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PZ Meyers PZ Meyer PZ Meier PZ Myers, posted about the motion presented by Andrew McIntosh on october 2006.It may be more interesting to visit the Report of the Committee on Culture, Science and Education (Rapporteur Guy Lengagne).

Et en français, cadeau de Pangolina. Merci m’dame.

About France, where I hang, there are two entries :

57. The Harun Yahya offensive: In early 2007, the Turkish creationist Harun Yahya sent his work entitled “The Atlas of Creation” to a very large number of French schools and resource centres. In response, the Minister of Education, Gilles de Robien, called on chief education officers to ensure that this book “which does not correspond to the content of the curricula drawn up by the Ministry, is not available at school resource centres”. Hervé LeGuyader, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Paris VI, was tasked by the General National Education Inspectorate with producing a detailed analysis of this atlas. He considers the book to be “Much more dangerous than the previous creationist initiatives, which were often of Anglo-Saxon origin”. He believes that the lavishness of the work and the method employed by the author could “prove highly effective in the case of an uninformed public. He also finds that the scientific content of this book is “pathetically inadequate”. “The Atlas of Creation” has also been sent to many journalists.58. The Interdisciplinary University of Paris (UIP): The UIP, an association set up under the Law of 1901, was established in 1995 to replace the European University of Paris, which was founded in 1989 to succeed the Popular University of Paris. Supported at the beginning by a number of prestigious companies, it has gradually been abandoned by its sponsors owing to the suspicions of neocreationism raised against it. It is actively working on the introduction of spirituality into the sciences and society and is also said to be very closely allied to the American intelligent design movement. The transmission on ARTE in October 2005 of the Thomas Johnson documentary Homo sapiens, a new history of Man was, incidentally, very controversial in France. It seems to have been very largely inspired by the work of Anne Dambricourt-Malassé, who is responsible for research at the National Scientific Research Centre CNRS, is attached to the Paris Natural History Museum and was at that time a member of the UIP’s scientific council. The documentary was accused of conveying a neocreationist message and helping the UIP’s cause.

Now, if you go thought the document and you aren’t crying with the pitiful situation of Europe maybe you come from outer space. Or USA, almost the same Organizations such as the European University of Paris (largely financed by the John Templeton Foundation) should trigger much more reactions by the academia IMHO. Jean Staune, founder and general secretary of the UIP, recently published a fabulous book (in a few month available in the USA, probably via the JTF editions) a collection of “everything you should not teach in a biology classroom” (there is more then biology, but I’ll keep commenting just this part). Local reactions = zero.I don’t think the book is a best seller, but I suppose that at least a dozen of academics should have blog about it demonstrating the errors on which Staune builds it’s logical illusions to claim that science made more probable the existence of gods. I suppose the immune system of rationalists in Europe is dormant. And hope that it will be boosted after the voting of the resolution.I would like to thank those who participated in the redaction of the text, and let’s spread their names :

Members of the Committee: Mr Jacques Legendre (Chairman), Baroness Hooper, Mr Wolfgang Wodarg, Mrs Anne Brasseur, (Vice-Chairpersons), Mr Hans Ager, Mr Toomas Alatalu, Mr. Kornél Almássy, Mr Lars Barfoed, Mr Rony Bargetze, Mr Lars Bartos, Mrs Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc (Alternate: Mr Dees), Mr Radu Mircea Berceanu, Mr Levan Berdzenishvili, Mrs Oksana Bilozir, Mrs Maria Luisia Boccia (Alternate: Mr Stefano Morselli), Mrs Margherita Boniver, Mr Ioannis Bougas, Mr Osman Coşkunoğlu, Mr Vlad Cubreacov, Mr Ivica Dačić, Mrs Maria Damanaki, Mr Joseph Debono Grech, Mr Stepan Demirchyan, Mr Ferdinand Devinski, Mrs Åse Gunhild Woie Duesund, Mr Detlef Dzembritzki, Mrs Anke Eymer, Mr Relu Fenechiu, Mrs Blanca Fernández-Capel, Mrs Maria Emelina Fernández-Soriano, Mr Axel Fischer, Mr José Freire Antunes, Mr Eamon Gilmore, Mr Stefan Glǎvan, Mr Luc Goutry, Mr Vladimir Grachev, Mr Andreas Gross, Mr Jean-Pol Henry, Mr Rafael Huseynov, Mr Fazail Ibrahimli, Mrs Halide İncekara, Mrs Evguenia Jivkova, Mr Morgan Johansson, Mrs Dagny Jónsdóttir, Mr Ali Rashid Khalil, Mr József Kozma, Mr Jean-Pierre Kucheida, Mr Markku Laukkanen, Mr Guy Lengagne, Mrs Jagoda Majska-Martinčević, Mr Tomasz Markowski, Mr Andrew McIntosh, Mr Ivan Melnikov (Alternate; Mr Alexander Fomenko), Mrs Maria Manuela Melo, Mrs Assunta Meloni, Mr Paskal Milo, Mrs Christine Muttonen, Mrs Miroslava Nĕmcová, Mr Edward O’Hara (Alternate: Mr Robert Walter), Mr Kent Olsson, Mr Andrey Pantev, Mrs Antigoni Pericleous Papadopoulos, Mr Azis Pollozhani, Mrs Majda Potrata, Mr Dušan Proroković, Mr Lluis Maria de Puig (Alternate: Mrs María Josefa Porteiro), Mr Zbigniew Rau (Alternate: Mr Zbigniew Girzynski), Mrs Anta Rugāte, Mr André Schneider, Mr Urs Schweitzer, Mr Vitaliy Shybko, Mrs Geraldine Smith, Mrs Albertina Soliani, Mr Yury Solonin, Mr Christophe Spiliotis-Saquet (Alternate: Mr Bernard Marquet), Mr Valeriy Sudarenkov, Mr Petro Symonenko, Mr Mehmet Tekelioğlu, Mr Ed van Thijn, Mr Piotr Wach, Mr Emanuelis Zingeris

Tagged, those who took part in the meeting.