controversy about the validity of Darwinian evolution, a view rejected by the United Kingdom's Royal Society and over 50 Academies of Science around the world."We, the undersigned Academies of Sciences, have learned that in various parts of the world, within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data, and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed, denied, or confused with theories not testable by science. We urge decision makers, teachers, and parents to educate all children about the methods and discoveries of science and to foster an understanding of the science of nature." IAP Statement on the Teaching of Evolution (PDF file) See also: List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design The group is affiliated with the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement, following its strategy and circulating the institute's promotional materials.Who are Truth in Science? James Randerson. EducationGuardian.co.uk, 27 November 2006.
It should not be confused with a United StatesBased in Chicago, Illinois, USA organisation, The Center for Truth in Science, which was founded in 2020 to dispute various legal/scientific issues which had been flooding the nation's judicial system, such as talc-based powders blamed for causing cancer, Roundup herbicide causing health effects, and various plastic products impacting the environment.
Organisation According to their website, the organisation has three subordinate groups, whose roster (as of February 2022) consisted of:
Board of directors Stephen A. Hyde (Chairman) Professor Andy McIntosh,Andrew McIntosh profile on Answers in Genesis. Professor of Thermodynamics at the University of Leeds, a Christian and creationist.The Sunday Sequence with William Crawley. Phillip Metcalfe (Vice Chairman), a Christian publisher. John Perfect, a teacher. Maurice Roberts, Minister of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) and former teacher of classics. Steve Taylor, Professor of Electromagnetics and Physical Electronics
Council of Reference Stuart Burgess, Professor of Engineering Design at Bristol University, has a Diploma in Theology from the London Reformed Baptist Seminary (of the Metropolitan Tabernacle),Answers in Genesis biography of Stuart Burgess, Mechanical Engineering (UK) and is a creationist.Professor Stuart Burgess appeared on a radio interview with BBC Northern Ireland on 18 April 2004.Burgess stated his position that the Earth "is around 6000 years old, that's what the bible says". In drawing a conjunction between science and religion, Burgess said that one's choice of explanation was "faith versus faith", and that "either you have faith in evolution or faith in creation". Burgess went on to concede "that the Earth has the appearance of great age" on the grounds that "the bible says that God created a mature Earth, and a mature universe, with Adam mature, and trees being mature". The interviewer quizzed Burgess on the matter of a deceptive God. In his response, Burgess explained, "when man came into the universe he would have that fully functioning universe ready to enjoy". In response to further challenges, Burgess said that the Big Bang is a religious faith, which contradicts the first law of thermodynamics. In his penultimate question, the interviewer, William Crawley, asked Burgess "You're not concerned that you're messing up the minds of young people by giving them the impression that they have to commit scientific suicide in order to be believers?" to which Burgess responded: "My main concern, is that on the day of Judgment, people will not say to God 'my excuse is the theory of evolution', for not believing in God, because God will say that is not an excuse". — Sunday Sequence - Finding God in the Universe . George Curry, Minister of Elswick Parish Church (St Stephen and St Paul), Newcastle upon Tyne. Dr Russell Healey, teacher of mathematics. Derek Linkens, Professor and Dean Emeritus, Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield. John MacArthur, Pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California Albert N. Martin, Pastor Of Trinity Baptist Church, in Montville, New Jersey
Scientific Panel Geoff Barnard Nick Cowan, retired chemistry teacher. Paul Garner, lecturer and researcher with Biblical Creation Ministries. Tim Wells, Senior Lecturer in Neuroendocrinology at Cardiff University.
Critics
The majority of scientists do not consider the conclusions of intelligent design to be scientific.See: 1) List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design 2) Kitzmiller v. Dover page 83. 3) The Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism petition begun in 2001 has been signed by "over 600 scientists" as of 20 August 2006. A four-day A Scientific Support for Darwinism petition gained 7733 signatories from scientists opposing ID. The AAAS, the largest association of scientists in the U.S., has 120,000 members, and firmly rejects ID. More than 70,000 Australian scientists and educators condemn teaching of intelligent design in school science classes . List of statements from scientific professional organizations on the status intelligent design and other forms of creationism. The National Science Teachers Association and others have termed intelligent design a pseudoscience,"for most members of the mainstream scientific community, ID is not a scientific theory, but a creationist pseudoscience." Trojan Horse or Legitimate Science: Deconstructing the Debate over Intelligent Design David Mu. Harvard Science Review, Vol. 19, Issue 1, Fall 2005.• National Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science.…It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom." National Science Teachers Association Disappointed About Intelligent Design Comments Made by President Bush National Science Teachers Association Press Release August 3, 2005 • Defending science education against intelligent design: a call to action Journal of Clinical Investigation 116:1134–1138 American Society for Clinical Investigation, 2006. and some have termed it junk science."Biologists aren’t alarmed by intelligent design's arrival in Dover and elsewhere because they have all sworn allegiance to atheistic materialism; they’re alarmed because intelligent design is junk science." H. Allen Orr. Annals of Science. New Yorker May 2005.Devolution—Why intelligent design isn't. • Also, Robert T. Pennock Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism. • Junk science Mark Bergin. World Magazine, Vol. 21, No. 8 February 25, 2006. Little scientific evidence in support of the intelligent design hypothesis has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and intelligent design has never produced a single scientifically testable theory.Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District 4: whether ID is science
Information pack In September 2006, Truth in Science sent resource packs on intelligent design to the heads of science of all United Kingdom secondary schools.BBC News - 'Design' attack on school science. According to New Scientist, 59 schools around the United Kingdom used, or planned to use the Truth in Science information packs.New Scientist - Creationism creeps into UK schools. The New Scientist article stated that Truth in Science circulated the material with the intention of countering the teaching of evolution in science classes, and that the information packs "promote the notion that life on Earth was created through intelligent design, a euphemism for the biblical story of creation".
The BBC News website reported the reaction to the information packs from the United Kingdom Department for Education and Skills: "Neither creationism nor intelligent design are taught as a subject in schools, and are not specified in the science curriculum. The national curriculum for science clearly sets down that pupils should be taught that the fossil record is evidence for evolution, and how variation and selection may lead to evolution or extinction."`Design` attack on school science: Parents are being encouraged to challenge their children`s science teachers over what they are explaining as the origins of life., BBC News, Friday, 29 September 2006. -- DfES Spokesperson, BBC News.
Speaking in the House of Commons, on 1 November 2006, The Right Hon. Jim Knight, Labour MP for Dorset South,Jim Knight, MP for Dorset South - Home. and Minister of State at the Department for Education and Skills, the Minister for Schools, criticised Truth In Science, their information packs, and intelligent design creationism, citing them as unsuitable for the United Kingdom science curriculum. In answer to a question regarding what the Secretary of State for Education and Skills would do in response to the information packs, Knight said:
Criticism
Religious In December 2006, Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, said: "Everything needs to be explored, so that children can ask sensible questions. Though I see no huge difficulty with exploring intelligent design or creationism or flat Earth, they happen to be misguided, foolish and flying in the face of all evidence. I see no problem with Darwinian theory and Christian faith going hand in hand", -- Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark, The Times, December 2006.
Ekklesia, a United Kingdom theological think-tank, accused Truth in Science and the advocates of intelligent design of misrepresenting the bible, and that creationism and intelligent design are not on par with accepted scientific theories. According to one Ekklesia contributor, Geologist and Anglican vicar Michael Roberts,Ekklesia - Creationism distorts truth in science, says vicar the material on the Truth in Science website is carefully packaged to hide its young Earth creationist roots."The material on the website is carefully packaged, and its YEC roots, and thus its scientific worthlessness, may not be immediately apparent to the undiscerning." Ekklesia - UK anti-evolutionists seek to lure parents with new website Simon Barrow, Ekklesia's co-director, outlined his critique of intelligent design creationism, and pseudo-scientific explanations for the universe: "Creationism and ID are in no way comparable to scientific theories of origins and have no place in the modern science classroom. They also distort mature Christian understandings of the universe as coming into being through the whole world process, not through reversals or denials of that process. The roots of creationism, whether in its ‘hard’ form, or in attenuated ID ideas, lie not in science but in misinterpretations of the Bible. Claims that such notions can be justified from a ‘literal’ reading of Genesis are nonsensensical. This book has not one, but two ‘creation stories’. They differ widely in detail, are highly figurative, and were written to combat fatalistic Ancient Near East cosmogonies by stressing the underlying goodness of the world as a gift of God, not to comment on modern scientific matters"Ekklesia - UK anti-evolutionists seek to lure parents with new website -- Ekklesia, 25 September 2006.
Secular