South Korea Surrenders To Creationist Demands On Evolution Textbooks

There goes South Korea's lead when it comes to science education.

While I am far from delighted to see creationist claptrap ooze any further out of the dark ages than it has to, it would be a dangerous underestimation to operate on the assumption that believing stupid things automatically makes people stupid(stupid people are quite adept and believing stupid things, and generally do; but once a smart person gets ahold of a stupid thing, they are far better equipped to cling to it through means other than pig-headed obstinacy).

It's perfectly possible(and has been done) for creationists(YECs, even) to do perfectly adequate science by means of some 'microevolution/macroevolution' flimflam, 'working out the implications of evolution as a contrafactual hypothesis', or simply not thinking about it much from Monday to Friday and thinking the opposite on Sundays. In areas of science that aren't biological, of course, it's even easier, and engineering is practically like home(not that engineers need to believe in intelligent design; but the belief that complex systems were intelligently designed isn't exactly crippling when your job is intelligently designing complex systems...)

Unfortunately, when it gets to the point that the textbook wars are being lost, that often is a sign that Cletus the slack-jawed yokel has grabbed the reigns; but one cannot simply depend on a self-correction induced by science falling apart thereafter.

(Incidentally, this also isn't wildly surprising. South Korea has a surprisingly strong Team Jesus contingent; best known for punching well about its weight, per capita, in terms of sending out missionaries to assorted scenic and/or hostile locales.)

j r martinez long island serial killer wizard of oz jeff green saturday night live aortic aneurysm minnesota timberwolves