By JAMIE DOWARD - THE GUARDIAN
Updated: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:22:37 UTC

Free schools that teach 'intelligent design' as science will lose funding

Richard Dawkins hopes faith schools will be prevented from teaching creationism as fact.
Photograph: Murdo MacLeod

Leading scientists and naturalists, including Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough, are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution groups from teaching creationism in science classes.

The Department for Education has revised its model funding agreement, allowing the education secretary to withdraw cash from schools that fail to meet strict criteria relating to what they teach. Under the new agreement, funding will be withdrawn for any free school that teaches what it claims are "evidence-based views or theories" that run "contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations".

The British Humanist Association (BHA), which has led a campaign against creationism – the movement that denies Darwinian evolution and claims that the Earth and all its life was created by God – described the move as "highly significant" and predicted that it would have implications for other faith groups looking to run schools.

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TAGGED: CREATIONISM, EDUCATION, RICHARD DAWKINS