The BBC has been accused of over-the-top reporting and secular bias in its coverage of the Collider experiment in Geneva.

Radio 4 designated Wednesday 10 September as ‘big bang day’ to coincide with the start of the massive physics experiment using the Large Hadron Collider.

The publicly-funded broadcaster dedicated hours of coverage to the event, with suggestions that the experiment would unlock the secrets of the universe and throw light on what happened after the so-called ‘big bang’.

But the reporting has drawn stinging criticism. Newspaper columnist, Stephen Glover, says the BBC’s coverage was “utterly preposterous” and “barmy”.

“Perhaps this is what happens when non-scientists, who comprise the great majority of the BBC’s editorial staff, attempt to assess the importance of complex scientific experiments,” he said.

“But I think there is more to it than that. The BBC represents a materialist, mechanistic consensus which has rejected God, and deludes itself that science is capable of providing a complete explanation of existence.

“Hence the ludicrously inflated claims that are being made of what is going on near Geneva.”