Sir, – David McConnell’s excellent letter on science (January 17th) is a breath of fresh air. Of course science should be cultivated for more than the potential for job creation that it holds. Scientific inquiry opens up the prospect of beautiful and deeply satisfying experiences, and there is no better place to start with this than in the study of Darwinian evolution, as proposed by Prof McConnell.
His call for rationality, however, will require a rethink about the way our primary schools, in particular, are managed. As long as we have the so-called integrated curriculum, which infuses Catholic doctrine into all school subjects in the 90 per cent or more of our national primary schools that are under the management of the church, we will have a direct conflict in the minds of our young people. How can they be expected to reconcile the certainty of religious doctrine with the idea of a scientific theory, which can never be absolutely proven and which the scientific method only allows to be disproven or modified?
How can we match, for example, the laws of thermodynamics with accounts of miracles and the existence of esoteric entities such as the immortal soul, which are given to impressionable children as indisputable facts by those they are taught to understand are in a position of authority? This particular elephant in the room will have to be confronted, and the sooner the better. – Yours, etc,