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Dear Colleagues, in increasingly shorter intervals the creationism /anti-evolution topic swapped from the U.S. colleagues to us in Europe. Few years ago I was simply astonished about that phenomenon (I compared it with other strange US American oddities like e.g. “Wrestling” and “Death Rows”), later on I was somewhat bored about the ongoing discussions here at the paleonet-list, but in the last time I began to take the problem really serious. How could it be that in the US, the state of Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, Yale etc., etc. Creationism represents not only a funny idea of some outsiders but a point of view of a considerable percentage of the people? Why in the US and not in some rural areas of the Catholic Bavarian Germany (oh benedetto..) or Sicily? For me that speaks primarily of a strong disintegration within the US society. This disintegration is a big threat not only for the US but for the entire First World. In Europe at the time we face a strong neoliberal reorganization of the educational sector that is in big parts oriented at US models. In Germany in the last years we introduced the bachelor and masters degrees at Universities with the aim to delete the traditional “Diplom”. The tendencies going toward a modulation of education in small parts that are most effective in order to produce flexible graduates. Effective, means economically effective. In 2004 the leading parties in Germany initiated a discussion toward German elite universities... My impression is that the trend toward an economically efficient education is accompanied with a strong disintegration between rich / poor, flexible / inflexible, enlightened / traditional etc. Moreover, this trend could be generally in complete contrast to an ideal of enlightenment. Could that be also a factor in the US education system that causes the problem “Creationism”? This is now my question here at paleonet: I never in my life faced a real Creationist so please appreciate my probably naive questions. How is the experience of the US paleo/geology/evolution teachers: where are the lines between Creationists and enlightened? Are they between classes, between races, between geographic areas, between confessions? What can we in Europe learn from your conflicts? Does anyone know a reference / book / paper / internet-forum where the probable connection between US educational system – social disintegration - Creationism is explicitly discussed? Thanks Björn -- ---------------------- Dr. Björn Kröger Museum für Naturkunde an der Humboldt Universität Berlin Invalidenstr. 43 D-10115 Berlin Germany http://www.museum.hu-berlin.de/home.asp +++ Lassen Sie Ihren Gedanken freien Lauf... z.B. per FreeSMS +++ GMX bietet bis zu 100 FreeSMS/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/mail -- ---------------------- Dr. Björn Kröger Museum für Naturkunde an der Humboldt Universität Berlin Invalidenstr. 43 D-10115 Berlin Germany http://www.museum.hu-berlin.de/home.asp +++ Lassen Sie Ihren Gedanken freien Lauf... z.B. per FreeSMS +++ GMX bietet bis zu 100 FreeSMS/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/mail
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