Believing in science is pretty much an essential for anyone with significant influence over health policy, which is a shame for new Northern Irish health minister Edwin Poots. As an adherent of a fundamentalist version of creationism, the MLA for Lagan Valley does not believe in evolution.

So much so, in fact, that he attests to this in his official biography:

“Edwin is a young earth creationist and an opponent of the theory of evolution.”

So-called “young earthers” take a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a basis for their beliefs, claiming that the planet is 6,000 to 10,000 years old as opposed to, erm, 4.54 billion.

Scrapbook looks forward to the return of barber surgeons to Northern Ireland.