No one criticising it seems has even seen the exhibition to see the context it is mentioned in. The way the NT have described it sounds absolutely fine. A lot of people have jumped on the secular society’s blog and accused the NT of something with very scant real evidence of it.

If it does turn out to ‘promote’ creationism, or describe it as on a par as a theory as the scientific theories then that is clearly wrong. But I very much suspect to the NSS that any mention of creationism will see it level an attack, no matter how easilly the majority of us can see it as a genuine attempt to reflect the history of thought.

Why have the Trust made no mention of the giant who really built the causeway?

The problem is that the Caleb Foundation, the lunatic Christian theocrats behind this, are already crowing about their victory in securing a place for their bilge; this statement currently appears on their website -

“[W]e have worked closely with the National Trust over many months with a view to ensuring that the new Causeway Visitor Centre includes an acknowledgement both of the legitimacy of the creationist position on the origins of the unique Causeway stones and of the ongoing debate around this. We are pleased that the National Trust worked positively with us and that this has now been included at the new Visitor Centre.
“We fully accept the Trust’s commitment to its position on how the Causeway was formed, but this new centre both respects and acknowledges an alternative viewpoint and the continuing debate, and that means it will be a welcoming and enriching experience for all who visit.
“This is, as far as we are aware, a first for the National Trust anywhere in theUK, and it sets a precedent for others to follow. We feel that it is important that the centre, which has been largely funded out of the public purse, should be inclusive and representative of the whole community, and we have therefore been engaged in detailed and constructive discussions with the Trust in order to secure the outcome we have today.
“We want to thank senior National Trust officials who have worked closely with us over a prolonged period, and we are pleased that this constructive engagement has helped to bring about such a positive result.”

Also, how does rejecting and censoring out the creationist line work? Surely you just create more room for it to thrive if people think they are being written out. If people do believe it, it is fair to reflect it. I just disagree with giving it ‘equal merit’. Clearly the vast majority of us (and the vast majority of British/Irish Christians to I’ll wager) believe in scientific explanations of the Earth’s development. So it would be wrong to present any other ideas as being on a level par with that. But any censorship of differing views is wrong.

The Giants’ Causway already has a myth to describe its’ origins, which nobody appears to be too concerned about so imo, it’s no big deal to add another one.

It just seems a very strange thing to do. If you’re just acknowledging that this is what some people believe, what are the criteria for inclusion? Will there be signs in National Trust gardens that some people believe fairies exist at the bottom?

I suppose, on the other hand, you could argue it’s like mentioning at Ayers Rock that there is religious significance for some people. But Giants’ Causeway is not a place of religious significance in that sense. Christians don’t see it as a special place of worship.

3 – it’s only a problem if their gloating bothers you. Don’t let it.

The National Trust should abandon this sad attempt at political correctness and stick to the science. There is no more reason to pander to creationists than there would be to rename the site “The Giantess’ Causeway” to appease feminists.

You need to read the transcript of the “The Debate continues” bit.

Here:

“This debate continues today for some people, who have an understanding of the formation of the earth which is different from that of current mainstream science.

Young Earth Creationists believe that the earth was created some 6000 years ago. This is based on a specific interpretation of the Bible and in particular the account of creation in the book of Genesis.

Some people around the world, and specifically here in Northern Ireland, share this perspective.

Young Earth Creationists continue to debate questions about the age of the earth. As we have seen from the past, and understand today.”

What on earth has any of that got to do with the causeway?

Follow the money

We actually waited to read the full context before commenting;

http://bcseweb.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/national-trust-and-creationism.html

Most folks are reacting to claims made by the creationists and repeated by sloppy media.

Surprise, surprise the creationists were lying.

Sunny

Some of the background history of the Caleb Foundation’s campaign might help explain why they were consulted in the first place.

http://sluggerotoole.com/2012/07/05/giants-causeway-this-is-as-far-as-we-are-aware-a-first-for-the-national-trust-anywhere-in-the-uk-and-it-sets-a-precedent-for-others-to-follow/

And, as Simon [6.54pm] suggests, the National Trust’s defence doesn’t fit with the controversial reference in the material at the Centre.

There is no “debate”.

Hm, so we have the National Trust (an organisation that is pretty much universally respected) attacked by the National Secular Society (an organisation which exists to oppose any expression of religious beliefs in the public sphere) simply because one of their sites has an exhibit that acknowledges the existence of a widespread religious belief. And we’re apparently supposed to side with the NSS?

There are far better things to fill in a post on a slow news day with, Sunny.

Here in TN, they have taken steps though new legislation to allow creationism back into the classroom. This law turns the clock back nearly 100 years here in the seemingly unprogressive South and is simply embarrassing. There is no argument against the Theory of Evolution other than that of religious doctrine. The Monkey Law only opens the door for fanatic Christianity to creep its way back into our classrooms. You can see my visual response as a Tennessean to this absurd law on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html with some evolutionary art and a little bit of simple logic.

Sunny, I can think of few things that piss me off more than Creationism, but based on what you’re quoting above the NT is not endorsing it. There’s more to endorsing things than just admitting they exist.

Oh, OK, reading Simon’s post the NT does seem to be legitimising Creationism to a certain extent:

“This debate continues today for some people, who have an understanding of the formation of the earth which is different from that of current mainstream science.”

“Debate” and “understanding” are both misnomers, and talking about “mainstream science” falsely implies that Creationism is science rather than the opposite. So yeah, they ought to get rid of that, or replace it with “The lie continues today for some people, who have a misunderstanding of the formation of the earth which is different from that of reality”.

But it’s not a huge deal, and I suspect it’s down to poor editorial oversight rather than political correctness.

It’s not a question of endorsing creationism. It’s a question of publicly displaying, as though it had any merit, a particular viewpoint and one which is clearly barmy. If the National Trust wants to be very inclusive, then there are many points of view it could display about all sorts of topics. There’s a Christian god view, a Muslim god view, a Jewish god view, a Hindu god view plus Buddhist, Jain etc. etc views, which are undoubtedly as meritorious a a certain evangelical Christian view.

I am a National Trust Member, but I’m seriously re-thinking this. The ‘Trust’ bit seems tarnished.

@ 16 Devra

Well, does the NT not sometimes reference other faiths?

“Also, how does rejecting and censoring out the creationist line work? Surely you just create more room for it to thrive if people think they are being written out. If people do believe it, it is fair to reflect it … any censorship of differing views is wrong.”

Really? Sorry, this is dangerously misguided on several levels.

For one, as others have pointed out this is not about “censoring” – what a scare word, quite inapplicable here. For a start even most Christians (outside of the USA, which is currently descending into another of its frightening bouts of religious insanity that is also infecting us in the UK now) don’t believe such literalist fundie nonsense. On the contrary, it is this Caleb Foundation which is attempting, and now worryingly succeeding, in foisting such disinformation and propaganda on the public, thanks to some no doubt well funded activism on their part (as petes says, follow the money) coupled with some worryingly naive gullibilty on the part of the National Trust.

This is how the reactionary theocratic backlash is working. They are chipping away insidiously at our hard-won secular democratic culture, day by day, year by year. Often such little things you may think they don’t matter, but put it all together and you have a problem. Just like Mary Whitehouse’s Viewers and Listeners. There hardly needs to be any of them, so long as they’re obsessive and persistent enough they can magnify their fanatical minority voice into what sounds like the shout of a crowd to be listened to. Totally misleading, but all too often very effective.

Yes, it’s always nice to reassure yourself that a few obsessive fanatics won’t be able to wreak their will over a whole society.

Nice.

But foolish.

As history proves.

The National Trust should not pander to pseudoscientific nonsense.

The current scientific consensus is that Finn McCool built the causeway to walk to Scotland and fight his Scottish foe Benandonner.

Chaise: “I can think of few things that piss me off more than Creationism”

Blimey, really?

Don’t forget that Creationism has been an article of faith for many religions for thousands of years, whilst the scientific explanation is very new (as with all Geology). It’s not surprising that Creationists remain.

The interesting question, in my view, is this: is Creationism on the increase? If yes, why? I only came across it once at school, that I recall, and only through a devout Muslim boy.

We were certainly less aware of other cultures 30 years ago, but still. Perhaps the rise of fundamentalist Christianity is linked to increased awareness of, and competition with, Islam and other “newer” religions.

@ 21 Jack C

“Blimey, really? ”

Yup. It’s not just that it’s wrong, it’s that it’s anti-rational. Its proponents have to make up evidence and lie about the nature of evolution to spread their creed, and when pressed will start to reject basic reasoning so as not to have to deal with the horror of actually examining their beliefs.

“Don’t forget that Creationism has been an article of faith for many religions for thousands of years, whilst the scientific explanation is very new (as with all Geology). It’s not surprising that Creationists remain.”

I’m not sure why that’s supposed to make it less annoying. For the record, I have a “hate the sin, love the sinner” sort of approach to Creationists (on good days at least), except when they’re going around lying to people, at which point they can fuck off.

“The interesting question, in my view, is this: is Creationism on the increase? If yes, why? I only came across it once at school, that I recall, and only through a devout Muslim boy.”

It appears to be rising in Britain thanks to cross-pollination with the US. In that case, the most likely cause is the internet. I imagine the Anglicisation of American slang jumped up massively when we first started importing US TV; similar deal.

“We were certainly less aware of other cultures 30 years ago, but still. Perhaps the rise of fundamentalist Christianity is linked to increased awareness of, and competition with, Islam and other “newer” religions.”

Could be. On the other hand, it could just be hot right now. Religion appears to go through trends like anything else.

We all know creationism is bullshit, but really, who cares? Who cares whether people believe in evolution or not? Let them believe whatever crap they want, it won’t make any difference to anything.

Chaise,
I was just surprised that this came so high up your list of things-that-piss-you-off.

Also, Creationism isn’t anti-rational if you’re a believer surely? It also strikes me as more coherent than believing in a God AND evolution.

What’s striking is that belief in evolution is so low around the world. Even in pretty-much post-Christian Britain the percentage is only something like 65%.

Still, if you look at the longer trend, there has been a massive decrease in support for Creationism over the last couple of hundred years. These things take time I guess (as Darwin would no doubt point out), and it does seem a relatively benign belief.

@ 24 Jack C

“I was just surprised that this came so high up your list of things-that-piss-you-off.”

I should point out that the list of things that piss me off isn’t scored by importance. There are hundreds of more pressing issues – poverty, oppression, bigotry, and so on. I just happen to find Creationism, along with holisticism and all other anti-rational movements, especially annoying. It’s a personal thing, I guess.

“Also, Creationism isn’t anti-rational if you’re a believer surely? It also strikes me as more coherent than believing in a God AND evolution.”

If you have to lie about evidence, straw-man the opposition and selectively reject reason to support a belief, you are being anti-rational in that belief. Moving the source of the anti-rationality from the belief itself to the belief that causes it (God) doesn’t change this. Post-Darwin, the only way one could be a rational Creationist is if one were very ignorant of the evidence and unable to learn more about it. Like if you were raised in an oppressive cult or something.

“What’s striking is that belief in evolution is so low around the world. Even in pretty-much post-Christian Britain the percentage is only something like 65%.”

Well, rates of religion are still pretty high. And the more society progresses, the further science gets from the layman’s understanding. I’m surprised it’s that low in the UK, though; what’s your source?

“Still, if you look at the longer trend, there has been a massive decrease in support for Creationism over the last couple of hundred years. These things take time I guess (as Darwin would no doubt point out), and it does seem a relatively benign belief.”

It’s hardly surprising, as people generally seem to be less religious and better educated these days, plus Darwin makes an absolutely massive difference. Before anyone had thought of natural selection, Creationism to my mind was a reasonable position to take. No longer.

As for “relatively benign”, it depends what we’re comparing it to. It’s still fairly malign, what with leading people to demand that schools replace scientific education with religious indoctrination.

@ Jack C

Actually, don’t worry about that source; a Google search puts it in the same ballpark (actually more like 50-75% depending on whether you count people who think evolution happens with divine assistance).

We REALLY need to start teaching the scientific method, logic, and cognitive biases in schools.

Creationists use the “debate” tactic as an attempt to sound reasonable. But it only ever seems to work one way. Religious leaders are quite happy to censor scientific viewpoints in the arenas they control. Only when preachers reading the creation story from the pulpit are also obliged to point out the mass of scientific evidence to the contrary, or children in the school nativity informed that light from yonder star probably originated millions of years before the birth of little Baby Jesus, or Sunday School pupils taught the textual evidence suggests the God of Abraham was actually called El, rather than the later arrival Jehovah – only then will I accept the “debate” in other environments, such as this National Trust exhibit. But I’m not holding my breath.

Chaise,
I see where you’re coming from now. The first act of my dictatorship would be to ban margarine (or would have been, I think I may be mellowing on the subject).

I think we already do teach the scientific method, etc, don’t we? However, pretty much all of us are a bundle of biases and prejudices to at least some extent.

What’s less scientific? Intelligent Design, or Sunny’s approach to headlines?

@ 28 Jack C

“I see where you’re coming from now. The first act of my dictatorship would be to ban margarine (or would have been, I think I may be mellowing on the subject).”

Quite right, margarine can bugger off.

“I think we already do teach the scientific method, etc, don’t we? However, pretty much all of us are a bundle of biases and prejudices to at least some extent. ”

From personal state-school experience, I remember doing coursework in a form that at least vaguely followed the scientific method – you had to predict the results of your experiment before you started, for example. But I don’t remember the method, much less its importance, actually being explained. So the format of this coursework was a mystery to me – at the time I couldn’t figure out why I had to write both a conclusion or an evaluation when they sounded like the same thing.

So: either the scientific method wasn’t really explained, or it was just another topic covered in 15 minutes on a rainy Friday afternoon. We should be *hammering* this subject in science lessons, not just waving vaguely in its general direction.

As for biases, I don’t remember learning about them at all. They need covering, as does statistics on the sort of level that leads to dodgy newspaper stories.

“What’s less scientific? Intelligent Design, or Sunny’s approach to headlines?”

They occupy separate but equal positions on the Endless Plane of Sneaky Deception.

@ 15

‘Sunny, I can think of few things that piss me off more than Creationism, but based on what you’re quoting above the NT is not endorsing it. There’s more to endorsing things than just admitting they exist’

Why even mention it, young earth Creationsim is a complete irrelevance to the formation of the GC. The problem is they consulted on it.

Sunny is correct to highlight this , especially in NI where such lunatic theories are not uncommon.

@ 30 tigerdarwin

“Why even mention it, young earth Creationsim is a complete irrelevance to the formation of the GC. The problem is they consulted on it.”

Because sites such as those run by the NT often put some cultural stuff into their displays. I’m sure that if you were looking at a historical Roman site and found a picture of Mars with a plinth reading “Romans believed that Mars was the god of war”, you wouldn’t write angry articles titled “National Trust Endorses Polytheism!”

That said, I’ve moved towards the centre of this issue since typing that post, because a) I’ve yet to see why Creationism is especially relevant to this site, and b) since reading the NT’s false claims that the “debate” continues and that Creationists have an “understanding” of natural history, although I think that’s more down to clumsy and PCish writing than a deliberate endorsement.

Thank you for pointing this out. I had no idea the NT were giving any space to these looney-tunes. If they mention this fairy story alongside the other one about Finn McColl that would seem acceptable in that they are both clearly absurd. More worryingly, if the evangelical garbage is given equal prominence with the scientific explantion of the Causeway’s origins – along the lines of here’s the science and here’s the tosh, you decide which is correct – then I shall not be renewing my membership (held for twenty years).

@cg

”’ Because sites such as those run by the NT often put some cultural stuff into their displays. I’m sure that if you were looking at a historical Roman site and found a picture of Mars with a plinth reading “Romans believed that Mars was the god of war”, you wouldn’t write angry articles titled “National Trust Endorses Polytheism!””

The Romans were before Enlightenment and the scientific revolution.by some margin that is the difference – we know better now

Further GC has no spiritual significance to these idioits bar being a vehicle for their garbage.

Interestingly when I once challenged one of these nut jobs to explain how genetics fitted into their world view they just gurgled and said they didn’t know anything about genetics.

Why should idiots like these who want to impose a theocracy on this country, and deliver their diatribe from the pulpit every Sunday be given any platform bar their bigoted churches, isn’t that enough.

Doubtless, visitors to the Giant’s Causeway are also regaled with the legend of Finn McCool. Moreover, they always will have been. I know, I know. But even so.

This whole carry-on recalls the insistence on the invented language of Ulster-Scots, complete with the self-confessed neologism that is “Ullans”, whenever Irish is used; apparently, no one seems to realise that Irish is by no stretch of the imagination a peculiarly Catholic or Nationalist language historically speaking, any more than Catholicism and Nationalism have been synonymous during most of the, still fairly brief, period in which the latter has existed.

No, if one lot gets to have its mythology, Finn McCool, in relation to a major tourist attraction, than some way must be found to include the other lot’s mythology, Young Earth Creationism, as well. Except that few, if any, people with their age in double figures believe that Finn McCool ever existed in actual fact.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The Young Earth Creationist position is more scientific, not that that is saying anything, than are the effusions of Richard Dawkins, the logic of whose position is that the natural-scientific method itself is just another “meme”. The YECs do at least really believe in science, in principle, at all. Whereas Dawkins’s position, which is bad enough philosophy, is even worse, if any, science. Theirs, on the other hand, is merely bad science, and of course worse theology.

Again, though, don’t get me wrong. Science arose out of the uniquely Christian rejection of humanity’s otherwise universal concepts of eternalism, that the universe has always existed and always will; animism, that the universe is a living thing, an animal; pantheism, that the universe is itself the ultimate reality, God; cyclicism, that everything which happens has already happened in exactly the same form, and will happen again in exactly the same form, an infinite number of times; and astrology, that events on earth are controlled by the movements of celestial bodies within an eternalistic, animistic, pantheistic and cyclicistic universe.

Science cannot prove that these closely interrelated things are not the case; it simply has to presuppose their falseness, first established in thirteenth-century Paris when their Aristotelian expression was condemned at the Sorbonne specifically by ecclesial authority, and specifically by reference to the Biblical Revelation.

That is why science as we now understand the term never originated anywhere other than in Medieval Europe. And it is why science did not last, or flower as it might have done, in the Islamic world: whereas Christianity sees the rationally investigable order in the universe as reflecting and expressing the rationality of the Creator, the Qur’an repeatedly depicts the will of Allah as capricious.

But creationism is scientism. Scientism is the belief that the only objectively true knowledge is that derived from the application of the natural-scientific method. It is ruinous of science, since that method can only function on certain presuppositions which it cannot prove, but rather must (and, historically, happily did) accept on higher authority. Creationism is a form of scientism, which has accepted the scientistic argument and then applied it to the Book of Genesis.

Creationists may seem to be the polar opposites of Stephen Hawking, Peter Atkins and Richard Dawkins. But, in fact, they are all of a piece. I would not teach the works of Dawkins – wholly incompetent in the field that he has long chosen to colonise – in schools. Nor would I teach creationism. For exactly the same reasons in both cases.

That is one of the many reasons why I am not, and have never been, New Labour. New Labour was and is happy to teach Dawkinsian scientism to its own children and creationist scientism to other people’s, at public expense all round. I am not happy with the teaching of either of them to anybody. What says, for example, Oliver Kamm about New Labour’s, and specifically his hero Tony Blair’s, enthusiastic use of public money in order to teach creationism?

Nor am I happy with the assumption that teenagers are so thick that they can be fobbed off with “the fossil record”: of course, the fact that two species inhabited the same place at different times and resembled each other does not prove anything at all, still less that the later one was descended from the earlier one. With teaching like that, it is no wonder that, once you take out the Don’t Knows and adjust accordingly, the creationist proportion of the British population is comparable to the creationist proportion of the American population, and growing.

There is really only one thing about evolution that truly interests the popular mind. That is the common ancestor of Man and the great apes. No such ancestor has ever been found, and children should be taught that fact, for fact it is. And as long as fact it remains, it further remains perfectly legitimate to believe that, whatever might have gone on or be going on among plants and animals, the first man was created directly from inanimate matter, and the first woman from out of the first man, exactly as the Bible teaches.

Why not? If that was what happened, then science, which is purely descriptive, would just have to deal with it. And it has produced no reason whatever to disbelieve it; no other particular species from which we are demonstrably descended. Likewise, since the emergence of the first living cell from inanimate matter remains wholly incapable of repetition, then there is no scientific reason whatever not to believe that that, too, was a direct act of creation. Who can show that this is scientifically impossible? Who can say what really happened instead?

But how is it that, in order to balance or counteract the teaching of an Irish Republican historiography and of a broader Gaelic-Irish culture, by no means necessarily the same thing, Northern Ireland stands on the cusp of the teaching of Young Earth Creationism? The body that has been most active in bringing about the concession to that position by the National Trust in respect of the Giant’s Causeway has been the Caleb Foundation.

That Foundation the closest possible ties indeed to the Democratic Unionist Party. However, its Council of Reference features no minister of any of Northern Ireland’s three largest Protestant denominations: the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Church of Ireland, and the Methodist Church in Ireland. Yet none could exactly be described as liberal in Northern Ireland, and the first two, at least, contain no shortage of clergy who would fall into the Conservative Evangelical camp as generally defined. Clerics of all three have routinely held, and still do routinely hold, offices high and low in the Orange Order and in the Royal Black Institution.

Yet Caleb’s Council of Reference stretches from the very old guard Calvinistic (Evangelical Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists) to the Pentecostal (Elim, Church of the Nazarene, plus the roots of such things in the entire sanctification still strongly affirmed by the Independent Methodists) and to those who maintain the theology of pre-Pentecostal fundamentalism alongside the outward forms of the popular Calvinism of yesteryear (the Free Presbyterians), without anyone in the vein of the Presbyterian the Reverend Stephen Dickinson, or the Anglican and Irish language enthusiast the Reverend Dr Eric Culbertson, or the Methodist the late Reverend Robert Bradford MP.

Caleb cannot, then, claim to be upholding the tradition of James Ussher, whose calculations of the date of creation are by far the least interesting thing about him, and a full biography of whom was quite recently published by Professor Alan Ford of Nottingham, who previously had the questionable pleasure of lecturing me at Durham on the Reformation.

Caleb, with immediate access to the very top of the main Unionist party, has no ties even to Protestants and Unionists as hardline as Mr Dickinson, or as Dr Culbertson who has tried in his time to become an anti-Agreement UUP MP when not organising services in Irish, or as the late Mr Bradford who was murdered by the IRA in 1981. Caleb, with immediate access to the very top of the main Unionist party, has no ties to the denominations being banished by Sinn Féin from their historic role in Northern Ireland’s schools as the dry run for that party’s banishment of the Catholic Church from schools throughout the Island. Caleb has no such links. And nor has the DUP.

For what we see in Northern Ireland is the carve-up between a bizarre fundamentalist sect and a Marxist guerilla organisation, the archetype of the “centre ground” politics of which we are all supposed to approve, but which is in fact a carve-up between that sect’s old allies on the 1980s Radical Right and those guerillas’ old allies on the 1970s sectarian Left, not least on the basis of support for the European Union through which those guerillas legislate for us alongside the Far Right, the Far Left, and Dutch ultra-Calvinists who will not have women as candidates but who campaign for Sir David Attenborough’s documentaries to be edited in order to remove any reference to evolution before they may be shown on Dutch television.

In coalition with Sinn Féin sits, for example, Nelson McCausland, a British Israelite and Young Earth Creationist who is an enthusiast for Ulster-Scots and for the chaining up of children’s swings on the Sabbath. As Minister of Culture, he demanded creationism in the museums. He is now Minister of Social Development. Far from an isolated figure, he is hotly tipped for Westminster, where the creationist (and, tellingly, pro-homoeopathy) activist David Simpson already sits, legislating for you and for me.

In order to counterbalance Gaelic mythology and Republican mythologised history, is British Israelitism, Robert Bradford’s position but consistently condemned by Ian Paisley, also soon to be purveyed, first at National Trust properties, then in museums, and then in schools, all at the expense of taxpayers throughout the United Kingdom? Gaelic mythology, like the Irish language, is all well and good, and indeed historically both a Protestant and a Unionist interest, again like the language. But one would no more wish to teach either mythologised Republican history or British Israelitism than either Young Earth Creationism or the effusions of Richard Dawkins.

Remember, though, that one must never, ever, ever criticise “the Northern Ireland peace process”. Like criticising the EU, to do so would be to prove that one were not on “the centre ground”. And that would never do. Would it?

We have only ourselves to blame.

This is exactly what the Creationists want. They are the underdog (at present) so they are soft peddling their ideas with statements like, ‘we just want both sides of the debate aired’. Sounds reasonable? Well, it’s not reasonable to suggest that a fundamentalist religious group with an agenda (and lots of money) can get a platform, no matter how small, in an education centre and be portrayed as, in any way, credible.

How did this happen? Did the exhibition get any funding from a Creationist group? Something rotten has infiltrated the National Trust and I’d like there to be an enquiry into how this came about.

Now that this fringe group has got a foothold in one of our biggest national educational institutions they can legitimate their argument. They can say, ‘Well, the well respected National Trust thinks we have a legitimate enough argument to include it in there education centre so why can’t ‘XYZ’ include it in their’s’.

I don’t want to live in America where nearly 50% of the population believe this nonsense. When I hear that these ideas have risen from 3-7% (my family inc.) in this country in recent years, it makes me despair for our education system.

I have been a National Trust member for many years and visit their properties almost weekly. No more. I will not be renewing my membership until this cancer has been cut out of the organisation. ‘Trust’ should be removed from their name. I want that enquiry.

Shame on you National Trust.