BY JAMES SIMONS
The mocking and heavy criticism of primary school head teacher, Christina for claiming evolution to be “a theory” and suggesting there is “more evidence that the Bible is true” is utterly unjust and unwarranted.
Christina Wilkinson, of St Andrew’s Church of England school in Oswaldtwistle, in her response to Tom Sherrington, who urged teachers to stick to science when teaching the origins of life, was simply expressing her views. People seem to forget that freedom of opinion and freedom of expression is one of the basic human rights of every citizen, although any insistence for teachers to stick to science when teaching the origins of life is fair comment.
Wilkinson wrote: “Evolution is not a fact. That’s why it’s called a theory! There’s more evidence that the Bible is true.”
Calls for her to resign on Twitter are unwarranted none sense tantamount to to imposing an unjustified censor on the rights of citizens to express personal views they may have on any issues.
Wilkinson issued a statement saying: “I’d like to make it clear that we teach the full national curriculum in school and that our pupils receive a fully rounded education.”
Her Later comment that her tweet was sent from a personal account and “represents my own views” is relevant to the point of her personal opinion. The tweet has since been taken down and the account closed.
Wilkinson’s comments was met with scorn on the social media site with one individual suggesting that she retrain as a vicar, and another commenting “That’s an unacceptable level of stupidity from a head teacher.”However, the stupidity actually comes from the individual themselves who has failed to recognize this to be the opinion of the head teacher herself.
A more relevant issue would have been for demands for the head teacher here to attempt to validate the basis of her opposing view to conventional science rather than just vilify her for expressing her opinion. This writer here happens to believe in evolution, though the essence of this article came about after a group discussion in which it was concluded that the level of victimization mrs Wilkinson was subjected to for expressing her views was totally wrong and unjustified, and contrary to principles of free thinking promoted in a liberal democratic society.
NORMAL
Given the affiliation of the head teacher to the Church of England, her views are normal and consistent with her faith. Even more important is to understand the reason religious people turn a blind eye to scientific fact- they clearly place their faith much higher than science. However, all those who believe in a God who create all things must necessarily address the points where science negates crucial Biblical claims, and there perhaps need to be an open platform for such discussions or debates to take place.
The original post of Sherrington, which sparked the exchange, read: “For me, it is critical that teachers do not water down the science to accommodate religious perspectives if that means sacrificing the acceptance of evidence. This is very true, but the opportunity for such religious people to try to negate what we all accept as evidence also need to be heard. I for one haven’t heard any, but there surely are counterarguments to scientific theory’s- and the notion of evolution is a theory, since not all scientists agree with it.
However, well acclaimed genius of biology, Prof Richard Dawkins said Wilkinson was misusing the word theory, adding “Scientists call evolution a theory only in a special scientists’ sense, which is not the same as the layman’s ‘tentative hypothesis’,” “This is so often misunderstood that I now recommend abandoning the confusing word ‘theory’ altogether for the case of evolution. Evoluton is a fact, as securely attested as any fact in science. ‘We are cousins of monkeys and kangaroos’ can be asserted with as much confidence as ‘Our planet orbits the sun’.”
