South Korea Will Revisit Plan To Nix Evolution References in Textbooks

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."

Comments

Wow, atheist materialism?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wow, atheist materialism?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

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

Re:Wow, atheist materialism?

[xelah]

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?

Re:Wow, atheist materialism?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Wow, atheist materialism?

[sferics]

Not everything an atheist thinks about is about science. Atheists also think about the human experience, how we relate to each other and to our world and how we can make like bearable for ourselves and others. We just try not to involve our superstitious beliefs into that process, and manage hypothetical assertions with some degree of rigor. If that makes me a "materialist", so be it, even though I did to choose to be called that. On the other hand, if "materialist" is a code word for "a selfish jerk who is not like us saintly believers and who will be up against the wall when the theocratic revolution comes", then I beg to differ.

Re:Wow, atheist materialism?

[Samantha Wright]

Balderdash! I have evidence that god evolved from a larger pool of predecessor gods through a process of natural selection! What institute issued your degree in applied psychotheology?!

Re:Wow, atheist materialism?

[couchslug]

Non-believers are SINNERS. Religion means fighting non-believers and taking power FROM them in Allah's/Yahweh's/FSM's name.

If you are not of a sect, it is your enemy (in a large or small way) like it or not and never forget that. If they had the power they would kill you or torture you into submission as they did before secular enlightment weakened the hold of superstition.

In some places where they roll Old School, denouncing religion can still get you murdered.

Re:Wow, atheist materialism?

[ShanghaiBill]

I don't see any of that in local churches. That's more of a TV Evangelist thing.

One problem with atheists is that they don't go to church. So they judge Christians by the kooks they see on TV, and think that represents normal Christianity.

For the record: I am atheist/agnostic (depending on your definition), buy I still attend Church somewhat regularly because my mother-in-law is a devout believer and invites us to go with her. In the interest of family harmony, I oblige. I actually enjoy the music, and the potato salad at the potluck lunch is great. I never get trapped in uncomfortable discussions, because there is one thing that church going Christians almost never talk about in casual conversation: Christ.

Re:Wow, atheist materialism?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a Korean and I just looked up the Korean articles. It meant "not dualism" as you explained in your first paragraph. If I was to translate the word literally, I would have translated it as "theory of materials" or "theory of matter".

This is what they said (translated as literally as I could):

"The underlying concept of evolution is materialism. The theory of evolution considers people's minds as a consequence of materialistic behavior, and if this is taught pupils will form incorrect understanding of the world. Pupils will end up thinking that because materials are recycled, taking lives is not committing a sin. The same can be said for abortion and selfishness."

Only 53% of South Koreans claim any religion

[guises]

According to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Korea

Only 53% percent of South Koreans claim any religious affiliation, and 55% of those are Buddhists. ... So my comment is: What? What's going on here?

Need some Korean person to explain.

Re:Only 53% of South Koreans claim any religion

[frodo from middle ea]

American Evangelical churches have money to burn, and are mostly the ones, who are behind this sort of nonsense. This sort of stuff is happening in many other countries too, including India, China (albeit in deep secracy), and many other Asian/African countries.

Re:Only 53% of South Koreans claim any religion

[njen]

From what I've seen, Korean Christians are a lot more full on than Christians I have encountered in other countries. Example:

* First a disclaimer: I lived in Korea for 4 years, and I am married to a Korean.
One of my wife's relatives passed away while we were living in Korea, so we went to attend the funeral. Approximately half of the family was devout Christian, and the other half were mild Buddhists / agnostics. Because the person who died was Buddhist, it was decided by the Buddhist side of the family to have the funeral in a Buddhist format, which might I add, has been practically the cultural standard for hundreds of years in Korea.

But the Christian side would have absolutely none of it, not even to be respectful to the Buddhists, which was a source of contention at the funeral. They waited until the end of the ceremony, not taking part in any of the prayers, or even the the respectful bows that are common enough, then begun their loud prayers and other Christian themed actions.

I am an atheist, but I knew better than to shove my (lack of) beliefs upon others, and just go with the flow at the funeral, why can not others do the same? To this day that funeral is still a source of discontentment between the two sides.

Re:Only 53% of South Koreans claim any religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I encountered some of thes bozos in the middle of the Great Rift Valley last year. The community they were assigned to convert was already deeply religious. They (the crew cut Americans) assumed that the 'heathens' were godless. Big mistake.
There was one thing that the British Missionaries of the 18th Century realised pretty early on. That was that you had to blend the local beliefs with christianity to get anywhere. Thus they were successful in converting the locals. I was there on a VSO assignment. It was interesting to watch as they tried and failed to convert the locals to their version of christianity. This was the 'evolution is bunkum' brand.
The missionaries forgot that just down the road some of the oldest human remains ever discovered had been found.
When their mission failed they turned their attention to those of us there helping with water conservation. They got equally short shift from us. I'm a lapsed catholic but two of the others were muslims of Pakistani origin. Still they tried. You have to applaud them for that but despite the promised that we'd all rot in hell they failed to make any converts.
When they'd gone, the whole community had a party to celebrate. It lasted three days.

Re:Why are these things opposites?

[drdread]

It's not about "creationism." it's about "young earth creationism," in which the proponents believe that every word of the bible is literally true, and every creature on earth was created in its present form directly by the hand of God less than 5000 years ago. If you allow for an evolutionary path that took (tens or hundreds of) millions of years to evolve a horse or a bird, your 5,000-year-old Earth theory has some major challenges ahead of it. In the end, this sort of effort is fundamentally about suppressing the challenge, not teaching science.

Genesis For The Modern Age

[arthurpaliden]

Genesis For The Modern Age

• 1. In the beginning there was only God and he alone created the void that was the Universe. Then into the void that was the Universe God placed a infinitesimal part of his being.
• 2. And the void being with out substance was unable to contain this essence of God and so it expanded at a terrible speed releasing unimaginable energies.
• 3. Where upon God created the four fundamental forces toe contain these energies. The Strong Nuclear Force, the Weak Nuclear Force, the Gravitational Force and the Electromagnetic Force.
• 4. And with the establishment of these controlling forces expansion of the Universe slowed and the great energies cooled the first elementary partials were formed.
• 5. And from these partials the first atoms were formed. The initial one having a single proton and electron and God looked down and said let this be called Hydrogen.
• 6. Then when all the Universe was Hydrogen the Fundamental Force of Gravity caused groups of these atoms to come together in ever larger masses.
• 7. Where upon when the masses became so large and the Force of Gravity so strong that they started to smash the atoms of Hydrogen together creating new atoms and releasing new energies that illuminated the Universe.
• 8. And thus Stars were born and there was now light upon the void.
• 9. Then as the forces within the stars created heavier and heavier atoms the energies generated within became great. Greater in fact than the Force of Gravity. Where upon the very Stars themselves exploded spewing the atoms out in great clouds into the void.
• 10. Again the fundamental forces came into play creating new stars from the lighter atoms and Planets from the heavier ones. Starting the cycle of Star birth and death.
• 11. Now it came to pass that the Planets once formed were much cooler than the Stars allowing the atoms of various types to join together according to the Fundamental forces into molecules.
• 12. Some were simple such as the water that filled the seas some were complex such as the precursor proteins of life itself.
• ... (and so on and so on ... )

The Real Story

[Ben_R_R]

The real story is not nearly as sensational, all that was being discussed for removal from the textbook where a couple of incorrect diagrams. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2012/07/no-evolution-in-korea.html

What STR did manage to pull off with three textbook publishers was this: STR convinced those publishers that two diagrams in their books -- one about the evolution of horses, and the other about archeopteryx -- and the text accompanying them were scientifically incorrect. Notice the claim here: the claim was not that the diagrams were against creationism. The claim was that the diagrams were _scientifically_ incorrect. And you know what? Technically, they were right! The diagram above showing the evolution of horses is horribly outdated, and the pictures no longer comport with the current scientific consensus.

Re:Why are these things opposites?

[erroneus]

It *IS* religion versus science. Science can exist with or without religion. Science does not exist because of in spite of or in any relation to religion. Religion, however, exists and is most powerful in the absence of science. The more knowledge is accumulated, the less religion works or makes sense at all. Just as children learn not to be afraid of the dark, people learn not to be afraid of their futures and understand the causes and effects of things that go on all around them.

More about bad theology than bad science

[DoofusOfDeath]

Hermeneutics is the approach one takes to interpreting a document (such as the Bible, for example). Literalism is one approach to Biblical hermeneutics in which one assumes nothing in the Bible is meant to be read allegorically or poetically. I think young-earth Creationists hold this view, which in their mind places Christianity squarely at odds with any science that gives us life older than ~ 6000 years.
I think one appealing reason for literalism is the assumption that as the Word of God, the Bible is meant to be easily understandable to every well-intentioned reader, and that's only possible if the plain reading of the text conveys the intended meaning. I.e., if you need to be a scholar of ancient Greek and Hebrew literary forms to understand it properly, something is amiss.

However, literalism is not generally accepted as a valid hermeneutic by most Christian theologians, as far as I know. I don't know all of the reasons, but I think one of them is that when read in the original Greek, Hebrew, and/or Aramaic, some books of the Bible very clearly are written in idiomatic forms of the day that most certainly were poetic or allegorical.

I think the truth is that just as a number of scientific might explain the data collected so far, so might a number of interpretations of certain parts of the Bible fit established theology, worldly observations, and hermeneutics. Those who see science (including carbon dating of fossils) as a threat to their religious beliefs may be more attached to a literalistic hermeneutic than is appropriate.

it's been that way for 2000 years

[khipu]

Christian churches have been blaming the ills of the world on "pagans" and non-believers for almost as long as Christianity has existed. Usually, churches lump communism, materialist, and atheism together, but easily switch sides when that doesn't work out. For example, the Catholic church in Europe allied itself with Hitler and other fascist and military dictators against the "atheistic communists", but then after the war, when that turned out to be unpopular, blamed the fascists themselves for being atheists.

It's pretty simple to see why: Christianity starts with the premise that morality and decency is identical with belief in, and submission to, God. Logically, all non-believers must be either evil or at the very least misguided. Furthermore, no matter how bad the crimes of the churches or Christians are, they are either excused or atoned for by belief in God, or the people in question are retroactively declared not to have been "true believers" in the first place.

The only thing that changes over time is the group that the church is willing to extend the label "believer" to. Sometimes, it may include all Abrahamic religions, sometimes only Christians, and sometimes only specific denominations. It mostly seems to depend on political expediency.

Re:it's been that way for 2000 years

[SurlyJest]

Not good history there. The Catholic church did execute concordats with fascist Italy and Germany, but these were definitely arm's-length agreements whose only purpose (from the church's side) was to secure some basic operational rights in hostile political environments.

In Italy, the Lateran treaty with Mussolini established the Vatican city-state and closed the book on issues, such as reparation for the seizure of the papal states, going back to 1848.

In Germany, the church was more or less officially in opposition to the state since the Kulturkampf of Bismark. In the face of the much more aggressive ideology of the Nazis, the Church did waffle a bit in signing the Reichskonkordat of 1933, but it can be argued that the terms were the best available. It should be noted that it was only the Catholic-majority areas of Germany that did not endorse Nazi rule in 1932.

In neither case could it be reasonably argued that the church and fascist states were "allies".