Scientific ignorance and the theory of evolution in Malaysia

[Young]

Originally Posted by youngyew

Anyway, I have to say that the methodology of this study is seriously flawed. "Human beings as we know today developed from earlier species of animals" is a potentially misleading statement and could easily have been rejected by people who might have been scientifically literate. When you say "developed from earlier species of animals", people could easily have conjured an image of a monkey, or even a donkey morphing into a human (an imagery which would be easily rejected based on "common sense" alone); and this is obviously not what human evolution actually is.

Agreed. The statement is rather misleading but for all intents and purposes, it conveys the most controversial point about the theory of evolution- that we evolved gradually instead of being created. The statement in itself is a decent gauge of the understanding of evolution as anyone with some knowledge of the theory would agree with the statement.

That being said, they could've worded it better. Off the top of my head, a better statement would be:

All living things including modern humans, evolved from primitive ancestors over millions of years.

Originally Posted by plawks

Evolution isn't in the SPM syllabus but last time I checked it is in the STPM syllabus.

Yep, evolution is covered pretty well in STPM. I was duly impressed when I checked their biology textbook 6 months ago.

[youngyew]

Originally Posted by Young

The statement in itself is a decent gauge of the understanding of evolution as anyone with some knowledge of the theory would agree with the statement.

Yup, anyone with a proper education in biology would have answered yes. However, I suspected that if the statement is worded more properly, a lot more people would have answered "unsure" rather than "false".

I have to say that the omission of evolution in SPM Biology is most likely intentional and political in nature. Evolution is as much THE core of biology as newton's law of motion and gravitation is the core of physics; not teaching evolution in the first few chapters of SPM biology would be like not teaching Newton's law of motions in the first chapter of physics.

[Nicholas92]

Originally Posted by Young

I'm surprised not so much by the public response, but by MASTIC's declaration that evolution/BBT are false and that 'scientists in Malaysia' seem to agree with them. Any scientist worth his/her salt will say that evolution is an irrefutable fact.

Hmmm true...

What gets me (well this is a general thing) is that they could just justify evolution anyway. What's to stop them from saying God implemented evolution?

Maybe we'll find out they think the world is flat too.

[vseehua]

Originally Posted by youngyew

I would have to disagree with this - in Malaysia most doctors give out antibiotics either due to pressure from the patients themselves (due to their misconception), or pressure from the clinic's boss. Yes, some places force their GPs to prescribe antibiotics for viral illnesses because they make money out of it.

This doesn't bode well for future proper use of antibiotics.

[Nicholas92]

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/12/...e-creationism/

South Korean Textbooks Embrace Creationism

In South Korea, a growing antievolution movement has successfully laid claim to young students’ minds — or, at least, their textbooks. The country’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced last month that many South Korean textbook publishers will begin producing revised editions that will for the first time exclude discussions and examples of evolution. Biologists in Seoul are alarmed by the move, noting that scientists were not consulted by the ministry in this decision, reports the journal Nature.

The controversy should be familiar to Americans, who in recent years have watched several states spar over the constitutionality of teaching alternative theories in public schools. But while Americans have seen the theory of intelligent design make inroads against Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, South Korea’s latest changes are unabashedly rooted in the Book of Genesis.

For instance, the country’s leading science institute, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, has a creationism display on its campus. And in 2008, the Korea Association of Creation Research (KACR) sponsored a very successful exhibition on creationism at Seoul Land, a popular amusement park. KACR claims that the exhibition attracted more than 116,000 visitors in just a few months and that the park is now considering extending the program for up to a year.

About a third of South Koreans surveyed in 2009 for a documentary titled The Era of God and Darwin said they did not believe in evolution, a figure consistent with the global average, according to an Ipsos/Reuters poll. Yet efforts to institutionalize “creation science” seem to be more successful in South Korea than in the U.S., which maintains a higher proportion of evolutionary skeptics.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, South Africa and Brazil all outrank South Korea in percentage of the population that believes in creationism, according to the Ipsos/Reuters poll. Conversely, Sweden, Germany, China, Belgium and Japan boast the highest proportion of evolutionists.

Even South Korea. This I'm a bit more surprised with (or maybe I just don't know South Korea very well). But then again, same problem in the US...

I do like that the science guys in the US are pretty independent.

[adele123]

^ Asian countries... wahahahaha... (seriously, i have no idea).

Btw, if they do say things like God implemented evolution, they would really be asking for troubles

Based on the statement “Human beings as we know them today developed from earlier species of animals”:

as mentioned earlier, wording of question is bad... i think it matters in a survey, maybe i'm wrong

Over 90% did not know or were unsure that antibiotics killed bacteria and not viruses.

owh... i think i could have been one of the 90%... got tricked... despite the fact that i do know the truth...

THEY NEED TO PUT BBT ON TV

what's worse is how these idiots actually said bbt and et is false... BAHAHAHA... oh well... Don't know if i can trust the effectiveness/non-bias of their survey, i think i should for now.

Seriously, I find it really disappointing that ministry of S&T can't/afraid to be independent. So much for instilling public awareness on S&T.

will read through the international comparisons tomorrow

[youngyew]

I am still interested in finding out whether matrikulasi which is "the equivalent of STPM" teaches evolution in biology. Can anyone help find out?

UPDATE: According to this page, evolution is indeed in the syllabus of matrikulasi, under "biodiversity".

[plawks]

Originally Posted by youngyew

I am still interested in finding out whether matrikulasi which is "the equivalent of STPM" teaches evolution in biology. Can anyone help find out?

UPDATE: According to this page, evolution is indeed in the syllabus of matrikulasi, under "biodiversity".

The variation chapter do introduce the concept of selection. Though I did Matriculation I do use and own F6 textbooks too. Evolution is under Chapter 23: Variation and Theory of Evolution for STPM.

If you really compare the chapters for both syllabi you'll see that evolution is REMOVED from the matriculation syllabus for the chapter. Let me list the subtopics of the chapter.

Chapter 8: Variation (Matriculation)
Introduction
Continuous and Discontinuous Variations
Sources of Variation
Selection and Speciation

Chapter 23: Variation and Theory of Evolution (STPM - Longman text)
23.1 Variation
23.1.1 Continuous and discontinuous variation
23.1.2 Source of variation
23.2 Selection
23.2.1 Natural selection
23.2.2 Artificial selection
23.3 Speciation
23.3.1 Concept of species
23.3.2 Speciation process
23.4 Evolution
23.4.1 Lamarck's theory
23.4.2 Darwin-Wallace's theory
24.4.3 Evidence of evolution

Topics of variation, selection and speciation are taught in both Matriculation and STPM. But evolution is not taught in Matriculation, only STPM. I'm bummed. But interestingly, "Evoluntionary Relationship in Plant and Animal Kingdom" is not in the STPM syllabus under Biodiversity but covered in Matriculation.

[youngyew]

Yes I was referring to the evolutionary relationship bit. So what is the evolutionary relationship bit if it's not about evolution itself?

Anyway how do you really teach natural selection without introducing the overall concept of evolution? That's like teaching pythagorean theorem without introducing what a right-angled triangle is.

[plawks]

Originally Posted by youngyew

Yes I was referring to the evolutionary relationship bit. So what is the evolutionary relationship bit if it's not about evolution itself?

Anyway how do you really teach natural selection without introducing the overall concept of evolution? That's like teaching pythagorean theorem without introducing what a right-angled triangle is.

In "Evoluntionary Relationship in Plant and Animal Kingdom" the phylogenetic tree of the plant kingdom and animal kingdom are introduced. It was a convenient way for them to introduce it in the Biodiversity chapter.

But there was no real mention of Lamarck's Theory and Darwin's Theory at all in Matriculation. The Variation chapter was abruptly cut off after introducing selection and speciation, they didn't wander deeper into evolution. Yea the chapter is sort of incomplete. Lame.