South Korea to remove evolution from high school textbooks

[krams2]

South Korea may soon remove evolution from its high school textbooks, in what appears to be a victory for a creationist campaign there.

A report on science and science-fiction website io9.com said the campaign had sought to have specific examples of evolution removed from high school textbooks.

"The campaign, which was led by the Society for Textbook Revise (STR), is aiming to delete the 'error' of evolution from textbooks in order to 'correct' students' views of the world," io9.com said.

It said the group started a petition to remove references to evolution from high school textbooks - a strategy that appears to have worked.

According to io9.com, the South Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) announced textbook publishers will revise editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse and the Archaeopteryx, an ancestor of modern day birds.

But io9.com said the announcement has shocked a number of biologists who complain that they were not consulted.

Dayk Jan, an evolutionary scientist as Seoul National University, said the South Korean ministry sent the petition directly to the publishing companies where they judged it for themselves.

For its part, STR claimed its group includes professors of biology and high-school science teachers.

Meanwhile, the creationist-minded group is looking to take the issue even further.

Citing a report in Nature, io9.com said the STR is also campaigning to remove content about "the evolution of humans" and "the adaptation of finch beaks based on habitat and mode of sustenance," a reference to one of the most famous observations in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

The group highlighted recent discoveries that Archaeopteryx is one of many feathered dinosaurs, and not necessarily an ancestor of all birds.

Joonghwan Jeon, an evolutionary psychologist at Kyung Hee University in Yongin, said exploiting such debates over the lineage of species "is a typical strategy of creation scientists to attack the teaching of evolution itself."

Creation science

STR is an offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research (KACR), according to KACR spokesman Jungyeol Han.

With KACR's efforts, creation science, which seeks to provide evidence in support of the creation myth described in the Book of Genesis, has had a growing influence in South Korea, although the STR itself has distanced itself from such doctrines.

In early 2008, the KACR held an exhibition at Seoul Land, one of the country's leading amusement parks.

According to the group, the exhibition attracted more than 116,000 visitors in three months, and the park is now in talks to create a year-long exhibition.

Influence of Christian population

The io9.com article said South Korea's strong creationist sentiment is apparently due in part to its large Christian population.

"Nearly one-third of South Koreans don't believe in evolution, claiming that there isn't enough scientific evidence to support it, or that it contradicted their religious beliefs. Others simply stated that they didn't understand the theory — an indication that evolutionary biology is insufficiently taught in that country," it said.

It added there are only five to 10 evolutionary scientists in South Korea who teach the theory of evolution in undergraduate and graduate schools.

Also, it said a recent Gallup poll in the United States indicated that around 40 percent of Americans do not believe that humans evolved from less advanced forms of life.

That contrasts to 59-percent acceptance in Canada, and above 80 percent in some European countries.

Dayk Jang is now organizing a group of experts, including evolutionary biologists and theologians who believe in evolution, to counter this.

Their ultimate goal is to improve the teaching of evolution in the classroom and in broader public life. — TJD, GMA News

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story...hool-textbooks

[pilotmarker]

I don't think it would make any dent at all. Evolution as a school subject is useless anyway. I don't think you can use it for a successful career or develop useful technology from it. Because if you were to make it as a usefull technology, you must create an evironment suitable for what you want a chemical structure to evolve to within minutes instead of hundreds of millions of years. You can't even use it for precision because its all random and relies on chance and freak accidents hoping for it to evolve to a state of the art automobile engine or whatever. It doesn't rely on blueprint designs. It relies on random freak chances to design a substance from something useful.

If someone were to make evolution as useful technology, it will be cool as no one will ever need to design anything or to even think. All you have to do is to feed it with an evironment with certain specifics, and viola, you have something or you could have totally nothing at all.

[nwfirstranger]

Wawa naman yung mga zerg players ng SK. Paano na sila makikipaglaban pag di nila alam kung paano i-evolve yung mga larvaes nila?

[tonton]

Ano ipapalit, Genesis? "In the beginning...."

[Ateo]

Korea has more saints than the Philippines. They will eventually pass the Philippines in terms of religious craziness. Already, there are more Korean Christian churches in the US than Filipino Catholic churches here.

Religiosity is correlated with rejection of Evolution.

[Ateo]

Do this fun test.

1. Ask a religious Catholic in your neighborhood - a prayerful manang or a noisy young Catholic defender - if she/he believes in Evolution.
2. Use the standard phrase - "if Man descended from ape-like ancestors".
3. You will get a shocked rejection. Man did not come from monkeys!
4. In contrast, our intelligent Catholics here in RoT - ElCid, XIII, Totnak, Dhuggz - will readily tell you that they do believe in Evolution.
5. Surprise your neighborhood Catholic that IN FACT the Vatican supports Evolution. The Pope does.
6. Ill informed Catholics or anybody religious instinctively rejects Evolution. But better informed religious are already vaccinating themselves of future embarassment.

[tonton]

Do this fun test.

1. Ask a religious Catholic in your neighborhood - a prayerful manang or a noisy young Catholic defender - if she/he believes in Evolution.

In my neighbor hood? The answer would be, "Ano po yun?"

[Mustaine]

LOL, South Koreans are a weird bunch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

I don't think it would make any dent at all. Evolution as a school subject is useless anyway. I don't think you can use it for a successful career or develop useful technology from it. Because if you were to make it as a usefull technology, you must create an evironment suitable for what you want a chemical structure to evolve to within minutes instead of hundreds of millions of years. You can't even use it for precision because its all random and relies on chance and freak accidents hoping for it to evolve to a state of the art automobile engine or whatever. It doesn't rely on blueprint designs. It relies on random freak chances to design a substance from something useful.

If someone were to make evolution as useful technology, it will be cool as no one will ever need to design anything or to even think. All you have to do is to feed it with an evironment with certain specifics, and viola, you have something or you could have totally nothing at all.

Where have you been? Evolutionary Biology is already quite useful actually, both as a career and as useful technology.

[nwfirstranger]

^ ahahaha, kakabasa ko lang yung "fan death" nung isang araw. Laughtrip!

[kuroihikari]

I highly doubt the change was due to the lobbying of creationists.

What do creationists care about the evolution of the horse and the transition from dinosaur to bird? Why those specifically? Little by little every day?

[superlucky20]

I highly doubt the change was due to the lobbying of creationists.

What do creationists care about the evolution of the horse and the transition from dinosaur to bird? Why those specifically? Little by little every day?

Creationists care because evolution implies their beliefs are fantasy.

[kuroihikari]

Creationists care because evolution implies their beliefs are fantasy.

True, but still, why the horse and the archaeopteryx? Is there any doctrinal significance for singling them out amongst all other examples of evolution?

Even if it were them trying to eliminate examples of evolution one small step at a time, it still means these two were the weaker samples amongst all the rest, and that implies a secular reason rather than a religious one.

[superlucky20]

True, but still, why the horse and the archaeopteryx? Is there any doctrinal significance for singling them out amongst all other examples of evolution?

Even if it were them trying to eliminate examples of evolution one small step at a time, it still means these two were the weaker samples amongst all the rest, and that implies a secular reason rather than a religious one.

Maybe because those were the examples written in the textbook. If you think that creationists seem to care more about some instances of evolution (horses, Archaeopteryx) while accepting other instances of evolution, then I don't think you know the creationism movement very well.

And if you think they have valid points against specific (or non-specific) instances of evolution, then, again, I don't think you know the creationism movement very well.