Atheists press to ban creationism from U.K. schools

LONDON (RNS) A group of 30 leading scientists, including a Nobel
laureate and a prominent atheist professor, are pressing the British
government to ban all teaching of creationism in the nation's publicly
funded schools.

The scientists delivered a petition to the coalition government of
Prime Minister David Cameron as part of a new campaign to make it
illegal to teach the biblical story of creationism as a scientific
theory in schools.

Official government policy is opposed to creationism in school
curricula and has issued guidelines against teaching it, but officials
have stopped short of legally barring it from state-funded institutions.
The scientists' campaign urges that Charles Darwin's theory of
evolution be taught in all schools at both the primary and secondary
levels.