To Parliament, where geneticist Steve Jones gave an entertaining masterclass on “evolution, creationism and intelligent design?“at a meeting of the all-party group for earth sciences.
Nice teaching aid: a slide showing how close to chimpanzees we are (98-99 per cent common DNA) put mugshots of George W Bush next to a strikingly similar chimp.
He told his audience of lords, ladies, MPs and academics that he was happy with the idea of a soul and did not say categorically that there was no God. But he was not at all happy with theologians who reject evolution.
“It’s not a controversy,” he exclaimed. “Evolution is just a fact, accepted by 99.9 per cent of biologists.”
Clearly worried by Vardy and his city academies (page 8), Professor Jones said creationist views were now so prevalent in parts of the US that students were arriving at Harvard who did not believe evolution had really happened.
He liked the approach of a student he had taught in Botswana. When asked how he reconciled evolution with his own fundamental Christian beliefs, he looked the biologist in the eye and said: “Sir, it’s quite simple. You evolved; we were created.”
