Creation Research UK

4 Thought TV - 23 November 2011

This is a two minute programme which follows the UK Channel 4 news at 7.55pm each evening. The brief of the programme makers is to represent the views of people from a variety of backgrounds on moral and ethical topics. Each programme contains only the words of the person featured in the show.

At the start of October I was contacted by Claudia Headon, one of the Assistant Producers. Following the recent campaign sponsored by the British Humanist Association to promote the teaching of evolution in schools, she wanted to explore the question, “should we ban creationism from being taught in our schools?” After several long phone conversations, I was invited to down to the studio in London to record a show for them on Thursday 20th October.

The recording session was far more difficult that I anticipated, not because of the questions, but because of the lack of them. I was basically invited to speak direct to the camera for around thirty minutes, with nothing more than prompts from Claudia and other members of the team to suggest topics that I might cover. All the time in the back of my mind was the knowledge that from what I said, no more than 110 seconds would be selected and edited together! Whilst the show seems to be respected for its ability to do this fairly, it was still quite a challenge to speak in a way which would communicate my convictions when condensed. There is no space therefore to develop an argument or even explain a point at length. Instead, one has to put together a series of nothing more than “sound bites” which someone else gets to stitch together as they will.

By the time I was interviewed, the series theme had changed from banning the teaching of Biblical creation from schools to “should creationism be taught in schools?” This is a subtle but important change as most viewers will now see it as Christians pressing for their point of view to be adopted, rather than a debate stirred up by atheists who want to force their secularism on society at large, and on the education system in particular.

In spite of my reservation in that regard, the production team did a good job in selecting sections of what I said and turning them into a single statement. I am more than happy to stand by what was broadcast. If you missed the broadcast, you can watch it on 4 Thought’s YouTube channel by clicking on the picture below. (Sorry, but they do not permit embedding.)

It is also available on the programme’s web site at www.4thought.tv and here there is space to comment, but if you do decide to read the the comments, be warned that many are of the usual standard one sees on the Internet from atheists, and as such they reveal that it is their authors who actually do not understand evolution. Matthew 5:11-12 seems relevant to such responses.

The full series of seven programmes tried to provide a spread of views on the subject, which is fair enough given the brief. If you are interested to see what others had to say, you can watch all the shows on either of the above web sites.

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