Creationism in the Philippines?

For the most part, the controversy regarding evolution and creation has largely been confined to the United States. In my own predominantly Catholic country, I suspect that a large proportion of people believe in a literal Genesis, but this is probably due to the ignorance that arises from poverty, rather than any active creationist movement. After all, my own high school education (in a private Catholic school) has not been lacking in teaching evolutionary theory, and I have never heard of any attempt to introduce creationism or intelligent design in high school science classrooms.Until today. My younger sister, a high school sophomore also in a Catholic private school, showed me a copy of S&T Digest, a magazine for young people approved by our Department of Education as a supplementary material for science and technology education, and distributed to high school students. The cover story was entitled "Challenging Darwin", and it read as follows:

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(Cover Page)
Challenging Darwin
Evolution is a central and unifying idea in biology as relativity is to physics and the periodic table is to chemistry. Learn about new theories and findings that challenge Darwin's theory of evolution.

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(Article)
Charles Darwin never really said that humans descended from apes. What the English naturalist actually said was that today's plants and animals all came from earlier and simpler kinds of life. According to him, all species inhabiting Earth are a result of repeated "branching" from common ancestors. This process, which came to be called evolution, took millions of years to happen, during which every single species went through many changes.

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A shocking idea

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The ideas of Darwin shocked society when they were published in his book The Origin of Species in 1859. Before his book, people had other thoughts about how living this started. Many people believed that God or a "supreme being," made each kind of plants and animals. Until today, many cultures around the world have some kind of creation story that describes how the universe was made and how all living things were created.

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Nearly one and a half centuries since Darwin's "theory of evolution" came out, it is surprising that many people remain unpersuaded by his ideas. To say the least, while evolution has become one of the most important concepts in the study of life science, is still widely misunderstood.

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A survey in the United States (U.S.) conducted in 2001 showed that no less than 45% of responding adults agreed that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10 000 years or so." They believed evolution played no role in shaping the world. For 37% of the respondents, divine initiative got things started, with no evolution as the creative means, thereby allowing both room for God and Darwin. Only 12% totally subscibed to Darwin's ideas.

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If the evolution-creation debate matters at all, it is because in recent years, the origin of life has become a delicate subject in the U.S. as educators wrestled with what to teach their students. While evolution has been generally included in textbooks for many years, the teaching of alternative concepts such as creationism and intelligent design is now gaining wider support.

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Small changes, big changes

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Essentially, the theory of evolution can be divided into two parts: micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Micro-evolution means small changes take place within a species to make that species better suited to its environment. This concept, called natural selection, suggets that the best adapted organisms are selected to pass on their charachteristics to the next generation. This idea is called "survival of the fittest."

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On the other hand, macro-evolution claims that major changes in the genes of organisms take place over a long period of time, allowing one species to evolve into another. This means some fish could evolve into insects, birds and mammals.

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Of the two ideas, the former has been well-supported with scientific evidence. The latter, however, has become hotly debatable. Fossil records, which provide evidence for evolution, have fallen short of showing life evolving from one species to another. All they have shown are similarities of anatomy that led scientists to discern mysterious patterns among what Darwin called "closely allied" species, that is, similar creatures sharing rouighly the same body plans.

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This is the reason for the association of apes with humans. Paleontologists, however, have failed to dig up any fossils of species at intermediate stages of evolution and this problem has been known as the "missing link."

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Evolution vs. creation

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Today, biologists see it neccessary to defend the thoery of evolution as advocates of a new concept called intelligent design (ID) claim that the latter should be taught in the science classroom as an alternative to the controversial ideas of Darwin.

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Not quite far removed from creationism, ID claims that intelligent causes are responsible for the origin of the universe and of life in all its diversity. it holds that certain things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. The ID movement includes a scientific research program for investigaing such intelligent causes and challenging naturalistic explanations of origins.

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Defenders of the evolutionary theory maintain that evolution in action can be proven. They reason that evolution proceeds slowly -- too slowly to be observed by a single scientist within a research lifetime. Scientists could spend decades where Charles Darwin spent weeks. Science chronicler David Quammen who did an in-depth feature entitled "Was Darwin Wrong?" for the National Geographic sums it up, echoing Darwin when he wrote: "This is how science is supposed to work. Ideas come and go, but the fittest survive."

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Naturally, I was horrified to see that this American anomaly has invaded my side of the globe. To other evolutionists in this forum, what is your opinion of this article? I certainly don't think it correctly portrays the issue, but would any of you perceive this as a deliberate attempt to promote creationism or ID? Or would you say the writer has only been fooled by the incessant promotions of the American creationist/ID movement? Should I be worried about the status of my country's already inferior science education? What do you suggest I do about this?This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 02-21-2005 10:43 AMThis message has been edited by Aximili23, 02-25-2005 04:48 AM

RH, custard,Thanks for your participation in this thread, but I think you've gone fairly off-track...

I particularly have problems with the following quotes.

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Essentially, the theory of evolution can be divided into two parts: micro-evolution and macro-evolution.

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Weren't the concepts of micro and macro-evolution invented by creationists? I've never heard of these terms being used in mainstream science, other than in the context of a debate with creationists. I thought these terms were only created so that creationists can attack large-scale evolution without being refuted by the fact that small-scale evolution has been repeatedly observed. But as I understand it, scientists don't normally find it necessary to make a distinction between the two. Right?

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Fossil records, which provide evidence for evolution, have fallen short of showing life evolving from one species to another. All they have shown are similarities of anatomy that led scientists to discern mysterious patterns among what Darwin called "closely allied" species, that is, similar creatures sharing rouighly the same body plans.

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Isn't this also completely inaccurate? Haven't plenty of fossil records demonstrated how life evolves from one species to another? And the term "mysterious patterns" sounds very misleading; I haven't heard of any repeated biological structures for which an evolutionary rationale could not be presented.

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Paleontologists, however, have failed to dig up any fossils of species at intermediate stages of evolution and this problem has been known as the "missing link."

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Isn't this also patently untrue? I'm not a paleontologist, but I thought Austrolepithecus was widely regarded as a missing link?

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The ID movement includes a scientific research program for investigaing such intelligent causes and challenging naturalistic explanations of origins.

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And finally, isn't this inaccurate in the sense that the so-called research done in ID isn't really scientific? After all, the Discovery Institute does more work in ID promotion than actual laboratory research.

You're right of course, but I think it's safe to say that mainstream science agrees with the validity of such fossils. From what I've read in other threads, the creationist arguments against the 'intermediate' or 'transitional' nature of these fossils are far from convincing. In fact, I've never even encountered a creationist who was willing to explain what a valid transitional fossil would be like.

Can anybody else give their take on the article I put up in the OP? I'm planning to write the editors who published the article; but before I do I'm really interested in hearing what others have to say. After all, if I point out any inaccurate or misleading points in the article, I want to be sure that I'm right. I'd also like to see if anybody thinks that this is a real attempt to introduce creationism/ID in Philippine high schools. I may be overreacting to a little thing, after all.