I Take This Personally

Serbia takes a bold step back into the Middle Ages
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/serbia_takes_a_bold_step_back_into_the_middle_ages/

Serbia strikes blow against evolution Creationism put on equal footing with Darwinism
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5932128/

Serbia vs. Darwin
No, that's not fair. It really should be "the current Serbian government vs. Darwin".
http://www.bookcase.com/~claudia/mt/archives/000392.html#more
"The law has been redrawn. So, our kids still learn Darwin, and Educational Comitee (or something like that, I'm really not much into all that) is going to think about taking disciplinary measures against Colic."


Hmmm, I went to school in Belgrade in the 1970/80s. Darwin was hammered into our heads all the time in school. He belonged to the holly trinity of idols we had to know every little biographical detail about, the other two being Tito and Marx.

Church was weak at the time. I remember seeing little blue books, translations of Duane Gish stuff, sold in church stores, as well as in houses of elderly farmers out in the country. It is an Orthodox church, after all, never-changing by definition, so it is to be expected that it would not give Darwin a second look.

I understand that Colic is being investigated now, and that her decision has been retracted. I am pained to see that kids in my fatherland are force-fed religion in school these days.

I am so proud of rigorous scientific education I got there in my time - something the US educational system cannot begin to match. After finishing high school I had more biology under my belt than kids who graduate in biology from ANY U.S. College. In grades 1-2, we had "Understanding Science and Society", in grades 3-4 that was split into separate subjects: "Understanding Nature" and "Understanding Society". By the time I graduated from high school I had behind me 8 years of physics, 7 years of chemistry, 6 years of geography (including basics of cosmology, geology, oceanography and meteorology), 8 years of history, 6 years of technical education, 12 years of math, and 8 years of biology (plus also stuff like 12 years of PE, 10 years of music and art, 12 years of Serbo-Croatian language and world literature, 12 years of English, 4 years of French, the inevitable 2 years of "Defense" and 2 years of "Marxism", etc.). Being a biology major in high school, I also had a year of botany, a year of zoology, a year of microbiology, a year of ecology, a year of biochemistry, a year of molecular biology, a year of general biology lab, and a year of biochemistry/molecular biology lab. Many college graduates here do not have that much science.

I guess the good old days of Eastern European superior education are gone....