'Creationism' biologist quits job

Yesterday I wasn't able to do any emailing to scientists and academics to invite them to sign Declan's petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning. I had already added the names and email addresses of over 127 scientists from the Departments of Zoology, Pharmacology and Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge to Declan's database when the internet went down for over two hours in our local council's Idea Store Whitechapel library. No internet for two hours is quite a hit because on 29 January the library imposed on both our membership cards a maximum of 3 hours of PC access per day, despite that for several months previous we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability in accordance with the council's "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy". Actually, Declan has written quite a number of times to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council; see, for example, blog of 6 August “Library blocks access to Google Mail account”.

On the matter of my arrest by City of London police on the night of 10 September (because I refused to be 'moved on' as result of having nowhere else to sleep), we are sleeping, since 11 September, back in the place I mentioned in the blog “Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reduce Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms”: tucked away, about twenty paces from the side entrance of a building, down some twelve steps. (On 4 September, we returned to the porch we had been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 to find an unlocked trellis gate; on 5 September the gate was locked. On the 7th we found the place we are now; but then on the night of the 9th, some guys decided to hold a fifteen-minute party almost beside us – despite the road being described on the internet as a "quiet thoroughfare" – so the next night we went back to where we slept on the night of the 5th, and I got arrested.)



The UK's The Royal Society's embattled director of education resigned on Tuesday, days after causing uproar among scientists with a speech he gave to the British Association for the Advancement of Science on 11 September, in which he “suggested that creationism be discussed in UK science classes”, says New Scientist. Reiss, a biologist and ordained Church of England minister, agreed to step down from his position with the national academy of science after its officers decided that his comments “had damaged its reputation”, according to The Times.

On 13 September, Nobel Laureates Sir Richard Roberts, Sir Harry Kroto (NAC Honorary Associate) and Sir John Sulston wrote to the society's president, Lord Rees of Ludlow, asking that Reiss step down, or be asked to step down, as soon as possible. Roberts wrote on behalf of himself and Kroto and Sulston:

We are greatly concerned by the remarks recently made by Professor Michael Reiss, who is currently Director of Education at the RS. We appreciate that there will be a clarification, but the fact that the comments were made in the first place by an official representative of the premier scientific society in the UK, if not the world, is most disturbing.

We gather Professor Reiss is a clergyman, which in itself is very worrisome. Who on earth thought that he would be an appropriate Director of Education, who could be expected to answer questions about the differences between science and religion in a scientific, reasoned way? Creationism, Intelligent Design etc. have no place in a science classroom discussion and should not be legitimized as acceptable alternative theories to evolution by anyone who claims to be a scientist. Ill-conceived opinions by a representative of the RS will only encourage those teachers, both scientists and otherwise, with a creationist agenda to speak about it to their students in the classroom.

We would urge that Professor Reiss step down, or be asked to step down, as soon as possible.

Following Reiss’s resignation, Kroto told New Scientist that it was unwise of the Royal Society to appoint him in the first place, and very wise of him to step down now. "On the face it, what Reiss actually said at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting seems fairly reasonable - if uttered by a freethinker for whom evidence-based philosophy is pre-eminent," Kroto said. "Unfortunately the key point is that it was said by the director of the Royal Society education programme who is, apparently, deeply religious. It thus gives a green light to those who wish to foist their own personal religious interpretation of the origin of the universe and its inhabitants on children in the science classroom."

The The Royal Society stood by the scientist initially, insisting that he had not departed from its official policy and that his remarks had been misinterpreted. Many senior figures, however, felt that Reiss had been naive, at best, to make statements that could easily be seen to back teaching creationism as if it were science, and should not have done so while speaking in his Royal Society role. Said Chris Higgins, Vice-Chancellor of Durham University (and a signatory of Declan's petition): "While I have no doubt that Michael Reiss's comments have been misinterpreted by parts of the media, I think that the fact that he has generously stood down allows the Royal Society to clarify the robust position on this issue. There should be no room for doubt that creationism is completely unsupportable as a theory."

Phil Willis MP, the chairman of the Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, told The Times: “It is appropriate for the Royal Society to have dealt with this problem swiftly and effectively, rather than provoking continued debate. I hope the society will now stop burying its head and start taking on creationism."

Commenting in the Guardian yesterday, Professor of philosophy AC Grayling, one of Britain's foremost public intellectuals, wrote: "Take the connections one might make between the resignation of Michael Reiss from the Royal Society because of his views about creationism in schools, and the opening this week of the first Hindu faith-based school. One of the Hindu creation myths has Vishnu asleep in the coils of a cobra, itself afloat on a dark ocean whose waves lap the shores of nothingness … Should chemistry and biology teachers devote part of their lessons to explaining why the story of Vishnu and his cobra is not chemistry or biology? In effect this is what - to put the best construction on it - Professor Reiss was trying to suggest."