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Uhm, dat kan nog vies tegenvallen. In Iran wordt evolutie gewoon onderwezen. In de sjitische geloofsleer is namelijk veel ruimte voor het gebruik van de rede, vergelijkbaar met de moeiteloze houding van Katholieken tot evolutie itt de letterlijk schriftlezende (gereformeerde) protestanten bijv. Lees onderstaande tekst:
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SCIENCE AND EVOLUTION IN IRAN
In the Islamic Republic of Iran,power is concentrated in the posi-tion of Supreme Leader,a cleric who in turn determines the eligibil-ity of individuals for elected officeor government appointments.The Iranian Ministry of Education is notcomprised of clerics but is vettedby religious authorities;however,the Experimental Sciences Divisionof the ministry,in describing itseducational philosophy and generalgoals for science education,makesno explicit references to Islam,though there are two subtleacknowledgments of a “creator of the world”and a “creator of naturallaws”(Guruh-ye Darsi-ye Ulum-eTajrobi 2009).Far more prominent,however,are the themes of eco-nomic development and the princi-pal role of science and technology in the improvement of nationalinfrastructure.Science educationobjectives stress the learning of practical skills,critical inquiry,andthe fostering of a scientifically liter-ate citizenry.In contrast to theSaudi curriculum,science is notdescribed as simply an outgrowth of Islam or subject to the precon-ceived doctrines of any religion —rather it is affirmed as a separate, valid field of knowledge,and one of crucial interest to individual andsocietal welfare.The 5th-grade science curricu-lum,covering the final year of pri-mary school,mandates “TheHistory of the Earth”as an essentialtopic in the subject of earth sci-ence.The 5th-grade textbook devotes a chapter to the topic, with a subsection on “A ShortHistory of Life”(Tehrani and others2008:55).
The first sentence in thissection highlights the essential dif-ference between the Iranian andSaudi presentations of scientificknowledge:“Geologists,via studiesof fossils,have arrived at the con-clusion that life began in the sea.”Portraying geologists,and scien-tists in general,as the authoritative voices of scientific knowledge,andemphasizing the empirical evi-dence underlying the textbook’sassertions,constitutes the organiz-ing theme of the Iranian sciencetextbooks at all levels.The evolutionary emergence of life over millions of years isdescribed in simple terms.Thetransition to terrestrial life is cred-ited to the emergence of plants ondry land:“Afterward,the water andair of planet Earth changed such that a suitable environment for thedevelopment of reptiles came toexist”(56),thus heralding the ageof dinosaurs.The extinction of dinosaurs “about 65 million yearsago”is noted,followed by thediversification of mammals.Thenext page contains a section on“The Changing of Continents andSeas,”beginning:“Geologists say inthe beginning only one landmassand one giant ocean existed onearth.About 200 million years ago,this large landmass slowly began todivide”(57).In the science textbook for 8th grade,the final year of compulsory education,the topic of evolutionappears alongside geology (Amani2008).The chapter opens with fos-sils and a review of the history of life,with a clearly illustrated geo-logic time diagram (31).
The pagefollowing the diagram is adorned with fossil images,most strikingly aspecimen of Archaeopteryx with the caption “This is the first birdon earth,which also has some rep-tile traits”(32).The next five pagesare devoted to a brief introductionto “The Evolution of Organisms”in which the tracing of morphologi-cal changes in evolutionary lin-eages is declared “[o]ne of themost important applications of fos-sils”(33).In contrast to 10th-gradeSaudi students,who are taught thatadaptations are the God-givenattributes of created kinds,Iranianeighth-graders are taught aboutadaptations in the context of muta-tions and natural selection,exem-plified by the following:New traits arising by a muta-tion are mostly harmful anddetrimental to life,[but] some-times in a rare mutation usefultraits also appear.An organ-ism possessing one or moreuseful traits appears,findsgreater compatibility with theenvironment compared to itsconspecifics,and gradually the number of [organisms with those traits] increases inthe environment.(35)Perhaps of greatest concern on theinternational level is the evolutioneducation of future Iranian scien-tists — in other wor ds,thoseIranian students who complete thesecondary experimental sciencestrack and enroll in the correspond-ing pre-university course.The biology textbook for pish daneshgahi (Karam al-Dini and others 2008) includes a 40-page chapter on evo-lution,as well as chapters on popu-lation genetics and “populationdynamics and biological communi-ties”(147).The evolution chapter,divided into three sections,pro- vides a comprehensive introduc-tion to the development of evolu-tionary theory,with the first sec-tion devoted primarily to Darwinand his influences and culminatingin the formulation of the new syn-thesis;the second section to evi-dence of evolution,including pale-ontology,molecular and structuralhomology,and embryology,with discussion of evolutionary ratesand punctuated equilibrium (94);and the third section to examplesof natural selection,such as pep-pered moths (97) and the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant onDarwin’s finches (98).The Iraniantextbook humanizes Darwin with arelatively detailed account of hislife and a discussion of its historicalcontext,along with the develop-ment of support for Darwin’s ideasby later scientists.[b\Where the Saudi textbook dismisses evolution asfraudulent science,the Iranian textannounces “nearly all biologiststoday have accepted that Darwin’stheory can explain the basis for thediversity of life on earth”(75).[/b] Human evolution is conspicu-ously absent throughout discus-sions of evolution in Iranian text-books.The population geneticschapter reveals that natural selec-tion does in fact operate onhumans,giving the examples of sta-bilizing selection upon newbornbirth weight (122) and heterozy-gote advantage in relation to malar-ia and sickle-cell anemia (129–30). However,explicit attempts to placehumans within the larger picture of evolution do not appear.It is quitepossible that the textbooks’silenceon human evolution is related tothe attempts of the Iranian Ministry of Education to reduce the amountof conflicting information taught inscience and religion classes(Godazgar 2008).Regardless,the extension of nat-ural selection to humans is encour-aging compared to the Saudi insis-tence that God “distinguished[humanity] over the rest of His creation”(al-Habib 2006:106). Of course,what the Iranian sciencetextbooks lack most prominently relative to the Saudi ones are thepreviously mentioned stress on the“Western-ness”of evolutionary the-ory,as well as the pervasive use of a style of “science-in-the-Qur’an”apologetics increasingly commonthroughout the Muslim world as a whole (see Edis 2007).
Waar in Saudische tekstboeken evolutie en Darwin als iets westers wordt voorgedaan en men doodleuk met "wetenschappelijke" Korancitaten komt aanzetten ter vervanging van, beschouwd men in Iran blijkbaar evolutie gewoon als een onderdeel van biologie en onderwijst men het op basis van heersende opvattingen en het aanhalen van autoriteiten op dat gebied. Is ook de reden waarom Iran wetenschappelijk gezien wel zelf produceert en Saudie Arabie totaal niet bijv. Volgens dit onderzoek krijgt de middelbareschool leerling in Iran in zijn laatste jaar met basis evolutie te maken en worden autoriteiten op dat gebied geciteerd, geen religieuze dooddoeners als "het is Westers en wij hebben Allah dus niet zo serieus nemen en alles kan je gewoon in de Koran lezen als je meer wil weten".
Oorlog is de verderzetting van de politiek maar met andere middelen - Clausewitz