Be Excellent To Each Other

Several news sources are carrying this story but I can't find it on the BBC website.

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/6445 ... st-schools

Seems like a significant step if there are no identifiable loopholes.

I did not realise it was taught as a science...

Not in state schools, as far as I'm aware. Free schools on the other hand, I know almost nothing about.

I don't think (m)any do, I think this is just to stop schools from starting to teach it, and to stop Creationists from starting their own schools where they could teach it.

Malc

It's been taught as an evidence-based theory in science classes in numerous free schools for a number of years. The way the funding for Free Schools works means that those who provide the backing get to set the school's 'agenda' (for want of a better word).

Specifically, the problem is with teaching it in science classes. If a school has an RE programme, then teaching it alongside other beliefs ('and this is what the creationists believe') is fine, but to teach it as an explanation for how the universe, our planet and how life came to be in a science lesson is quite a different thing.

I agree with you.

oh, it definitely has been. One of the biggest sources of funding for free schools started off as being someone really keen on teaching Intelligent Design as a science. I'm almost kicking myself as I can't remember who it was. Some vague memory keeps prodding me to think it was someone involved in the motor industry, but that might be quite wrong.

I think this is the clause, from the Mainstream Free Schools Model Funding Agreement:



However, one must still:

under s403(1A) of the Education Act 1996

As long as "the nature of marriage" isn't restricted to heterosexual couples, I'm fine with that clause. I suspect it is though.

Pretty sure the word 'marriage' rather than 'civil partnership' means that it is.

Ignoring all the single parents who do cracking jobs, as well.

I think that is the whole point of the clause, to teach that single patent families are not the 'proper' way, that two parent families are right and better. They may justify it by linking it to teens having babies... That you should wait to meet someone you intend to spend your whole life with, marry, THEN have kids. It also leaves out long term partners who decide not to marry but have kids. It's a nasty little clause as it will lead to insecurities in those kids who realise they are not in those perfect family units. It's bad enough being without one or both of your parents when the class is told to make Mother's Day and Father's Day cards, to make you feel like you are excluded from that family norm... Being told the importance of marriage in family life as part of a taught curriculum will make some kids feel like their single parent (etc) has let them down in some way, I fear.

I think I've found the guidance, although I can't be too sure. Anyway, that says:



The 199 green paper "Supporting Families" says :

That's...surprisingly sensible.

But wrong. How, exactly, is being in a couple better than either being single or being part of a relationship with more than two people for (a) community and society, or (b) anything at all?

While I'd agree that there are plenty of single parents out there who are great at it, and indeed are much better than married couples at bringing up children, surely if you're thinking about how you would one day like to be a parent, aiming for a relationship with more than one parent is no bad thing - from a point of view of practicalities if nothing else



The bit I quoted doesn't, of course, say there's anything wrong at all with more than two people in a relationship.


I don't think it's spot on, but I think it's a hell of a lot more reasonable than I would expect such wording to be, especially as something put together under that idiot Gove.

Jack Straw was in charge, then.

Same applies.

That's very true. POINT RETRACTED.

I deliberately didn't say I agreed with this bit:

Aha!

If you read that part of the clause it isn't suggesting that two parents are better than one, but specifically that a MARRIED couple is better than an UNMARRIED couple. It's speaking of couples bringing up their children, and that when that couple is married it is the 'surest' way to do this.

Yes, it's complete bollocks. Note, however, that piece isn't in the teaching guidance, it's in the separate paper that Mali linked to.

... To be fair though, if we're presumably defining 'surest' as simply meaning the highest likelihood of longevity, durability and to that extent, success, isn't this statement merely a matter of plain, statistical fact?

I should mention that I say that as someone who brought up two kids whilst co-habiting for many years, only before finally getting married when both had effectively already grown up (age 16 and 20) and nor am I casting any aspersions on single, or gay parents, or whatever. Mrs Caveman was a brilliant single mum for 3 years before I'd met her.

I'm not convinced there's any evidence that marriage reliably meets those three criteria more than co-habiting does, at all. And, as previously stated, using the word 'marriage' means excluding not only co-habiting couples, but also gay couples.

I don't know, what are the stats?

Also, "surest" doesn't really mean anything. You can get couples who are great at raising kids, single "parents" (or people) who are also great at raising kids, and indeed groups of people who are great at raising kids. And, importantly, there's nothing to say that the children of these great parents won't end up killing fifty people.

On a vaguely related note I recently listened to the entirety of the Infinite Monkey Cage, and found myself rather narked at the episode recorded at Glastonbury which included the incredibly dim-witted and unfunny comedian Shappi Khorsandi, who petulantly tried to argue that unproven theories in science (those where evidence was actively being sought) was identically akin to the faith exhibited by religion because there existed no proof. She was met with a reassuringly groanworthy audience yet still tried to plug her own glastonbury show during the spot. Stupid, destestable idiot she is.

That's because she doesn't understand the scientific use of the word "theory".

And also the notion that 'science' will constantly alter its view based on the evidence as repeatably observed, rather than continuously mandating the strict adherance to words written in a thousands year old bollocks-spouting book. Her position was all the stupid given she also claimed not to be religious.

Thinking back to when I was listening to that, I was of the understanding she was trying to draw a parallel between religious dogma about how the world/universe/Grim..'s Tomcat works and their attempts to explain the world around them, and physics belief in dark matter which one can neither see, hear nor detect but they think it exists as it makes their world operate in the context in which they see it. She did it exceptionally clumsily, though.

It doesn't read as statistical fact due to the wording 'we share the belief of the majority of people', which makes it sound like there's a general belief in society that marriage = good choice, and they are going to adhere to that idea.

Come on though, everyone loves a good wedding do.

Yeah, and christenings are loads better than non-denominal naming ceremonies.

I actually cannot stand that woman. Starting every joke* with 'as a Muslim woman' and then turning up at an atheist forum with 'a-ha! But I'm an atheist!' was just annoying. She's not funny, or interesting.

*term used very loosely.

The existance of dark matter is an inference based on observation and calculation. The episode where they talk about superstition, and how humans are seemingly naturally predisposed to want an explanation, any explanation, for something they can't understand, makes the belief in God very unsurprisingly, but simultaneously all the more unintelligent. See also arguments along the lines of 'Well, since Science doesn't know how it all started, it must therefore be God!'.

Racist.

We need a high five dimlie. will do.

Loads of stuff on the web claiming that statistically, married couples stay together for much longer than unmarried couples - I've never even heard this challenged before by anyone and it's stated so many times in the media, I assume it is a valid claim?

Here's a typical piece from the Torygraph; there are dozens more, from a variety of sources -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... ships.html

As I say, I have no axe to grind one way or another, most especially given my own previous circumstances. However, if these are the facts of the situation, which I assume they are, we should acknowledge and squarely face them, surely.

Not sure that's always a good thing, though.

As you all know, I'm married, and have no issue with people who are or aren't. I do have issues with thinking one set is "better" than the other, though.

I understand that, but to be fair not everyone does agree that marriage is the 'surest' way to bring up children, whatever the bald statistics may overwhelmingly suggest to the contrary. So in effect, the wording used is merely reflecting social reality (and has an unpleasant whiff of PC about it IMO).

Ah, yes. But "surest" isn't "better"; I don't think anyone was suggesting that, least of all me. I was very careful to qualify my words precisely because I don't think it is better per se, merely statistically longer lasting.

Fair enough.

I'm not doing very well at "reading" in the thread, am I?

Sir Reg Vardy.

Surest way? So are they saying if you're not married your children will stop growing at a certain point and live forever?

Yes. You know, I'm sure you're right.

Hey, no worries at all from my POV mate. I'm probably talking bollocks anyway.

Historical statistics are a big problem in this area though. It's only fairly recently that the idea of being a couple for your entire lives and raising children without being married is thought of as being anything other than outright bizarre - and certainly not long enough to have meaningful statistics in the vein of whether the relationship lasts 40+ years.

So effectively, if you're looking at an unmarried couple in their 60s right now, they would have made the decision to co-habit rather than marry back in the 1950s - and that would have been very, very rare indeed. So the data just doesn't exist for comparison of longevity of marriages versus co-habitation.

You could look at it from last year, though.

The other thing is that when weddings fail it's recorded (ie. the divorce papers). Relationships aren't, so I suspect solid data is tricky.

Ah, I see your point mate.

I am assuming that statistics, when presented in support of a pretty unequivocable statement like 'marriage is the surest way to raise children', have been refined to include and compare only equivalent data sets, married and unmarried couples of the same age groups, raising children. No point including old gimmers who've been married since 1950 in the data - they won't be raising children as they'll be too old. Surely they would not have done this...?

Lies, damn lies and statistics eh.

Yeah, I just mean that co-habiting as a common occurance is too new for meaningful data about its average longevity to really exist.