Museum row evolves
Secularists in the UK aren’t exactly chuffed with an English museum at the moment, after, it’s claimed, it censored a Darwin exhibition. Indeed, the National Secular Society (NSS) has written to the leader of the local council about it.
But the local council says those with a special interest are making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe you can decide.
The full story is given in Northampton’s Chronicle & Echo, which says:
A protest, supporting rational thinking against attacks by religious fundamentalists, will take place outside a Northampton museum. The protest is in response to part of a display on evolution being censored following a complaint to Abington Park Museum.
A passage in a display on Charles Darwin at the Northampton Borough Council-run museum was covered up after a complaint from a Christian. The move has now sparked the Northampton Socialist Forum to decide to hold the protest tomorrow.
As reported in the Chronicle & Echo on Thursday, four lines of text were obscured.
We’re not told the exact wording. However, the information in the display explained how Charles Darwin used fossils to formulate his theory of evolution, which the forum said was “established scientific fact”.
Patrick Markey, of the forum, tells the paper, “People are entitled to have all sorts of ideas, but no right to impose them on others. This is a public museum and should respect rational scientific thought, not the ideas of some religious fundamentalists.”
But the paper cites Lewis Houston, who raised the issue some years ago with the museum, and he says that the issue of creationism versus evolution was not the basis of his query. Rather, he said, it was the accuracy of the text.
The National Secular Society has written to the borough council nonetheless. Its president, Terry Sanderson, tells the paper, “There is a global push by the so-called ‘creationist movement’ to undermine the theory of evolution. It is incumbent on all educators to resist this attempt to deny evidence and, in the process, retard science and progress.
“Visitors to the museum are entitled to a better explanation of Darwin’s world-shaping idea than the bowdlerised version you have on display at present.”
But Councillor Brendan Glynane, the cabinet member for museums says, “There was absolutely no attempt at censorship. The text contains a factual error which could cause confusion. It is disappointing to see that some groups have tried to use this error to further their own agenda and make proverbial mountains out of molehills.
“We have now uncovered the display board and are in the process of getting a new board produced.”
The text has been uncovered and a new board is being made.
The council says the revised wording will read:
He used the same layers of fossils to show the slow changes that are taking place over the millennia of earth history, each small change enabling a species to adapt to the rigours of its environment – the struggle for survival, through the natural selection, leading to the survival of the fittest.
So that settles that, then. But there’s no harm in complaining. And would this have been rectified if some secularists hadn’t made a fuss? Perhaps we’ll never know.
We’re not told the exact wording.
The original wording is in the original article:
‘He used the same layers of fossils that had supported the Genesis view of evolution to show the slow changes that are taking place over the millennia of earth history, each small change enabling a species to the rigours of it’s (sic) environment – the struggle for survival through natural selection leading to the survival of the fittest.’
Exactly – thank you, PaulJ. The story keeps changing! And wasn’t there something in an earlier version about the masking of the oiginal text being as a result of a complaint from a lone religionist on religious grounds???? Or does my memory deceive me?
I was there yesterday (Abington Park), it was actually, Im ashamed to say, the first that I heard about this. I find the powers of fanatical Christians to dictate what we see very disturbing and am pleased to see public action. I thank everyone there for protecting our basic right to knowledge.
Alan Moores sppech was very powerful Although I did not agree with everything that he said about America, what is very interesting is that the flourishing of the fundamentalism of the 1930s was possible because of the free attitude to religion at the time over there. Mind you most northerm states our not administered with the jellyfish attitude of Northampton Borough Council or many other poor British local governments and would not tolerate such creationist/fundamentalist totalitarian, so that they have to come and do it over here
As for bad syntax (I am normally careless in front of a computer but make no demands for others to do better) a cursary glance at the signs in the Libraries, the Guidhall, the Central Museum or even the self same building will reveal that NBC are not that fussed about syntax (or spelling or grammar) and that this was just a cover up.
I am worried that people in such numbers rate a literal interpretation of some ancient text above contemporary discovery but am furthermore alarmed that the people we pay our council tax to let them get away with it and even encourage it
As for bad syntax (I am normally careless in front of a computer but make no demands for others to do better) a cursary glance at the signs in the Libraries, the Guidhall, the Central Museum or even the self same building will reveal that NBC are not that fussed about syntax (or spelling or grammar) and that this was just a cover up.
I have to admit I’m equally appalled by bad syntax in public notices as I am by bad science.