Dear Andrew Smith MP,

I am writing to you concerning the education reforms that your government is steamrolling through.

I strongly disagree with faith-based selection. I think the whole idea of insulating people from other cultures, other peoples, and other ideas is actually quite abhorrent. Yet this is what faith-based schools do.

You can't mandate one hour a week for studying multiculturalism or religious education, that is simply not enough to integrate people. The only way to integrate, appreciate and respect one another's cultures is via contact with other people. My prejudices quickly melt away after spending just ten minutes with someone from a different background to myself.

I can understand that some parents may want their children to grow up to be good Catholics or Muslims, but I would rather that the decision was taken by the child, not by the parents. I find the differences between the faiths to be largely artificial, and forcing it upon children at an early age will just divide society. The example of faith-based selection in Northern Ireland is proof that this just fosters prejudice, and denies children a balanced view in life. Surely the only way for multiculturalism to work is via integration, not division, and it is wrong to give in to parents' demands on this issue.

I would urge faith-based selection to be outlawed, in the same way that it is outlawed in the workplace. It is, to use Tony Blair's word, an anomaly (though he was not talking about education). Parents who want their children growing up in a vacuum have the evenings and the weekends to indoctrinate their children into their faith and culture.

On the other hand, I do favour selection based on ability. I went to a grammar school, and eventually came out as best scholar and went on to Cambridge where I got a first and a PhD. I am so grateful that I was able to receive a good education from the state, and I think that forcing me to go to a comprehensive school would have been to my detriment. To remain competitive, the UK must foster competence at all levels, not try to drag everyone down. It only takes one disruptive child to ruin a class.

I would instead urge greater provision for the brightest students. Whilst it is dangerous to label students and bright or mediocre at an early age (I was a very late starter but just about scraped into grammar school), it is important to challenge and develop the brightest students. The comprehensive system fails to do that. I would bet that money spent on brighter students would be fantastic value, and would be a more rewarding experience for teachers and students alike. Look at the examples of Sweden and Finland.

Why should quality of education be based on the wealth or faith of the parents? I would much rather it was based on the potential of the child.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Unfortunately I think your government has got it completely wrong on this issue, and I see a worrying trend that Tony Blair's faith-based agenda is once again taking him down the wrong route (Iraq being the first faith-based mistake). While his intentions may be good, the results may not be.

Yours sincerely,

Calum Grant

Are atheists moral?

It is often claimed that atheists have no morality, that morality only makes sense through God, that a universal morality exists through God, or that God gave us morality.

All of this is nonsense. (Hey, it's my blog, I can be as blunt as I like!) Let us deal with the last point, that morality comes from God. This statement is meaningless, since God is "everything we don't understand", which says that we don't understand morality. This is factually false, evolutionary psychology does give us a reason for morality. Even if God for some reason wanted us to behave in certain ways (why exactly he would want that escapes me), then how would that be communicated to us? Through prayer? Through stones carted down from Mt Synae? Through the Bible?

The problem with appealing to God is that there are differing religions, each telling their flock different things. There is no reason to suppose that one religion has a connection to God, whilst other religions are simply misguided. I would argue that they are all misguided. What they have in common, apart from a perceived moral superiority over other groups, are to basically love one another and stop being so selfish.

Atheists of course have a sense of right and wrong. It is not just a utilitarian desire to not end up in jail, it is because I don't like to see other people suffer. Besides, I would gain far more by cooperating with people than by conniving against them. Generally, human relationships count far more than material possessions, even for atheists. What right do religions have to claim these values as their own?

These values do not come from God. Well, they come from God in the sense that everything comes from God, which is basically a meaningless statement. Behaviours are actually evolved. Since every human characteristic is subject to natural selection, then the same is also true of our behavioural characteristics. Community, love of our family, and a degree of selflessness are all good for our survival. Our characteristics weren't given to us by God at all!

I would even argue that religious people are less moral than atheists, since they spend their time worrying about unimportant things like in which direction to pray, which food to eat, building buildings for worship, subjugating women and despising other people to the point of violence, all of which are not of any benefit to anybody.

Intelligent design?

Do things ever occur that are unexplainable by science? This is almost Godel's incompleteness theorem: some things cannot be proven using the laws in any sufficiently complex system. The fallacy is always the same: what cannot be readily explained, is "unexplainable", therefore must have been performed by an intelligent action. Both of those steps are logical fallacies.

Underlying intelligent design is the idea that some things could not have occurred naturally. Eyes, flagella, DNA, are deemed to be statistically impossible to have arisen. The problem is that for every specific case where such an example is given by the creationists, it is possible to refute it. For example, a small part of a flagellum is still extremely useful to a bacterium. Evolution is a great theory, not because it is necessarily true (although it is overwhelmingly likely that it is), but because it can withstand such criticism, and win every time.

Intelligent designers are ill-informed to genuinely believe that evolution does not stand up to such tests. Intelligent design gives people the illusion of knowledge, because real science is hard. People think they are getting one over the scientists, and that what they know is somehow equal to, or is in some sense genuine knowledge. All they are really doing is giving ignorance credibility.

Show me someone who believes in ID, and I'll show you a hypocrite. These people benefit hugely from the advances in science and technology, yet constantly strive to undermine science. Not one biologist or biochemist believes in ID, yet supporters of ID are not beyond taking life-saving medicines from these people when it suits them.