Michael Meacher MP has some unusual ideas about intelligent design

Over the weekend I popped into town and decided to visit Berwick Street. I’ve not been there for *years* but used to go there regularly to pick up records and videos and later CDs and sometimes DVDs. I decided to have a late lunch in Beatroot Café which is a vegetarian / vegan restaurant.

There was a free magazine called Positive News which I thought I’d have a look at while eating. Based on years of experience I was expecting to be annoyed by some unevidenced crap but it was perfectly tolerable and highlighted news in green finance, meditation flashmobs, couchsurfing and time banking. Nothing too offensive.

This didn’t last long as I found an irritating quote from Michael Meacher MP on page 10. He seems like a nice man and has written a book which is apparently ‘an impassioned plea to the divided worlds of science and religion to put their differences aside, join forces and engage in nothing less than an evolution in human consciousness.’ Steady on.

In response to the question “What makes you believe science and spirituality can work in partnership?” he says:

There is clearly some kind of intelligent design in how our planet began to evolve life forms and this has continued to evolve into who we are today. Science is now struggling to get its head around the sheer scale and possibility of the universe and unlimited scope of human consciousness. Science cannot reduce consciousness to fit the models it currently has for understanding the world we live in. Spirituality and faith can help us understand. Scientists are beginning to realise the limitations of sticking to reductionist models.

The Gaia theory [that all living things in Earth form a single, self-regulating complex system] was once seen as a far-fetched concept but as a result in a shift in scientific understanding and study, is now universally accepted and seen as fact. The evidence of intelligent design is becoming clear.

He does save things a bit later on when he says that ‘Humans are not the pinnacle of evolution but simply a stage in the process’ but I’m amazed that he’s saying that there’s clear evidence of intelligent design. Have I missed a bulletin somewhere?

Edit 28 March 2013 - I'm reading a story on Jane Goodall's recent book, excerpts of which have apparently been plagiarised from elsewhere and came across this:

"And it apparently escaped Goodall’s notice that Smith’s most recent book—the one that she fulsomely endorsed—features a foreword by British politician Michael Meacher, who, after being kicked out of the Tony Blair's government in 2003, has devoted a significant amount of time to furthering 9/11 conspiracy theories." (3rd page of the document).