Nigel McQuoid
"These people give the impression of being almost at war with society. The enemy is secular atheism, the school is the battleground, the teacher the latest high-tech weapon & the child's mind the territory to be conquered & reclaimed in the name of Christ." - Alan Bellis on people associated with the
Christian Institute.
Nigel McQuoid is director of schools at the Emmanuel Schools Foundation and former principal (headteacher) of King’s Academy in Middlesborough, one of the (current) three Vardy schools. In his current role, which he has held since September 2005, he is co-ordinator of the whole Vardy schools operation.
McQuoid is a fundamentalist Christian. His family’s origins are in Northern Ireland (Belfast) but it is understood that they moved to the mainland of the UK whilst he was very young. He spent time in his childhood in Scotland and is understood to have suffered considerably from school bullying – an unpleasant experience, which no doubt and rightly has influenced his thinking over education. His degree is from Glasgow University.
His degree in is English; he initially started out as a trainee accountant but switched to teaching after a year. He worked as an English teacher in a comprehensive school in Staffordshire in the early 1980s.
Unusually he took a five year break from teaching to run a YMCA operation in one of the pooorest, drug soaked, parts of Dublin (McQuoid is protestant by origin). He returned to the UK and through family contacts with Peter Vardy, was able to land a job teaching English at Emmanuel College. He was promoted to deputy head by John Burn within a couple of years.
McQuoid is probably the fundamentalist with the highest public profile in the UK as any Google search will indicate. Anti-creationist activist Marc Draco has plenty of background information on his web site at http://www.marcdraco.co.uk/.
However, it is clear that McQuoid’s understanding of science is woeful. One comment from him that devastatingly illustrates the point has been widely circulated on the Internet. It is as follows:
“For a highly successful inner-city Comprehensive school to attribute its success to its allegiance to the Absolute Truths of Biblical Christianity will therefore come as no shock to the nation, even though less than 5% of our students attend Church regularly. To teach children that they are developed mutations who evolved from something akin to a monkey as a result of a cataclysmic chemical accident and that death is the end of everything is hardly going to engender within them a sense of purpose, self-worth and respect. To present, however, the Truth that they were made by a loving and just God who sees every one of them as being of equal and real value and capable of achieving their best, and to speak of the life beyond death, creates an altogether more positive sense of responsibility, accountability and direction."
(See the web site of the Christian Institute at http://www.christian.org.uk/html-publications/roof.htm for the full article by McQuoid which dates back to 1997.)
Not only is his understanding of very basic, GCSE level, science bunkum (he is absolutely wrong when he claims that the theory of evolution involves cataclysmic chemical accidents – it is the comment of a scientific dunderhead *) but it points to the justification of deliberate misrepresentation of science to children for religious reasons. Indeed it looks to be close to the social re-engineering that the Discovery Institute has been planning (see the Wedge Document).
And be under no illusion that McQuoid is not a fundamentalist. He is, and a powerful one at that who advocates teaching fundamentalism in schools:
According to McQuoid, though state schools are required to teach evolutionary theory, "also, schools should teach the creation theory as literally depicted in Genesis". The 300-year reign of the enlightenment apparently counts for very little: in his view, creation and evolution are both "faith positions".”
(From the Guardian, 15th January 2005 – see http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1389500,00.html.)
The British Humanist Association also reports that “Nigel McQuoid said ‘biblical truth must find a place across the whole curriculum’.” It adds that McQuoid believes that evolution is a ‘faith’ position comparable to creation. Former pupils related how they were taught that evolution was on the curriculum, but creation by god was the truth.
(See http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/newsarticleview.asp?article=2155 for further details.)
Reporting on the Rod Liddle programme “the New Fundamentalist” shown on British TV (C4) in March 2006, the regional Sunday Sun newspaper stated that "On the show, Nigel McQuoid, director of the Emmanuel Schools Foundation, who oversees all three academies, denies that the schools are totalitarian, but admitted he believed the Bible over Darwin."
He said: "We say to kids, the Bible says earth was created in six days. You can believe that is an allegory, or factual, or what you want to believe."
"I say it is complicated. If they said: `Is it six 24 hours?' I say, I cannot prove it, but do I believe it? . . . I believe the Bible."
The schools concerned have hit the headlines before over this, but Liddle got McQuoid to admit on camera that he believes in a literal six day creation and a young (i.e. 6000 year-old) earth.
In fact this is what Liddle had to say about the Vardy schools and McQuoid in the Times on 5th March 2006: “They also ram a particularly uncompromising version of Jesus Christ a long way down the throats of their students and are extremely dubious on questions such as: when was the earth formed? The head teacher — another decent, likeable man, named Nigel McQuoid — reckons it was made by God 5,000-6,000 years ago — which does not accord with scientific inquiry.” (Liddle was also complementary about Peter Vardy in the article.)
The full text of the Rod Liddle interview with Nigel McQuoid is as follows:
Nigel McQuoid: The Foundation doesn't say how old the Earth is, the Foundation doesn't say how long it took God to make the world.
Rod Liddle: The Bible does say of course that the world was created in 6 days, doesn't it?
Rod Liddle: What about when they come & ask you about that?
Nigel McQuoid: I would say to the kids, well the Bible says it was created in 6 days, so you either believe that is an allegory or factual or whatever you want to believe.
Rod Liddle: But hang on a minute, are you saying to them that these 2 ideas are equally valid?
Nigel McQuoid: The 2 ideas that one says …
Rod Liddle (interrupting) The 2 ideas that 1 says 6 days, the other (clicks fingers) big bang.
Nigel McQuoid: No, I say it’s complicated. If they said to me is it 6/24 hours Mr McQuoid, I would say I can't prove that but do I believe it – I believe the Bible.
Rod Liddle: You believe that the Earth was created in 6 days?
Nigel McQuoid: I believe that's what the Bible says, yes I accept that.
Rod Liddle: And you're the principal of a state school?
Nigel McQuoid: Yeees And can I not have a view?
Rod Liddle Yes, I can also have a view that your made of red Leicester cheese but it would be fatuous.
Nigel McQuoid: No, I think the nature of faith is that if the Bible says that the world was made in however long, I've got a position where I believe that or not.
Rod Liddle (interrupts) Now come on
Nigel McQuoid (continues): If you say I'm made of red Leicester cheese …
Rod Liddle (interrupts): No, no, come on a minute. It is not fine to tell these children that there is an equivalence, that I believe this, he believes that, make your own mind up.
I believe your made of red Leicester cheese, someone else believes your made of flesh & blood. It’s an equivalence, make your own mind up – it is an absurdity.
Nigel McQuoid: But there are millions of people on the planet who believe God made the world.
Rod Liddle: There's a few million living in the (sounded like) appellations backwoods of Kansas & Tennessee river valley.
Rod Liddle: And you, yes.
(pause) But you are a clever man, a rational clever man.
Nigel McQuoid: Apparently not.
Rod Liddle: The head of a huge school, well of course you are. You must know that the Earth was not created in 6 days. You must know that dinosaurs & men were not running around at the same time together. They weren't, we know that.
Nigel McQuoid: Okay, you know that.
Rod Liddle: But you don't, you think that they were running around together?
Nigel McQuoid: I don't know whether they were running around together.
Rod Liddle: Well if you believe 6 days, then they must have been because if day 4 was the animals or day 5, I forget what it was, then they must have been together by about day 7.
Nigel McQuoid: But now what we have is the scientists coming along & saying that can't be scientifically true.
Rod Liddle: But it isn't, that's why they are saying it. Although it could be metaphorically true of course.
Nigel McQuoid: Again & that would be to say that basically the Bible is a metaphor, I actually believe not.
It is also clear that McQuoid has some very fundamentalist teachers amongst his staff. Vice-principal Gary Wiecek has said "As Christian teachers it is essential that we are able to counter the anti-creationist position." Maths teacher Paul Yeulett has declared that "a Christian teacher of biology will not (or should not) regard the theory of evolution as axiomatic, but will oppose it."
In a lecture co-authored by John Burn and Nigel McQuoid, they observe: "Clearly schools are required to teach evolutionary theory. We agree that they should teach evolution as a theory and faith position... Clearly also schools should teach the creation theory as literally depicted in Genesis. Ultimately, both creation and evolution are faith positions."
McQuoid added that "A group of folk have contacted the press saying it's not legitimate to have a school consider the scientific case for creation. I think that's fascist."
From the Guardian 9th March 2002 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4371165,00.html
McQuoid was interview by Sir David Frost on the Breakfast with Frost show on 17th March 2002. (See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast_with_frost/1877651.stm). Extracts show, again, that McQuoid is a fundamentalist.
In replying to a question from Frost, McQuoid stated that “Yes, the papers are saying a lot of things and thanks for the opportunity to put a few things clear. Obviously schools are teaching creation in every assembly and every RE lesson because so many people actually believe that God did make the world. I don't quite know what creationism means but if it means that God made the world, yes of course that's got a place in assemblies and in RE. “
He went on to say that “Well the national curriculum in science actually asks us to look at the whole controversy around the theory of evolution and that whole question begs the idea that people look at this evidence in different ways and for many years, as you've said, people have looked at the evidence and said well we can't actually age the earth and some scientific papers, recently, have begun to question those things. And in college we have decided that we must look at the scientific papers before we present them to children and to see whether or not they have any scientific validity. That's a debate and I suppose we're concerned that people are trying to stop that debate because we feel that science has always been best when it's allowed itself to ask these difficult questions. And when science says we've got everything sorted, we've got everything sussed, I think that's a dangerous position.”
* This is the sort of seriously stupid comment that fundamentalists are notorious for. Genetic mutations occur all the time for a variety of reasons including environmental. Perhaps McQuoid doesn’t realise but about of quarter of his pupils will eventually die because of genetic mutations (they are that common). The problem is called cancer. Worse still the theory of evolution does not suggest that creatures evolve because of cataclysmic mutations. Mutations are common and normal in genes. It explains that a very few mutations are beneficial and these are “selected from the chaff” through natural selection to become dominant. The key to understanding the theory of evolution is natural selection. It appears that few fundamentalists even bother to understand even this simple but important issue. Evolution is not about chemical accidents. DNA is fragile stuff and mutations occur because it is easily damaged and there is an awful lot of it in the genome of every species. It doesn’t say that monkeys turned into humans. It says that humans evolved from other species of the ape family and that apes (including humans) have a common ancestor with monkeys. It doesn’t say that evolution is based on cataclysmic mutations. Each mutation generally has a very small impact even after weeding out by natural selection. The big changes occur over long periods of time which gradual incremental changes as species evolve from other species. There is no cataclysm or sudden instant creation of new species. Moreover, evolution typically involves changes in several areas of a species roughly in parallel. There is certainly no sudden single change over a generation which results in one species becoming another.
Further information
Here is a comment, dated 25th October 2006, from Alan Bellis of BCSE, on our coverage of Nigel McQuoid.
Quote: “But you'd be wrong. That page takes you to the BCSE's index of "research articles" rubbishing various scientists, head-teachers, ministers of religion and other miscellaneous folk who don't endorse Darwinism. For each of these people, the BCSE tries to discover their religious affiliations, and any other "interesting" details such as which church they go to, who their vicar is[2], whether they were bullied as children, and if they've done voluntary work for the YMCA[3]”
The reference to the YMCA relates to Nigel McQuoid & the fact that he worked for the YMCA for five years.
I believe this criticism is unwarranted & have explained why below.
Nigel McQuoid is one of the leading figures in the UK creationist movement, who has (as a result of governments, “anything goes” educational policies) found himself catapulted into a position of unprecedented power & influence within the UK educational system. He is senior managerial figure within the Emmanuel Schools Foundation hierarchy, an outspoken proponent of creationism & is largely responsible for many of the unscientific statements emanating from the ESF.
Nigel McQuoid & other senior creationists largely define what is taught in these schools. They hire staff with similar creationist views to their own, inculcate students with their beliefs, redefine science & generally do what they like. Nothing stands in their way; for example, they have brazenly & dishonestly distorted a key section of the Key Stage 4 science curriculum to make it compatible with their creationist beliefs.
They then are responsible for shaping the educational policies of the state schools under their control, especially in the way they teach science. For example, they have attempted to undermine the theory of evolution by claiming that it is controversial. They have even boasted about this in their official communications to the government.
Claiming that evolution is controversial is such a well known creationist ploy that it even has a name; it is called, “teach the controversy” & anyone teaching this to schoolchildren is teaching creationism.
How did the UK’s educational system get itself into such an abysmal mess? Did the top experts in the field of evolutionary biology just arbitrarily decide to downgrade the status of evolutionary theory? Did they all just wake up one morning agreeing with Nigel McQuoid that it is merely a “faith position” of no more significance than any other religious faith position? The answer is clearly no; because the current opinion of the REAL experts in this field is that there is no scientific controversy surrounding evolution.
We therefore find ourselves in the curious position of having a scientific community openly & almost universally supporting the ToE & an educational system (partly hijacked by fundamentalists) openly trying to subvert it.
Who is responsible for this bizarre situation? The answer is simple; it is a small select group of fundamentalists, one of whom is Nigel McQuoid. Empowered by the incompetence of the present Labour government & funded with vast amounts of money from their supporters, they have somehow managed to impose their absurd beliefs on large numbers of impressionable schoolchildren. The children - incidentally, of parents who have different religious beliefs or are atheists or agnostics, etc, - are all expected to just like it or lump it.
Given that Nigel McQuoid is playing such a central role in this highly controversial enterprise, we are absolutely entitled to enquire about the scientific qualifications that have made him into such an authority on evolution. To do this the BCSE has reviewed his career & concluded that he has no such qualifications - and pointing out that he spent five years working for the YMCA simply helps emphasise how utterly unqualified he really is.
This then is what David should really be getting on his high horse about, rather than supporting charlatans & loons. Nigel McQuoid is NOT an authority in the field of evolution & he should not be meddling in something he plainly knows nothing about.
Here are further comments about Nigel McQuoid from Alan Bellis on 26th October 2006:
Here’s one example (there are more) where the then Vardy Foundation are writing denying any wrong doing. These communications all run through the same format. They start with denials, and then move on to discussing the KS4 NC in science where they then manage to squeeze in some comments about controversies & evolution & the requirement to teach these controversies.
“We would be interested to know whether OfSTEAD inspections of schools which are obliged to follow the National Curriculum Programs of Studies in Science are expected to assess whether or not these very points, including controversies surrounding regarding the theory of evolution, are being adequately taught as required.”
Now an uninformed observer might not notice anything wrong, although they might be left wondering about the relevance of the involved discussion & dissection of the KS4 NC. Surely if they were doing nothing wrong all they had to do was state that they were following the requirements of the NC & leave it at that.
An informed observer however - one who realises that there is more to creationism than meets the eye - would soon realise that the Vardy Foundation were actually making a subtle attempt to reword the meaning of the NC from its original intention - to indicate to students that different interpretations of empirical evidence can lead to scientific controversies - to one that suggests evolution is controversial. They achieve this by pointing to an example in brackets which just happens to be evolution & saying, “you see, it says there that evolution is controversial”. This claim was investigated by Andrew Copson of the BHA & his conclusion from discussing this issue with a science teacher was that the example was meant to demonstrate the controversy that arose between Lamarckian & Darwinian evolution. Yet here we have the Vardy Foundation claiming that it KS4 curriculum claims that evolution is controversial when in fact it doesn’t do that at all.
So like I said, they are boasting about what they are doing & they have even given the Chief Inspector of Schools a lecture about what he should be doing.
Incidentally, anyone notice the name printed on the foot of the first page?
Comment – If you haven’t time to look, the name is Nigel McQuoid.
