Romania Removes Theory of Evolution from Schools

Science | Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 5:14:58 pm PST

The country of Romania takes a big step backward: 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.

Information on natural selection, how fish turned into lizards and, more or less, a summary of the first 4.5 billion years of the world until man walked the earth is now optional.

“We don’t teach the theory of evolution anymore,” said one 38 year-old Bucharest-based biology teacher.