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South Korea Will Revisit Plan To Nix Evolution References in Textbooks

Posted by timothy on from the secular-humanism-eastern-division dept.

After reports that South Korean had "surrendered to creationists" by removing references to evolution in several textbooks, openfrog writes with this excerpt from Science Insider that indicates the fight is still in progress: "The South Korean government is poised to appoint a new committee that will revisit a controversial plan to drop two examples of evolutionary theory from high school textbooks. The committee, to be led by insect taxonomist Byoung-Hoon Lee, a member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, has been asked to re-evaluate requests from a Korean creationist group to drop references to bird and horse evolution that they argue promote 'atheist materialism.' At the same time, about 50 prominent Korean scientists are preparing to present government officials with a petition, organized by the Korean Association of Biological Sciences, which calls for rejecting the proposed changes. 'When these things are done, I think it will turn out that after all Korean science will not surrender to religion' says Jae Choe, an evolutionary biologist at Ewha Womans University in Seoul who helped organize the petition."

4 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. Wow, atheist materialism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it just me, or does anybody else get that the theocrats are seriously getting on a fetish where they attribute everything negative to non-believers?

    Not to mention how they try to get us to believe they are persecuted martyrs for their faith.

    1. Re:Wow, atheist materialism? by Forty+Two+Tenfold · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When was the last time it had not been this way?

      --
      Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
    2. Re:Wow, atheist materialism? by xelah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are two definitions of materialism. If you're a philosopher (or presumably a theologist) and take it to mean simply 'not dualism' then linking it to atheism is nonsense. Plenty of people who don't believe in gods have other superstitions which make them believe in spirits (such belief seems to be a bit of a default position for humans), and it wasn't so long ago that it wasn't obviously plausible that a human could drop out of the operation of a purely matter-based brain. And you don't need to be a dualist to be a theist. It's perfectly possible to believe that god will give you a new body and brain on judgement day. There's nothing remotely negative about materialism.

      But ordinary English speakers will often take the other definition. They'll take it to mean 'concentrating on the accumulation of ownership of stuff rather than on social relationships, personal achievements, intellectual matters, helping people, being a good member of society and so on'. Spoken about scientists especially this is plainly ridiculous. But it's hardly beyond some people to exploit the ambiguity.

      But the original was presumably in Korean. So who knows what it meant?

    3. Re:Wow, atheist materialism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd like so see the theory that man created god taught in schools. Why is this controversy not discussed? Teach the controversy!