Intelligent Design and Dawkins in UK schools

The Guardian has reported that Intelligent Design (ID) will be taught in UK schools in religious education classes, but students will also get a chance to read excerpts from Richard Dawkins. Read the full story here.

On the one hand this is good thing as it clearly marks ID as a religious idea (or at least not as science), on the other hand it does give ID a foothold in schools. The focus will not be Intelligent Design, but rather on the relationship between science & religion:

The teaching of ID and creationism should prove less contentious in this part of the curriculum (although the scientists who argue that ID is a science may be disconcerted), as pupils will investigate and role-play disputes between religion and science, such as Galileo, Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins.

Overall its an interesting move, but we'll have to see how things turn out. The UK guidelines are for their stage 3 that covers 11-14 year olds and it will depend a lot on how they design the curriculum around these issues.