The UK’s top TV channel for teachers, Teachers TV, has caused a stir by publishing the results of a survey saying that a third of teachers in the UK think creationism should be taught as part of the science curriculum, and half of teachers think that creationism and intelligent design should be discussed in the classroom (press release).

And it’s headlines agogo here in the UK about this (Times, Telegraph, Guardian).

Nature’s own Adam Rutherford offers a (non-Nature-endorsed) voice of reason about the significance of these results. He delves into the details of who answered the survey, a hard copy of which he has actually seen, with the important point that the questionnaire was sent out to a range of teachers – not an exclusive sample of science teachers, and that the responding group is essentially self-selecting and therefore skewed.

Before the survey came out, Rutherford made a film for Teachers TV discussing the teaching of creationism in schools, and interviews Michael Reiss who at the time was still in post at the Royal Society as director of education. Reiss subsequently lost his job for saying that creationism should be discussed in the classroom, if children raise questions. And Reiss’s name has popped up in the news coverage of this survey as well

So it seems that this shocking survey probably reveals no more that the views of a minority of individuals who happen to be teachers. Government guidelines state that “creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science national curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science". Hopefully that will remain the case.