Misjudged Talk Opens Creationist Rift at Royal Society

摘要

A talk titled "Should Creationism Be a Part of the Science Curriculum?" was bound to attract attention at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) earlier this month. But last week, it cost the speaker, Michael Reiss, his job as director of education at the Royal Society, Britain's academy of science. Within hours of his 11 September talk, news items appeared on the Internet claiming that Reiss had urged science educators to teach creationism, although many attending the speech said that he had clearly not made such a call. His comments-or perhaps more accurately the spin placed on them by headline writers, newspaper columnists, and editorialists-ignited a firestorm.