8 ms·

50% of South Korean biology teachers do not accept evolution

39 points by E-for-Endetta 13y ago

Quotes from the article: <i>A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx. ... In a 2009 survey conducted for the South Korean documentary The Era of God and Darwin, almost one-third of the respondents didn’t believe in evolution. Of those, 41% said that there was insufficient scientific evidence to support it; 39% said that it contradicted their religious beliefs; and 17% did not understand the theory. The numbers approach those in the United States, where a survey by the research firm Gallup has shown that around 40% of Americans do not believe that humans evolved from less advanced forms of life. ... [A survey] also found that 40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”; and half disagreed that “modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes”. ... [T]here are only 5–10 evolutionary scientists in the country who teach the theory of evolution in undergraduate and graduate schools.</i>

cm2012 13y ago
I'm not really sure what to say, except wow. One interesting note: "However, a survey of trainee teachers in the country concluded that religious belief was not a strong determinant of their acceptance of evolution".
- E-for-Endetta 13y ago
  I wonder why they do not accept evolution then. Any guesses? To me the single most depressing line in the whole article must be this: "40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”; and half disagreed that “modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes”."
  - Nursie 13y ago
    Sounds like the old "I'm not descended from a monkey!" thing to me.
- mhd 13y ago
  I wonder how they "concluded" that. Questionnaire results? Might just be the old trope of "creationism is science, not religion" they're trying to sell for ages.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Hopefully, they looked at the relationship between responses to "I accept evolution" and "I am religious" and did not find a strong correlation.
yread 13y ago
Have you guys seen the comments there? Is it usual that Nature is read by people like that? What does God have to do with evolution anyway? Evolution is falsifiable theory on which some very useful models (which work) are based. They can believe in whatever they want, but they surely can't base any models on "God created everything". Everybody can program a little evolutionary algorithm yourself and see that it can create something out of chaos... It works :)
- E-for-Endetta 13y ago
  I have learned never to read comments left on popular science websites. :-)
- inkaudio 13y ago
  Yes you are creating something out of chaos because you have an algorithm. No algorithm, no programming means you can't create.
  - tomrod 13y ago
    Hi! Have you ever played Conway's game of life? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life It hasno algorithm, only a few simple rules from which order arises from chaos. Give it a shot, you may like it. As a practicing Christian, I see no reason evolution can't be exactly what we scientists observe it to be: a process by which beneficial adaptations are passed down to succeeding generations. Much like in software, where design decisions pass down to future incarnations of concepts, like WASD for FPS game control.
    - sigzero 13y ago
      That page exactly describes an algorithm.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      A few simple rules is quite arguably an algorithm. Of course, one could say the laws of physics are the same...
binderbizingdos 13y ago
> do not believe in evolution exactly... you need to believe in it because there can't be any proof as long as we can't travel in time. get over it and recognize that everything that goes beyond the scientific method is mere speculation.
- readme 13y ago
  Evolution does not go beyond the scientific method. You need to take a college level biology class.
- kghose 13y ago
  There are a lot of data that are most simply explained by the concept of evolution. Any other explanation for evolution (such as God did it) requires the invocation of principles that have far less support than gene mutations during reproduction/replication.
- colinb 13y ago
  does recent historical record count, or do you need predictive results? Recent historical examples include the Industrial Moth. If you want to predict some evolution, pick an antibiotic and wait for it to become ineffective. Here's more: http://www.scribd.com/doc/46030115/142-Modern-Examples-of-Evolution-in-Action http://www.scribd.com/doc/46030115/142-Modern-Examples-of-Ev... And while we're beating each other with the scientific method, I believe [!] the onus is on those who think evolution to be an incorrect theory to provide a result that falsifies the premise. FWIW, if you haven't read The Origin of Species, I can't recommend it strongly enough. It is my opinion Darwin is a better writer than Dawkins, Gould or Jones. The man could put together a lovely sentence.
- cantankerous 13y ago
  You should probably read some Karl Popper on the philosophy of science. Falsifying something is pretty much the beginning and the end of the scientific method. The model of evolution, as yet, has not been decisively falsified.
- reginaldjcooper 13y ago
  Evolution is so in line with reality, scientists have already made correct predictions about transitional fossils and where they would be found. The only choices are belief in evolution or rejection of reality.
harrytuttle 13y ago
We should exclude such people from educational institutes by nature of belief. They're not teaching science if they already have an agenda, bias or belief and allow it to interfere with objectivity and professionalism. In fact any religious school or education institute should be of independent of religion how the church and state supposedly are. This shit is unfortunately rife. I had to explain this to my daughter's teacher who refused to teach evolution under science, even though it is part of the curriculum in the UK at primary level. The most annoying thing is that I was called into the (non-religious) school because my 9 year old daughter said she didn't believe in god and the teacher found it offensive and didn't want to teach her!
- alinajaf 13y ago
  As a new parent this is somewhat terrifying. But good on your daughter for setting the teacher straight! At the same time, I was lucky enough in my education in the UK to get a steady stream of secular humanists as science teachers. They never directly attacked my religion, but by the end of it I had the skills to tear it to shreds on my own.
- jurassic 13y ago
  Frightening to hear. I don't have children yet, but stories like this make me think about wanting to homeschool.
  - harrytuttle 13y ago
    This is exactly what we're doing after the incident and others. Two extracted, one will not be going to school. We have a strong home-teaching network in the area we are moving to (Cambridgeshire) so there will be plenty of opportunities for them to grow and learn. The other incidents included utterly sub-standard teaching [1], particularly with mathematics, bullying, actually receiving personal insults from heavily unionised teachers (for daring to speak up against the public sector - how dare I) and handing out "story books" from corporations (Lloyds in particular) to instill brands into the children from day one. [1] I obtained a marked SAT maths paper from the school for my daughter which had 40% of questions either mis-marked, unsolvable or missed (bear in mind I have an engineering degree, so I can add ;-) ).
protomyth 13y ago
The Catholic Church's current belief is there is no conflict between evolution and church teachings. They do believe evolution was divinely inspired. They also go with the scientific theories on age of earth and gradual appearance of life. Its interesting to see the difference between the actual Catholic doctrine and those that broke away. If the non-evolution Christian truly needs everything spelled out, Genesis 1:28[1] would probably explain it all. Kinda hard to have dominion if you don't have a mechanism to change things. I would love the non-evolution version of how we get good hunting dogs and modern cows? 1) http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-1-28/ http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-1-28/ // ok, yes the Catholic Church did some bad things to scientists, I get that - look at the current doctrine
- salgernon 13y ago
  The evangelical Protestant / baptist / psycho nutjob sects of North America believe that Catholics are evil polytheists anyway, and can probably use the Catholic Churches non-repudiation of evolution as more evidence of how evil the Catholics are.
- kjackson2012 13y ago
  This. The Catholic Church supports both the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory (no jokes about the TV show please). So don't blame the Catholic Church for this one. Given that South Korea is split between Catholics and Buddhists, it doesn't seem like there is a particularly religious reason for this trend.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    South Korean christians are mostly protestants, not catholics. edit: it looks like Catholicism has been growing over the past 10 years, but there are still more Protestants. In any case South Korea is not "split between Catholics and Buddhists," the largest denomination is Presbyterian and 46% identify as not religious at all.
    - philsnow 13y ago
driverdan 13y ago
When your religious views conflict with reality it's time to re-evaluate your religious views.
- ghsalazar 13y ago
  Amen :-)
- DanielStraight 13y ago
  The entire point of religious views is to provide another way of understanding reality. You presumably believe that science alone can explain reality. And that's fine. But many people don't, and I'm not just talking about the traditionally religious. Scientifically, the "love" we have for our children is simply a genetically-programmed strategy for best ensuring that our genes are passed to future generations. It has no meaning. In fact, scientifically, nothing has any meaning. Whether we live or die makes no difference at all, and when someone kills another, the only reason it's "wrong" is because society is trying to preserve itself so that individuals can pass on their genes to the next generation. Again, if you're OK with this, that's fine. I'm not going to try to make you change your mind. But hopefully you can understand why others, many others, inform their view of reality with sources other than science.
inkaudio 13y ago
I love science & technology therefore I'm alarmed because so many scientist and technologist don't see the inherit paradox in evolution. Natural selection makes it virtually impossible for animals to adapt via the proposed mutations. Natural selection happens immediately, valuable life preserving mutations are suppose occur (typically) over thousands of years. To illustrate Arctic terns are dying because they are not able to adapt to climate change. Arctic terns eat herrings a cold water fish, as the water gets warmer, these fish seek colder waters, possible by going deeper in the waters. According to biologist other birds in the Arctic can dive deeper to grab the cold water fish Arctic terns cannot, so they and their chicks starve to death. This is natural selection, there is no time to adapt via mutations, adaptations must happening quickly.
- prawn 13y ago
  The terns able to dive deeper (for whatever physical reason) survive and breed.
  - inkaudio 13y ago
    Exactly, survival for most animals are always based on their immediate ability to adapt, not the ability to adapt over thousands of years, that is the paradox of evolution. Animals supposedly evolved to have these specialized features essential for survival over thousands of years, but natural selection is in conflict. Animals need to survive their conditions immediately, they can't wait for their bodies to evolve.
    - AlisdairO 13y ago
      > Exactly, survival for most animals are always based on their immediate ability to adapt, not the ability to adapt over thousands of years Incorrect - it's both. Obviously adaptivity to rapid changes is key, but species don't only disappear/change due to extinction-level immediate events. Individuals also get edged out by their peers (or members of other species) who manage to outcompete them just that little bit for food, or sexual attractiveness, or any of many other reasons.
    - 13y ago
i_got_created 13y ago
Evolutionists should know other theories as well, or do they fear them? http://www.evolution-is-degeneration.com/ http://www.evolution-is-degeneration.com/
- alayne 13y ago
  A book about evolution ... by a televangelist.
  - i_got_created 13y ago
    Are religious persons not allowed to be intelligent? I studied this book carefully; it's one of the most interesting and intelligent things I ever read in whole of my life time. Reading books about evolution may be interesting, but to me it's like dreaming impossible dreams (science fiction comes to mind).
boneheadmed 13y ago
Evolution can be further classified into "microevolution" and "macroevolution". Evidence for microevolution is directly observable (e.g. bacteria adapting to changes of nutrients in their environment, viruses adapting to vaccines). However macroevolution has never been directly observed. It is extrapolated from considering what occurs after a multitude of generations of microevolution. An interesting new documentary examines this in more detail: http://evolutionvsgod.com/ http://evolutionvsgod.com/
- alayne 13y ago
  A "documentary" about evolution by a televangelist. Give me a break.
  - boneheadmed 13y ago
    Yes. Three evolutionary scientists are interviewed and are asked to give examples of directly observable evidence of macroevolution.
    - Tichy 13y ago
      Have you observed god creating a new species?
      - boneheadmed 13y ago
        God created everything in existence. We refuse to acknowledge it, because by doing so we have to come to terms with his moral law. This moral law is embedded in our conscience and becomes clear through an examination of the conscience. For example things like lying and stealing (which if we are honest most of us have done either or both at one time or another), become heavy burdens when examined in the light of our consciences. In denying God, we can deny our own conscience and then create our own morality.
        rdouble 13y ago
        Is this really the direction this website is headed? The NSA conspiracy stuff was bad enough.
ivanhoe 13y ago
When I see how Koreans are playing Starcraft I start to have doubts about evolution myself...
- dllthomas 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- rdouble 13y ago
  There's not a 50/50 split. A large number (46%) of South Koreans identify as "not religious." (from the link you provided)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
wnewman 13y ago
That the South Korean school system would do this is discouraging, no question. But I am also discouraged by how, when reading academic scientists and academic journals (_Nature_ in this case), it seems considerably easier to find concern about unscientific nonsense beloved of the right than about unscientific nonsense beloved of the left. E.g., individual genetic heritability is even more fundamental and even more loudly supported by obvious evidence than evolution by natural selection. Yet not only is this sometimes slighted in the high school curriculum, one can find academic work from prestigious institutions that pretends heritability does not exist (or is at least, for some unexplained reason, absolutely negligible). See, e.g., Chan and Boliver "The Grandparents Effect in Social Mobility", http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0006/papers/asronline.pdf http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0006/papers/asronline.pdf (HT http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/a-grandparent-effect/ http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/a-grandparent-effect/). It is not easy (for this reader with a BS in Biology) to see why it's scientifically OK to assume that heritability is negligible at the level of detail considered by Chan and Boliver ("if mobility follows a first-order Markovian process"; "well-connected grandparents could also use their social contacts to help grandchildren with job searches"; citations into a more than a decade of research on multigenerational issues, e.g. the cite to Bengtson). It's easy to see how this taboo can help produce useful political soundbites, and why the BBC would take it and run with it http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23101446 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23101446 . It's just hard to see why scientists wouldn't be concerned about this behavior by the BBC and by the academic research community. In general, it's sensible for a scientific journal to worry about unscientific claptrap. However, specifically skipping over the unscientific claptrap beloved of their faction in the BBC, in academic science, and in academic journals in order to zero in on the unscientific claptrap of rival factions is unbecoming in an organization that claims to be scientific. It doesn't resemble science as much as it resembles sleazy-think-tank-style selective invocation of research in order to advance a political agenda.

39 points by E-for-Endetta 13y ago

cm2012 13y ago

I'm not really sure what to say, except wow. One interesting note: "However, a survey of trainee teachers in the country concluded that religious belief was not a strong determinant of their acceptance of evolution".

E-for-Endetta 13y ago
I wonder why they do not accept evolution then. Any guesses? To me the single most depressing line in the whole article must be this: "40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”; and half disagreed that “modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes”."
- Nursie 13y ago
  Sounds like the old "I'm not descended from a monkey!" thing to me.
mhd 13y ago
I wonder how they "concluded" that. Questionnaire results? Might just be the old trope of "creationism is science, not religion" they're trying to sell for ages.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Hopefully, they looked at the relationship between responses to "I accept evolution" and "I am religious" and did not find a strong correlation.

yread 13y ago

Have you guys seen the comments there? Is it usual that Nature is read by people like that? What does God have to do with evolution anyway? Evolution is falsifiable theory on which some very useful models (which work) are based. They can believe in whatever they want, but they surely can't base any models on "God created everything". Everybody can program a little evolutionary algorithm yourself and see that it can create something out of chaos... It works :)

E-for-Endetta 13y ago
I have learned never to read comments left on popular science websites. :-)
inkaudio 13y ago
Yes you are creating something out of chaos because you have an algorithm. No algorithm, no programming means you can't create.
- tomrod 13y ago
  Hi! Have you ever played Conway's game of life? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life It hasno algorithm, only a few simple rules from which order arises from chaos. Give it a shot, you may like it. As a practicing Christian, I see no reason evolution can't be exactly what we scientists observe it to be: a process by which beneficial adaptations are passed down to succeeding generations. Much like in software, where design decisions pass down to future incarnations of concepts, like WASD for FPS game control.
  - sigzero 13y ago
    That page exactly describes an algorithm.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    A few simple rules is quite arguably an algorithm. Of course, one could say the laws of physics are the same...

binderbizingdos 13y ago

> do not believe in evolution exactly... you need to believe in it because there can't be any proof as long as we can't travel in time. get over it and recognize that everything that goes beyond the scientific method is mere speculation.

readme 13y ago
Evolution does not go beyond the scientific method. You need to take a college level biology class.
kghose 13y ago
There are a lot of data that are most simply explained by the concept of evolution. Any other explanation for evolution (such as God did it) requires the invocation of principles that have far less support than gene mutations during reproduction/replication.
colinb 13y ago
does recent historical record count, or do you need predictive results? Recent historical examples include the Industrial Moth. If you want to predict some evolution, pick an antibiotic and wait for it to become ineffective. Here's more: http://www.scribd.com/doc/46030115/142-Modern-Examples-of-Evolution-in-Action http://www.scribd.com/doc/46030115/142-Modern-Examples-of-Ev... And while we're beating each other with the scientific method, I believe [!] the onus is on those who think evolution to be an incorrect theory to provide a result that falsifies the premise. FWIW, if you haven't read The Origin of Species, I can't recommend it strongly enough. It is my opinion Darwin is a better writer than Dawkins, Gould or Jones. The man could put together a lovely sentence.
cantankerous 13y ago
You should probably read some Karl Popper on the philosophy of science. Falsifying something is pretty much the beginning and the end of the scientific method. The model of evolution, as yet, has not been decisively falsified.
reginaldjcooper 13y ago
Evolution is so in line with reality, scientists have already made correct predictions about transitional fossils and where they would be found. The only choices are belief in evolution or rejection of reality.

harrytuttle 13y ago

We should exclude such people from educational institutes by nature of belief. They're not teaching science if they already have an agenda, bias or belief and allow it to interfere with objectivity and professionalism. In fact any religious school or education institute should be of independent of religion how the church and state supposedly are. This shit is unfortunately rife. I had to explain this to my daughter's teacher who refused to teach evolution under science, even though it is part of the curriculum in the UK at primary level. The most annoying thing is that I was called into the (non-religious) school because my 9 year old daughter said she didn't believe in god and the teacher found it offensive and didn't want to teach her!

alinajaf 13y ago
As a new parent this is somewhat terrifying. But good on your daughter for setting the teacher straight! At the same time, I was lucky enough in my education in the UK to get a steady stream of secular humanists as science teachers. They never directly attacked my religion, but by the end of it I had the skills to tear it to shreds on my own.
jurassic 13y ago
Frightening to hear. I don't have children yet, but stories like this make me think about wanting to homeschool.
- harrytuttle 13y ago
  This is exactly what we're doing after the incident and others. Two extracted, one will not be going to school. We have a strong home-teaching network in the area we are moving to (Cambridgeshire) so there will be plenty of opportunities for them to grow and learn. The other incidents included utterly sub-standard teaching [1], particularly with mathematics, bullying, actually receiving personal insults from heavily unionised teachers (for daring to speak up against the public sector - how dare I) and handing out "story books" from corporations (Lloyds in particular) to instill brands into the children from day one. [1] I obtained a marked SAT maths paper from the school for my daughter which had 40% of questions either mis-marked, unsolvable or missed (bear in mind I have an engineering degree, so I can add ;-) ).

protomyth 13y ago

The Catholic Church's current belief is there is no conflict between evolution and church teachings. They do believe evolution was divinely inspired. They also go with the scientific theories on age of earth and gradual appearance of life. Its interesting to see the difference between the actual Catholic doctrine and those that broke away. If the non-evolution Christian truly needs everything spelled out, Genesis 1:28[1] would probably explain it all. Kinda hard to have dominion if you don't have a mechanism to change things. I would love the non-evolution version of how we get good hunting dogs and modern cows? 1) http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-1-28/ http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-1-28/ // ok, yes the Catholic Church did some bad things to scientists, I get that - look at the current doctrine

salgernon 13y ago
The evangelical Protestant / baptist / psycho nutjob sects of North America believe that Catholics are evil polytheists anyway, and can probably use the Catholic Churches non-repudiation of evolution as more evidence of how evil the Catholics are.
kjackson2012 13y ago
This. The Catholic Church supports both the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory (no jokes about the TV show please). So don't blame the Catholic Church for this one. Given that South Korea is split between Catholics and Buddhists, it doesn't seem like there is a particularly religious reason for this trend.
- rdouble 13y ago
  South Korean christians are mostly protestants, not catholics. edit: it looks like Catholicism has been growing over the past 10 years, but there are still more Protestants. In any case South Korea is not "split between Catholics and Buddhists," the largest denomination is Presbyterian and 46% identify as not religious at all.
  - philsnow 13y ago

driverdan 13y ago

When your religious views conflict with reality it's time to re-evaluate your religious views.

ghsalazar 13y ago
Amen :-)
DanielStraight 13y ago
The entire point of religious views is to provide another way of understanding reality. You presumably believe that science alone can explain reality. And that's fine. But many people don't, and I'm not just talking about the traditionally religious. Scientifically, the "love" we have for our children is simply a genetically-programmed strategy for best ensuring that our genes are passed to future generations. It has no meaning. In fact, scientifically, nothing has any meaning. Whether we live or die makes no difference at all, and when someone kills another, the only reason it's "wrong" is because society is trying to preserve itself so that individuals can pass on their genes to the next generation. Again, if you're OK with this, that's fine. I'm not going to try to make you change your mind. But hopefully you can understand why others, many others, inform their view of reality with sources other than science.

inkaudio 13y ago

I love science & technology therefore I'm alarmed because so many scientist and technologist don't see the inherit paradox in evolution. Natural selection makes it virtually impossible for animals to adapt via the proposed mutations. Natural selection happens immediately, valuable life preserving mutations are suppose occur (typically) over thousands of years. To illustrate Arctic terns are dying because they are not able to adapt to climate change. Arctic terns eat herrings a cold water fish, as the water gets warmer, these fish seek colder waters, possible by going deeper in the waters. According to biologist other birds in the Arctic can dive deeper to grab the cold water fish Arctic terns cannot, so they and their chicks starve to death. This is natural selection, there is no time to adapt via mutations, adaptations must happening quickly.

prawn 13y ago
The terns able to dive deeper (for whatever physical reason) survive and breed.
- inkaudio 13y ago
  Exactly, survival for most animals are always based on their immediate ability to adapt, not the ability to adapt over thousands of years, that is the paradox of evolution. Animals supposedly evolved to have these specialized features essential for survival over thousands of years, but natural selection is in conflict. Animals need to survive their conditions immediately, they can't wait for their bodies to evolve.
  - AlisdairO 13y ago
    > Exactly, survival for most animals are always based on their immediate ability to adapt, not the ability to adapt over thousands of years Incorrect - it's both. Obviously adaptivity to rapid changes is key, but species don't only disappear/change due to extinction-level immediate events. Individuals also get edged out by their peers (or members of other species) who manage to outcompete them just that little bit for food, or sexual attractiveness, or any of many other reasons.
  - 13y ago

i_got_created 13y ago

Evolutionists should know other theories as well, or do they fear them? http://www.evolution-is-degeneration.com/ http://www.evolution-is-degeneration.com/

alayne 13y ago
A book about evolution ... by a televangelist.
- i_got_created 13y ago
  Are religious persons not allowed to be intelligent? I studied this book carefully; it's one of the most interesting and intelligent things I ever read in whole of my life time. Reading books about evolution may be interesting, but to me it's like dreaming impossible dreams (science fiction comes to mind).

boneheadmed 13y ago

Evolution can be further classified into "microevolution" and "macroevolution". Evidence for microevolution is directly observable (e.g. bacteria adapting to changes of nutrients in their environment, viruses adapting to vaccines). However macroevolution has never been directly observed. It is extrapolated from considering what occurs after a multitude of generations of microevolution. An interesting new documentary examines this in more detail: http://evolutionvsgod.com/ http://evolutionvsgod.com/

alayne 13y ago
A "documentary" about evolution by a televangelist. Give me a break.
- boneheadmed 13y ago
  Yes. Three evolutionary scientists are interviewed and are asked to give examples of directly observable evidence of macroevolution.
  - Tichy 13y ago
    Have you observed god creating a new species?
    - boneheadmed 13y ago
      God created everything in existence. We refuse to acknowledge it, because by doing so we have to come to terms with his moral law. This moral law is embedded in our conscience and becomes clear through an examination of the conscience. For example things like lying and stealing (which if we are honest most of us have done either or both at one time or another), become heavy burdens when examined in the light of our consciences. In denying God, we can deny our own conscience and then create our own morality.
      - rdouble 13y ago
        Is this really the direction this website is headed? The NSA conspiracy stuff was bad enough.

ivanhoe 13y ago

When I see how Koreans are playing Starcraft I start to have doubts about evolution myself...

dllthomas 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rdouble 13y ago
There's not a 50/50 split. A large number (46%) of South Koreans identify as "not religious." (from the link you provided)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

wnewman 13y ago

That the South Korean school system would do this is discouraging, no question. But I am also discouraged by how, when reading academic scientists and academic journals (_Nature_ in this case), it seems considerably easier to find concern about unscientific nonsense beloved of the right than about unscientific nonsense beloved of the left. E.g., individual genetic heritability is even more fundamental and even more loudly supported by obvious evidence than evolution by natural selection. Yet not only is this sometimes slighted in the high school curriculum, one can find academic work from prestigious institutions that pretends heritability does not exist (or is at least, for some unexplained reason, absolutely negligible). See, e.g., Chan and Boliver "The Grandparents Effect in Social Mobility", http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0006/papers/asronline.pdf http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0006/papers/asronline.pdf (HT http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/a-grandparent-effect/ http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/a-grandparent-effect/). It is not easy (for this reader with a BS in Biology) to see why it's scientifically OK to assume that heritability is negligible at the level of detail considered by Chan and Boliver ("if mobility follows a first-order Markovian process"; "well-connected grandparents could also use their social contacts to help grandchildren with job searches"; citations into a more than a decade of research on multigenerational issues, e.g. the cite to Bengtson). It's easy to see how this taboo can help produce useful political soundbites, and why the BBC would take it and run with it http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23101446 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23101446 . It's just hard to see why scientists wouldn't be concerned about this behavior by the BBC and by the academic research community. In general, it's sensible for a scientific journal to worry about unscientific claptrap. However, specifically skipping over the unscientific claptrap beloved of their faction in the BBC, in academic science, and in academic journals in order to zero in on the unscientific claptrap of rival factions is unbecoming in an organization that claims to be scientific. It doesn't resemble science as much as it resembles sleazy-think-tank-style selective invocation of research in order to advance a political agenda.