Geography is science in the real world, when you add people.

So says Mike Robinson, chief executive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society today about concerns over the effect the new Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is having on the subject.

There is a lot of truth in this. There is also a lot of sense in the argument that geography can therefore be a gateway to science skills for school pupils who shy away from any of the three "core" sciences.

In this way, it is an ideal subject in terms of the philosophy of CfE. One of the principles behind the shake-up of the Scottish curriculum was that learning should be flexible, with skills taught across themes using a variety of approaches rather than confined within rigid subject disciplines.

Geography's familial link with the "humanities", such as history and social studies, has always disguised a strong scientific element to the subject. Analysing weather or natural phenomena such as river flow involves measuring and recording skills, while topics such as plate tectonics demand some understanding of the physics of forces. Meanwhile urban and industrial geography topics require the grasping of statistical concepts.

As such, geography has tended to help ensure pupils who do not study more traditional science subjects nevertheless emerge with a grounding in basic scientific thinking. So it is concerning if the subject is being diminished, rather than strengthened, by the new approach.

Decluttering the curriculum sounds like a good idea, but not where that clutter equates to knowledge future pupils will not have.

Study of the climate has been reduced, experts warn, by subsuming much of it into other areas of the curriculum, such as history and modern studies. Non-specialists are increasingly teaching geographical courses in some council areas.

Meanwhile, difficulty fitting National Qualifications into a year of teaching means a worrying number of pupils are now sitting six subjects, rather than seven, further easing geography to the curricular margins.

Other countries have been better than we are at incorporating science into the wider curriculum. The survey that placed Scotland 39th out of 41 OECD countries for the amount of time in the curriculum for other sciences than physics, chemistry and biology may be seven years old, but CfE should be helping to address this, not reinforcing the problem.

This will ultimately pose a problem in terms of the skills pupils emerge with, and dumbing down - if that is what is happening - will hardly be welcomed by universities, which might agree with the emphasis on self-directed learning and soft skills in CfE, but will not appreciate having to delay to let undergraduates catch up on the scientific approach.

The Curriculum for Excellence is a development that we have frequently welcomed, but on the basis that it delivers what was promised: flexibility and personalisation, and a freeing of teachers to more closely respond to individual styles of learning, not a narrowing of choice and content.