Evolution Korea
The financial crisis that struck Asia forced a major reappraisal of the old system of business-government alliances and public management of private risks. In Korea this required a change in the development model.
In a controversial decision, the South Korean government has asked textbooks publishers to ignore calls for removing examples of evolution from high school science texts. This includes the evidence supporting the evolution of horses as well as the avian ancestral Archaeopteryx.
1. Evolution and Religion
A South Korean creationist group has persuaded textbook publishers to remove evidence of evolution from high-school science texts. The Society for Textbook Revise, an offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research that wants to rid biology textbooks of "atheist materialism," was behind the move. The STR asserts that such materialism creates negative images to students, causing them to lose faith.
When the STR's campaign made the news, scientists around the globe expressed alarm. In a letter 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 backed up by colleagues across the country, who set up an organization called Evolution Korea to organize a petition against the textbook changes.
Some scientists are worried that the STR will be spread to other regions of the globe, where creationism has been growing. The letter to Nature warned of the anti-evolutionist campaign putting pressure on textbook revisions, especially in countries with large Christian and Muslim populations.
The South Korean culture is particularly strong for the evolution debate. 26 percent of the nation's residents belong to an organized religion, and most practice Christianity or Buddhism. Many Koreans also adhere to Ch'ondogyo, an ideology based on Confucian principles that is a strong advocate of social harmony, individual self-cultivation, and self-respect. Ch'ondogyo is a way of teaching that the human being is one with Hanulnim, the God of Sun, and that divine blessings are possible through good works.
All of this has made creationism a fertile ground. Numerous studies have revealed that students with a religious background to be more uncomfortable learning about evolution as compared to those who do not. The reasons behind this aren't evident. One explanation is that students with religious beliefs tend to be as well-versed in scientific theories and concepts, which makes them more vulnerable to the influence of creationists. Another possible factor is that students who have a religious background tend to view evolution as an atheistic concept, which may make them less comfortable with it.
2. Evolution and Science
In recent years, anti-evolution campaigns in schools have raised concern in the scientific community. A study conducted in 2009 found that over 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 about the evidence that supports evolution.
Scientists are required to instruct their students in science, including the theory of evolution. They also need to inform people about the process of science and how knowledge from science is collected and verified. They must explain how scientific theories are frequently challenged and changed. However, misperceptions about the nature of scientific research frequently cause people to believe that evolution is not real.
For example, some people confuse the term "theory" with the common meaning of the word, which is a hunch or guess. In science, however an hypothesis is rigorously tested and empirical data is used to prove it. A theory that has survived repeated testing and observations becomes a scientific principle.
The debate about evolutionary theory is a good occasion to discuss the importance of the scientific method and its limitations. It is important that people understand that science cannot answer questions about life's purpose or meaning, but instead provides a mechanism for living things to develop and adapt.
Moreover, a well-rounded education must include exposure to the vast majority of scientific fields including evolutionary biology. This is crucial because a lot of jobs and choices require individuals understand the way science operates.
The vast majority scientists in the world believe that humans have evolved over time. A recent study predicting adults' opinions of the consensus on this issue found that those who had higher levels of education and science knowledge were more likely to believe there is a consensus among scientists about human evolution. The people who have more religious beliefs but less knowledge of science tend to disagree more. It is critical that educators insist on the importance of understanding the consensus on this issue to ensure that individuals have a solid foundation for making informed choices about their health care, energy use and other policy issues.
3. Evolution and Culture
Cultural evolution is a close cousin of the popular evolutionary theory. It examines how organisms like humans learn from each other. Researchers in this area use explanatory tools and investigative models that are adapted from evolutionary theorists. They also go back to the prehistoric human to determine the origins of culture.
This approach also acknowledges that there are some differences between the characteristics of culture and biological. Cultural traits can be acquired slowly, whereas biological traits are typically acquired simultaneously (in the case of sexual species after fertilization). This means that the emergence of one cultural trait can influence the development of another.
In Korea the introduction of Western elements of style in the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was the result of a complex sequence of events. One of the most important was the appearance in Korea of Japanese occupation forces that introduced Western hairstyles and clothes.
When Japan quit Korea in the 1930s some of these trends began to change. By the end of World War II, Korea was once more united but this time under the rule of the Choson dynasty.
Today, Korea is an economic and political power. Despite the recent global financial crisis, the economy of Korea has grown steadily in the past decade and is poised to sustain its steady growth in the near future.
The current government is facing a variety of challenges. The inability of the government to come up with a coherent strategy to deal with the current economic crisis is one of the most significant challenges. The crisis has exposed the shortcomings of the country's economic policies, particularly its dependence on foreign investment and exports which might not be sustainable over the long term.
The crisis has shaken confidence of investors. This means that the government has to rethink its strategy and find ways to increase domestic demand. It will also have to reform the incentive monitoring, monitoring, and discipline systems in place to guarantee a stable financial environment. This chapter provides a number of scenarios on how the Korean economy might grow in a post-crisis environment.
4. Evolution and Education
One of the biggest challenges for evolution educators is how to present evolutionary concepts in a manner that is appropriate for students of different levels of development and ages. Teachers, for instance, must be sensitive to the diversity of religions in their classrooms and create an environment that students who have secular and religious views feel comfortable learning evolution. Teachers must also be able recognize common misconceptions regarding evolution and be able to address them in the classroom. Additionally, teachers should have access to a range of resources to teach evolution and be able locate them quickly.
In this context, Thinking Evolutionarily Convocation played an important role in bringing together evolutionary researchers and educators from a variety of sectors to discuss the best practices for teaching Evolution. Attendees included representatives of scientific societies, educational researchers, officials from government funding agencies and curriculum designers. mouse click the up coming post of these diverse parties led to the identification of a common set of recommendations that will form the foundation for future actions.
A key recommendation is that the study of evolution should be integrated in every science curriculum at every level. To achieve this the National Science Education Standards (NRC) require that evolution be taught in a unified manner across all sciences using a sequence of concepts that are developmental appropriate. A new publication from the NRC offers guidelines to schools on how to integrate evolution into the life science curriculum.
Multiple studies have proven that a more comprehensive presentation of evolution is linked to better understanding by students and belief in the existence of evolution. It is difficult to quantify the causality of teaching in the classroom because school curricula don't change in a random manner and are influenced by the timing of state boards of education and gubernatorial election. To overcome this issue, I use a longitudinal data set that allows me to account for year and state fixed effects and the individual-level variation in teacher beliefs about the evolution of their curriculum.
Teachers who are more comfortable teaching evolution also have fewer internal barriers. This is in line with the idea that more experienced faculty are less likely to be hesitant about teaching about evolution in the classroom, and may be more likely to employ strategies such as the reconciliatory method which is used to increase undergraduate students' acceptance of evolution.