Creationist 'zoo' wins UK Govt backed award

[matgb]

Words fail me. Remember the creationist 'zoo farm' that Debi and I wrote about a few years back?

They've won an education award , specifically a "Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge" awarded by the Government backed Council for Learning Outside the Classroom.

A Government backed charity has issued an accreditation award to a science denying establishment that's been heavily criticised in the past for its animal welfare standards, and that links heavily to www.earthhistory.org.uk, a site seeking to rewrite the science to justify young-earth creationism. They seem to want to blame Darwin for Mao, Hitler and Stalin (SRSLY).

The front page of the Learning Outside the Classroom site currently says:

A new UK Government took office on 11 May. As a result the content on this site may not reflect current Government policy. All statutory guidance and legislation published on this site continues to reflect the current legal position unless indicated otherwise. To view the new Department for Education website, please go to http://www.education.gov.uk

Is dealing with this crap within Sarah's remit?

FYI: All links to earth history and the zoo farm itself have rel="nofollow" added, I avoid using that too often, but there's no way I want to give them any link credit at all.

ETA: davegodfrey has applied actual science to some of their claims.

Comments

[davidnm.livejournal.com]

That's awful. I can only assume that this is some sort of cock-up? Or is this a sign that the craziness is starting to cross the Atlantic? (I really, really, hope not...)

[matgb]

It's an arms length charity set up by the previous lot, and the 'zoo' puts a lot of effort into pretending they're legit and educational. Because, of course, they think they are.

[ginasketch]

I refer you to Richard Fortey's quote in reference to the Creation Museum in Kentucky that says "It is interesting that the ebodiment of respectability is a museum, as if a Museum of Falsehoods were a theoretical impossibility. I look forward to the Museum of the Flat Earth, as a counterbalance to all those Oblate Spheroid enthusiasts."

[karohemd]

Yay for Oblate Spheroid Enthusiasts! :D

[ginasketch]

I don't think I've ever hated the government more than I have this week.

[matgb]

Govt didn't issue this, doubt they even know it's happened. A body set up by the previous govt issued the thing in June.

Needs fixing, but not the fault of this lot, yet.

[ginasketch]

That's okay, I still have more than enough hatred for the current govt for other reasons.

Back to the topic at hand though.

[frith]

Can we point and snigger at the UK too now? Oops, maybe not -- we still have Stephen Harper and his band of trained monkeys running our parlement and puking all over our good name at every occasion.

BTW, what rel="nofollow"? It sounds like a neat and useful trick, but when I hover over or click the links no rel="nofollow" shows in the address bars of my (Firefox) browser.

[matgb]

If you look at the source for the links, they all have rel="nofollow" in after the href="URL" bit. It won't show up anywhere, it's not for your browser, it's for Google and other search engines.

Basically, you know Google weights results based on number of incoming links, so the better/more links a page has the higher the site appears in Google, well nofollow is basically saying "don't count this vote", and this is a very legit use for it, because I don't rate where I'm linking to.

But yeah, no, you have Harper &c in Government and actually in charge. Our Deputy Prime Minister is an atheist, as are several senior cabinet members. Arms length charity gave the award, and probably wasn't aware of the lunacy behind the 'zoo', hence this post and some follow up work I'll be doing (essentially, someone that's read this knows someone who knows the minister that'd have to deal with it).

[frith]

Thanks, I looked at the source, implementing is straightforward and the title="stuff'n'such" looks cool. What does rel mean, relation? It could help jog my memory and avoid looking at my crib notes.

I was just listening to a blurb on the radio about how the collapse of the Conservative party and the rise of the regional Bloc Québecois and Reform parties has killed national representation in Canada. We came this close to an NDP coalition government, but the Liberals chickened out. 8^(

[matgb]

Relation I think, could be relative, something along those lines. Tags for example get rel="tag" and XFN stuff (like Google Profile) will pick up stuff like rel="me" (watching Google Profile pick up on stuff automatically can be interesting if you've set your links up right).

But yeah, Canadian politics is all kinds of weird, you guys need a better voting system more than we do.

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

That warning is petty standard on all goverment web sites at the momment.....

[thapunkprincess.livejournal.com]

Just down the road from me, I'm going next week! Looks better than the City Zoo, couldn't really give a fk about the creationist rubbish.