Two Nobel prize winners - Sir Harry Kroto and Sir Richard Roberts - have demanded that the Royal Society sack its education director, Professor Michael Reiss. The call, backed by other senior Royal Society fellows, follows Reiss's controversial claim last week that creationism be taught in schools' science classes.
Reiss, an ordained Church of England minister, has since alleged he was misquoted. Nevertheless, several Royal Society fellows say his religious views make him an inappropriate choice for the post.
'I warned the president of the Royal Society that his [Reiss] was a dangerous appointment a year ago. I did not realise just how dangerous it would turn out to be,' said Kroto, a Royal Society fellow, and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Roberts, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on gene-splicing, was equally angry. 'I think it is outrageous that this man is suggesting that creationism should be discussed in a science classroom. It is an incredible idea and I am drafting a letter to other Nobel laureates - which would be sent to the Royal Society - to ask that Reiss be made to stand down.'
Zoologist Richard Dawkins, a Royal Society fellow, said: 'A clergyman in charge of education for the country's leading scientific organisation - it's a Monty Python sketch.'
A spokesman for the Royal Society rejected the principle that it was inappropriate for a clergyman to hold a senior post at the organisation. 'Michael Reiss's views are completely in keeping with those of the Royal Society,' he said.
The row over Reiss's remarks is the second recent controversy over the society's stance on religion. Fellows, including cancer expert and Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse, complained about the financial links that had been established between the society and the Templeton Foundation, a conservative US organisation that seeks to establish links between science and religion. The latter funded a lecture course at the society.
Many fellows fear the society, the world's oldest scientific organisation, is failing to take a sufficiently robust stance against the spread of fundamental religions which oppose scientific teachings about the origins of the Earth and humanity. 'The thing the Royal Society does not appreciate is the true nature of the forces arrayed against it and the Enlightenment for which the Royal Society should be the last champion,' Kroto said.
Following misleading reports that Rev Professor Michael Reiss had advocated that creation should be taught in science class, he left his post as director of education at the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science.

Last week at the British Association's science festival Rev Professor Michael Reiss said that creation should not be ignored if it come up in class. Professor Reiss, who was director of education at the Royal Society, said that since a substantial number of pupils have concerns about the issue, they are likely to "detach from" science if their concerns and world view are not addressed. Creation should not be taught, he said, but if it comes up, teachers should be encouraged to explain the science of evolution. He also said that students should be taught the nature of a scientific theory - that it does not simply mean a hypothesis about the way things might work, but a rigorously supported system of ideas that fit with the available evidence.

The Times of London reported him as saying that Creationism should be taught in science classes as a legitimate point of view. This provoked a storm of protest from a group that included two Nobel Laureates and other scientists who strongly oppose the teaching, or even the discussion of creation in science class.

Yesterday the Royal Society said in a statement that some of Professor Reiss' comments had been "open to misinterpretation", and that this had damaged the Society's reputation. "As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the society, he will step down immediately as director of education." The Royal Society went on to say: "However, if a young person raises creationism in a science class, teachers should be in a position to explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism is not, in any way, scientific."

The chief executive of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Roland Jackson, said that the Royal Society should have supported Professor Reiss and used this opportunity to further a reasoned debate. "I was at the actual discussion, and what I heard him say, however it has been reported, was essentially the position advocated by the Royal Society," Jackson said.