Thoughts in a Haystack

Britain's Teacher TV, a website and TV station for teachers, emailed a survey to 10,600 education professionals, of which 1,210 responded. Out of that figure, 248 science teachers responded. Disturbingly, out of the science teachers, 18%:

... said they thought creationism or intelligent design should be given the same status as evolution in the classroom, although this question did not specify whether it was referring to science lessons or the curriculum in general.

Furthermore, 29% of all respondents:

... either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the government's guidelines on teaching evolution which states that "creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science national curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science". Fifty-three per cent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement .

Of course, there is self-selection involved in this survey and, as pointed out by James Randerson, a majority of the total respondents wouldn't be teaching evolution anyway. On the other hand, there are some 45 responding science teachers who appear to disagree with the guidelines' mandate that creationism and intelligent design should not be taught as science. As Randerson also points out:

Any science teacher who disagrees with that should be seeking alternative employment.

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P.S. Richard B. Hoppe at Panda's Thumb has a link to video from Teacher TV on innovative approaches to teaching evolution in secondary school in Great Britain, as well as an interview with Martin Reiss, the Education Officer of the Royal Society recently hounded out of his position largely because he is a Church of England priest.
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