Creationism Thwarted In South Korea - Polidicks

[quote]South Korea’s government has urged textbook publishers to ignore calls to remove two examples of evolution from high-school textbooks. The move follows a campaign earlier this year by the Society for Textbook Revise (STR), which argued that details about the evolution of the horse and of the avian ancestor Archaeopteryx should be removed from the books (see ‘South Korea surrenders to creationist demands’). The STR, an offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research, says that students should learn “various” theories about the development of life on Earth. It argued that the textbooks used flawed examples of evolution that are under debate by evolutionary scientists. In May, news emerged that publishers were planning to drop the offending sections, sparking outrage among some scientists. The resulting furore led the government to set up an 11-member panel, led by the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) and including five experts on evolution and fossils, to oversee science-textbook revisions (see ‘Expert panel to guide science-textbook revisions in South Korea’). On 5 September, the panel concluded that Archaeopteryx must be included in Korean science textbooks, and it reaffirmed that the theory of evolution is an essential part of modern science that all students must learn in school. The panel emphasized that ongoing scientific debate about whether Archaeopteryx gave rise to all birds or is just one example of a feathered dinosaur does not undermine the theory of evolution itself. Indeed, the panel says, it is important to mention the existence of many ornithological fossils that could be intermediate species between dinosaurs and birds. The panel accepted that the textbooks' explanation of the evolution of the horse was too simplistic and should be revised or replaced with a different example, such as the evolution of whales. The government has backed the panel’s conclusions, and textbook publishers will be asked to report on how they have implemented these revisions before the new books are rolled out to schools in 2013. The STR responded to the news by claiming that the government showed bias in excluding STR members from the expert panel, and says that it will keep fighting for “better” science textbooks. Duckhwan Lee, president of the Basic Science Council and the panel leader, says he hopes that the panel's guidance will eventually improve the public’s understanding of evolution. In July, a survey by Gallup Korea, a research firm based in Seoul, found that of 613 respondents, 45% believed in evolution and 32% believed in creationism. Lee says that he is glad that the STR’s campaign has provided an opportunity to improve science textbooks. “We welcome any petition in the future,” he says, “if it is regarding flaws in the evolution parts of science textbooks. But we do not want to waste our time if it has any religious implication.” [/quote] [url]http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=science-and-archaeopteryx-win-over-creationism-south-korea[/url] [IMG]http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-toot.gif[/IMG]

There always has to be some religious organization that wants evolution to be kept out of school or have creationism and evolution taught side-by-side. If they want to live in their own little confused world then so be it, but the fact that they want to force this on everyone else is retarded.

I'm glad that the SK government is pushing the publishers to ignore such pleas. Creationism has no place being taught in a [I][B]Science[/B][/I] class. In regards to the whole "creationism in schools" debacle, I can't see why (aside from low funding) schools can't implement an optional Religious Studies course. I know some countries have such a thing in their schools. Of course, the zealots would probably be upset at the fact that religions besides their own would be taught in that kind of a course.

Hell yeah, creationism should be taught in churches, not schools.

Parents can send kids to Sunday school if they want them to learn creationism.

Or [B]EVERYBODY[/B] should stop teaching it altogether.

[QUOTE=Aerkhan;37617059]Hell yeah, creationism should be taught in churches, not schools.[/QUOTE] Creationism should not be taught to anyone anywhere as science (and they really think it is a scientific theory !)

I believe that creationism should still be taught in schools, but as a cultural thing in social studies, like how people believed the Earth was flat and the Sun revolved around us. It's been disproved as an outdated school of thought many times, so I'm not sure why it's taught as a scientific fact. Also, I'm Catholic, by the way. Yes, a lot of us don't believe in creationism or that the Garden of Eden actually physically existed. It's creationism idiots that get into the news, though, which really shines a bad light on the rest of us.

In Finland we get Religion studies and Science

Good news, OP. Anyone else start to know the names of the one or two active creationists on 'sensationalist headlines'? It's always the same dude who rates these stories 'dumb'.

[QUOTE=Cheshire_cat;37621645]I believe that creationism should still be taught in schools, but as a cultural thing in social studies, [B]like how people believed the Earth was flat[/B] and the Sun revolved around us. It's been disproved as an outdated school of thought many times, so I'm not sure why it's taught as a scientific fact. Also, I'm Catholic, by the way. Yes, a lot of us don't believe in creationism or that the Garden of Eden actually physically existed. It's creationism idiots that get into the news, though, which really shines a bad light on the rest of us.[/QUOTE] Dude what? [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth[/URL] [QUOTE]The concept of a spherical Earth dates back to ancient Greek philosophy from around the 6th century BC,[1] but remained a matter of philosophical speculation until the 3rd century BC when Hellenistic astronomy established the spherical shape of the earth as a physical given. The Hellenistic paradigm was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.[2][3][4][5] A practical demonstration of Earth's sphericity was achieved by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano's expedition's circumnavigation (1519−1521).[6] The concept of a spherical Earth displaced earlier beliefs in a flat Earth: In early Mesopotamian mythology, the world was portrayed as a flat disk floating in the ocean and surrounded by a spherical sky,[7] and this forms the premise for early world maps like those of Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus. Other speculations on the shape of Earth include a seven-layered ziggurat or cosmic mountain, alluded to in the Avesta and ancient Persian writings (see seven climes), or a wheel, bowl, or four-cornered plane alluded to in the Rigveda.[8] The realization that the figure of the Earth is more accurately described as an ellipsoid dates to the 18th century (Maupertuis). In the early 19th century, the flattening of the earth ellipsoid was determined to be of the order of 1/300 (Delambre, Everest). The modern value as determined by the US DoD World Geodetic System since the 1960s is close to 1/298.25.[9][/QUOTE] [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth[/URL] [QUOTE]The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.[1] The idea seems to have been widespread during the first half of the 20th century, so that the Members of the Historical Association in 1945 stated that: "The idea that educated men at the time of Columbus believed that the earth was flat, and that this belief was one of the obstacles to be overcome by Columbus before he could get his project sanctioned, remains one of the hardiest errors in teaching." [2] During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was nearly nonexistent. However, the exterior of the famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is a Renaissance example in which a disc-shaped earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere.[3] According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology."[4] Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".[5] [B]Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution.[/B][6] Russell claims "with extraordinary [sic] few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat," and credits histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving for popularizing the flat-earth myth.[7][/QUOTE] Yeah, lets teach kids that tetanus is caused by rusty metal, Nero burned down Rome, the Great Wall of China is visible from the moon, and bananas grow on trees too. Interestingly enough, most people didn't think the earth was flat, and the first real conflict surrounding flat-earthers was caused by an attempt to reject science and uphold religious doctrine, specifically, biblical doctrines in schools/public policy. I can't really see a reason for South Koreans to teach creationism/ID at all, even in a social studies/humanities course, unless its being compared and contrasted to something like the Enuma Elish or one of the other cosmogonies the stories in genesis are derived from.

I loved learning religion in school; We had a religion class where we learned equal amounts of all the big religions, and their theories.

Most theology teachers at my school teach that creationism is just a metaphor. The bible shouldn't be taken literally, and is just a way to make lessons etc. easy for people to understand.

Creationism not in science? Samsing wins over Apple? Move aside dead american dream, the future is in South Korea

[QUOTE=JoonazL;37631821]In Finland we get Religion studies and Science[/QUOTE] Same in Britain, Religious Education, informs of different cultures based around religion etc. Never directly forcing your views on the person.

[QUOTE=Aesir;37616847]I'm glad that the SK government is pushing the publishers to ignore such pleas. Creationism has no place being taught in a [I][B]Science[/B][/I] class. In regards to the whole "creationism in schools" debacle, I can't see why (aside from low funding) schools can't implement an optional Religious Studies course. I know some countries have such a thing in their schools. Of course, the zealots would probably be upset at the fact that religions besides their own would be taught in that kind of a course.[/QUOTE] We have an RE course since I attend a Catholic all boy school, but they don't teach creationism or Adam and eve since believe it or not the school and our church is very very against it, however they do say some mystical god like force was behind all of this which is fair enough because I wonder the same thing. But I always say RE is just ancient history and the only time they preach the lord is down at the church 2/3 times every year.