Royal Society professor faces creationism backlash

Nobel Prize winners have called for the sacking of the Royal Society's director of education after he said last week that creationism should be taught as part of the science curriculum at schools.

The Rev Professor Michael Reiss, an ordained Church of England minister, said that excluding creationism from science lessons is unhelpful to children who adhere to different beliefs about the formation of the universe.

Speaking at the British Association Festival of Science at the University of Liverpool, Reiss said, "I realised that simply banging on about evolution and natural selection didn't lead some pupils to change their minds at all. Now I would be more content simply for them to understand it as one way of understanding the universe."

Now Nobel Prize winners Sir Harry Kroto and Sir Richard Roberts are calling for Reiss' dismissal saying that his religious views make him unsuitable for the job of education director at the Royal Society, the oldest scientific organisation in the world.

Kroto, a Royal Society fellow and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, was quoted by The Observer as saying, "I warned the president of the Royal Society that his [Reiss] was a dangerous appointment a year ago. I did not realise just how dangerous it would turn out to be."

Roberts, meanwhile, who won the 1993 Nobel Prize for Medicine, said, "I think it is outrageous that this man is suggesting that creationism should be discussed in a science classroom. It is an incredible idea and I am drafting a letter to other Nobel laureates - which would be sent to the Royal Society - to ask that Reiss be made to stand down."

Reiss told the British Association Festival of Science that around 10 per cent of British schoolchildren were from families that held creationist beliefs. He invited science teachers to regard creationism not as a "misconception" but rather a "worldview".

A spokesman for the Royal Society indicated it would not be asking Reiss to step down.

"Michael Reiss's views are completely in keeping with those of the Royal Society," he was quoted as saying by The Observer.