Evolution Korea
The financial crisis that struck Asia required a major review of the old system of government-business alliances and the management by the public of private risks. In Korea, this meant a change in the development paradigm.
In a controversial move South Korea's government has asked textbook publishers to ignore calls to eliminate examples of evolution in science books for high school students. These include the evidence for evolution of horses as well as the avian an ancestor Archaeopteryx.
1. Evolution and Religion
A creationist group from South Korea has successfully convinced textbook publishers to exclude evidence of evolution from high school science texts. The Society for Textbook Revise, an offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research that aims to cleanse biology textbooks of "atheist materialism," was behind the move. The STR claims that such materialistic thinking creates a negative picture for students, and could lead to their eventual denial of faith.
Scientists from all over the world expressed concerns when the STR campaign was featured in the news. In a letter addressed to the editor of Nature, evolutionary biologist Jae Choe at Ewha Womans University in Seoul complained that South Korea had given in to religious prejudice. He was supported by colleagues from across the country, who set up an organization called Evolution Korea to organize a petition to protest the changes to the textbooks.
Researchers are also concerned that the STR campaign could spread to other parts of the world where the belief in the spread of creationism is increasing. The letter to Nature warned that the anti-evolution movement will intensify pressure for revisions to textbooks in other countries, particularly those with large Christian and Muslim populations.
South Korea has a particularly powerful cultural backdrop for the evolution debate. 26 percent of the nation's citizens belong to an organized religion and the majority of them practice Christianity or Buddhism. In addition, a lot of Koreans adhere to the philosophy of Ch'ondogyo. It is founded on Confucian principles which emphasizes harmony in society and individual self-cultivation. Ch'ondogyo is a belief system that teaches that humans are one with Hanulnim the God of the Sun, and that the heavenly blessings are possible through the good deeds of a person.
All of this has made creationism fertile ground. 에볼루션 코리아 have found that students with religious backgrounds to be more reluctant to learn about evolution than those who don't. The underlying causes of this phenomenon remain unclear. Students with a religious background may not be as knowledgeable about the theories of science, making them more susceptible to creationists' influence. Another reason could be that students with religious backgrounds may see evolution as a belief system that is agnostic, making them less comfortable.
2. Evolution and Science
In recent years, campaigns against evolution in schools have raised concerns in the scientific community. A 2009 survey revealed that more than 40 percent of Americans believe that biological evolution is not true, and that a belief in it would be contrary to their convictions about religion. Many scientists believe that, despite the success of creationism, the best way to combat this movement is to educate the public on the evidence that supports evolution.
Scientists are accountable to instruct their students in science that includes the theory of evolution. They should also inform the public about the research process and how knowledge is verified. They should explain how theories of science are often challenged and changed. However, misunderstandings about the nature of scientific research often cause people to believe that evolution is not real.
For instance, some people confuse the term "theory" with the everyday meaning of the word - a guess or guess. However, in science the theory is rigorously tested and verified through empirical data. A theory that is tested and observed repeatedly becomes a scientific principal.
The debate about evolutionary theory is an excellent occasion to discuss the importance of the scientific method and its limitations. It is essential for people to recognize that science is unable to answer questions about the purpose or meaning of life, it only serves as a mechanism that allows living things to grow and change.
A well-rounded education must include exposure to the vast majority of scientific fields that include evolutionary biology. This is particularly important because the jobs that people hold and the decisions they make require knowledge of how science works.
The majority of scientists across the world believe that humans have evolved over time. In a study that predicted the opinions of adults about the consensus on this topic, those with higher levels education and scientific knowledge were found to be more likely to believe that there is wide agreement among scientists regarding human evolution. People with more religious faith and less science-based knowledge tend to be more skeptical. It is essential that teachers insist on the importance of understanding this consensus to enable people to make informed decisions regarding the use of energy, health care and other issues of policy.
3. Evolution and Culture
A close cousin to the mainstream evolutionary theory, the concept of cultural evolution studies the numerous ways humans--and other organisms--learn from and interact with one another. Researchers in this field use elaborate models and tools that are adapted from the ones used by evolutionary theorists. they look back to human prehistory to determine the origins of our capacity for cultural understanding.
This method also acknowledges that there are differences between the characteristics of culture and biological. Cultural traits can be acquired gradually while biological traits are usually acquired simultaneously (in sexual species at fertilization). The acquisition of a cultural characteristic can influence the growth and development of a different.
In Korea For instance the introduction of Western fashion elements in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th centuries was the result of a complicated sequence of events. One of the most important was the arrival of Japanese occupation forces who introduced Western hairstyles and styles of clothing to Korean society.
When Japan quit Korea in the 1930s, some of these trends began to change. By the end World War II, Korea was once again united, this time under the Choson dynasty rule.
Today, Korea is a vibrant political and economic power. Despite the recent global financial crisis, the economy of Korea has grown steadily in the last decade and is expected to sustain its steady growth in the coming years.
The current administration is faced with a variety of challenges. The inability of the government to develop a coherent plan to address the current economic crisis is one the biggest obstacles. The crisis has revealed the shortcomings of the country's economic policies, mainly its overreliance on exports and foreign investment, which may not be sustainable in the long run.
The crisis has shaken the confidence of investors, the government needs to reconsider its economic strategy and find alternatives to increase domestic demand. To ensure a stable financial climate the government needs to overhaul its incentive, monitoring and discipline systems. This chapter provides a number of scenarios for how the Korean economy might develop in a post-crisis world.
4. Evolution and Education
The challenge for evolution educators is how to teach evolutionary concepts that are appropriate for different stages of development and ages. Teachers need to, for instance, be sensitive to the religious diversity in their classrooms and create a welcoming environment where students with both religious and secular perspectives are at ease. Additionally, teachers must understand common misconceptions about evolution and how to confront these in their classrooms. Finally, teachers must be able to access a range of resources for teaching evolution and be able to find them quickly.
In this context the Thinking Evolutionarily Convocation was a crucial step in bringing together evolutionary scientists and educators from a range of sectors to discuss the best practices for teaching about evolution. Participants included representatives from scientific societies, educational research, officials of government funding agencies as well as curriculum developers. The convergence of diverse stakeholders helped identify some common guidelines that will serve as the basis for future actions.
It is important to include evolution in all science curricula at every level. To achieve this goal it is recommended that the National Science Education Standards (NRC) call for evolution to be taught in a unified manner across all sciences using a sequence of ideas that are developmentally appropriate. Furthermore, a new publication from the NRC offers guidance to schools on how they can integrate evolution into their life science curriculum.
Several studies have found that a more thorough teaching of evolution is associated with more knowledge and belief in the concept of evolution. However the estimation of causal effects in the classroom is a challenge given that school curricula are not randomly assigned and change over time as a result of the predetermined timeframe of gubernatorial elections as well as state board of education appointments. To overcome this limitation, I use a longitudinal data set which lets me control for fixed state and year effects as well as individual-level variations in teacher beliefs about evolution.
Another important finding is that teachers who feel more comfortable teaching evolution report having fewer personal barriers to teaching it. This is in line with the notion that a more confident faculty is less likely to avoid discussing evolution subjects in the classroom. They also could be more likely to employ strategies, such as the reconciliatory approach that has been proven to increase the acceptance of undergraduate students of evolution (Harms and Reiss 2019; Tolman et al., 2020).