Romania removes theory of evolution from school curriculum:
Romania's withdrawal of the theory of evolution from the school curriculum could be evidence of a growing conservative tendency in teaching. Evolution has been removed from the school curriculum in a move which, pressure groups argue, distorts children's understanding of how the world came into being.
Meanwhile, religious studies classes continue to tell Romanian children that God made the world in seven days.
The theory of the Origin of Species and the evolution of humans is no longer present in the compulsory curriculum, through a nationwide decision made under the previous Government in 2006. Before the change, Darwin's theory was taught to pupils aged 18 or 19 years old. This was also in the curriculum during the Communist period of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
I'm not sure about the veracity of this story, it seems polemical. But with the outbreak of Creationism in Turkey and Serbia, my priors for southeast Europe and its environs have shifted. Romania is evidence that even decades of state supported atheism are irrelevant if basic investment in education and human capital are not made, I suspect that the human mind is wired for Creationism.
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Given that the state which supported the atheism is no longer exactly in favour, it's not entirely surprising that people are turning to these sorts of beliefs.
Or, alternatively, that the religion was conserved secretely as part of a reaction against the governement (seen that in Hungary), and the theory of evolution is seen as a part of the things imposed by the dictature, and therefore tainted by association...
Unless Romania's religious circle reacted quite differently from Bulgaria's (where I'm from) under communism, this isn't related to any secret reaction against the government from communist times. Not to mention that it's been a long time since the fall of communism already.
However, at least in Bulgaria, the so called "elite" (i.e. media/political people) tend to have the misconception that somehow religion is necessary for a good society. But as far as I know, Romania is doing much better in terms of science investment, education and research than most eastern european countries, so this is pretty surprising.
It's so sad to see that in some Eastern-European countries severing the ties with communist past frequently means wiping out all the rational/progressive ideas that communism brought. It's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
And just for the record, Creationism is not taught in any of the state-owned schools in Serbia. (I know nothing about the private ones, but they most likely follow the state-prescribed curricula). The attempt to introduce Creationism caused such an outrage in 2004 that the right-wing minister who tried to do it resigned shortly after the incident.
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3663196.stm )
Unfortunately, it's true.
Something called "History of Religion", but what is probably more like American "Bible Studies" is taught as an "optional" class, but to get the children out of it the parents have to fill some paperwork including declaring a reason for this, and there is some social pressure against it. So very few parents bother.
And last year Evolution was removed from the curriculum. The secretary for education and science has said that it is still taught, just not explicitly demanded by the curriculum. And in the same modification of the curriculum, there were removed other things like Voltaire, Camus and Nietzsche from literature. So it's pretty obvious what the reason was.
But this happened before some heated elections, and amongst multiple accusations of corruption, so it kinda slipped by unnoticed. There was a little protest against it, with some online petitions and a march of protest, but the petitions were completely ignored, and the march only gathered a few tens of students, also easy to ignore among marches with thousand of people. Then everybody forgot about that.
Now we just had a parliamentary election and we'll probably get a new government witch hopefully will get a new curriculum in place. But if someone could raise some shit over this it would be great, it's extremely embarrassing to be the only country in UE that's still in the middle ages. Thank you for noticing and please Notice it some more.
Wasn't the old Soviet Union fairly anti-evolutionist for various reasons? I seem to recall that they bought into more Lamarkian view and even hinged their agricultural progress on a scientist who rejected Darwin (with expected results) As I recall the "thought police" in the USSR even considered Darwinism something to look into.
Given that I can see nations formerly under Soviet control being anti-evolutionist without necessarily buying into Christian fundamentalist views of Creation.
This doesn't sound like it applies to Romania which appears caught up in the sway of a resurgent Russian orthodox Church. (I assume that's the influence - I don't know the religious history of the region)
romanian orthodox :-) many of the orthodox churches are autocephalus....
Creationism is only taught in an optional (as in parents can choose if their child should attend) "Religion" class. "Theory of Evolution" was taught as a distinct discipline for one year only, between 2006-2007, the current situation is that evolutionism is part of the Biology class curriculum, just like in the Communist times. When high school students have lessons on "Origin and evolution of the human genome", "Organization of genetic material: Comparative Genomics - establishing the existing evolutionary relations between different groups of organisms" (my bad translations, but you get the idea), how could someone claim that Romania is going Creationist is beyond me.
Hi! Just found your blog which looks quite interesting!
on topic: I am not from Romania but its neighbour. Still I am pretty sure the information is misinterpreted. Theory of Evolution is pretty solidly included in the secular education system in this part of the world. Most biology teachers would be atheist, anyway.
Upon reading the remainder of the article, these two remarks give some context that is more credible:
'But the Minister of Education, Cristian Adomnitei, argues that biology is taught within the context of evolution. "This subject can be found implicitly from middle school to high-school," the Minister tells The Diplomat. "Do you think that the studies about the world where we live, its evolution or genetics can ignore the evolution theory? This is impossible." '
'No one is accusing the Orthodox Church of any kind of conspiracy to replace evolution with creationism by the back door. "The only motivation I can see is the lack of vision on pupils' education in Romania," says Cernea.'
This last point I suspect is a real problem but the 'removal of evolutionism' is just newspaper scare-mongering. The cultural situation in East Europe is totally different from that in USA. 'Creationism' cannot even be translated in the languages here.
Hi Razib,
in my opinion it is a very bad idea to remove the theory of evolution from the school curriculum. I think it is very important to teach the pupils how the world and the humans itselfs "were created" and how everything worked during this time. Children or pupil in general should not only learn or get to know stupefying facts about their world. They have to understand how, like you have already mentioned, the world became into being.
I hope that their parents are not very conservative and will try to explain their children the theory of evolution to enhance their childrens' understanding of the world.