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Hi Gavin, I should point out that the BCSE was formed in reaction to what has been happening. In particular, Truth in Science sent creationist packs to every school in England. The academies owned by Vardy, for example, teach creationism in their science classrooms. The head of the science dept in Vardy's first school is a young-earth creationist YEC). There is a chemistry teacher in another academy school named Nick Cowan who openly teaches YEC alongside the national curriculum and boasts that a former student of his is a YEC doing a Ph.D. in chemistry at Oxford. The threat is alive and kicking, as Steve Jones has been pointing out in vain for a while now. The thrust is the the vast majority of the British public has not heard anything about the version of creationism imported from North America; alerting to the danger posed to the basic science education (amongst other matters) does not polarise a debate: there is no debate. Creationism is political. Various organisations like the British Humanist Association and many others have recognised the real danger, particularly to the already poor level of science teaching. The NCSE in America has been monitoring the activity as well over here from a distance and are assisting us with their technical expertise. There is a lot of groundwork going on at the moment and I welcome your stance that if it is a threat then you would be amongst those standing out to improve the standard of science taught to the children. You and any other list member are welcome to contact both myself and Roger Stanyard (also of the BCSE) offlist. Both of us, as two of the heads of the BCSE, are ready to meet up with interested parties. Regards, Mike ********************************************************************** 1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message: set psci-com nomail 2. To resume email from the list, send the following message: set psci-com mail 3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message: leave psci-com 4. Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list archive, can be found at the list web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html 5. The psci-com gateway to internet resources on science communication and science and society can be found at http://psci-com.ac.uk **********************************************************************