A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx. The announcement has shocked a number of biologists who complain that they were not consulted. According to Dayk Jan, an evolutionary scientist as Seoul National University, the South Korean ministry sent the petition directly to the publishing companies where they judged it for themselves. The campaign was led by the Society for Textbook Revise (STR), which aims to delete the “error” of evolution from textbooks to “correct” students’ views of the world, according to the society’s website. In its defense, STR claims that its group includes professors of biology and high-school science teachers. According to the report in Nature: 
 
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 The STR is also campaigning to remove content about "the evolution of humans" and "the adaptation of finch beaks based on habitat and mode of sustenance", a reference to one of the most famous observations in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. To back its campaign, the group highlights recent discoveries that Archaeopteryx is one of many feathered dinosaurs, and not necessarily an ancestor of all birds2. Exploiting such debates over the lineage of species “is a typical strategy of creation scientists to attack the teaching of evolution itself”, says Joonghwan Jeon, an evolutionary psychologist at Kyung Hee University in Yongin. The STR is an independent offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research (KACR), according to KACR spokesman Jungyeol Han. Thanks in part to the KACR’s efforts, creation science — which seeks to provide evidence in support of the creation myth described in the Book of Genesis — has had a growing influence in South Korea, although the STR itself has distanced itself from such doctrines. In early 2008, the KACR scored a hit with a successful exhibition at Seoul Land, one of the country’s leading amusement parks. According to the group, the exhibition attracted more than 116,000 visitors in three months, and the park is now in talks to create a year-long exhibition. Nearly one-third of South Koreans don't believe in evolution, claiming that there isn't enough scientific evidence to support it, or that it contradicted their religious beliefs. The numbers approach those in the United States, where a survey by the research firm Gallup has shown that around 40% of Americans do not believe that humans evolved from less advanced forms of life. “The biggest problem is that there are only 5–10 evolutionary scientists in the country who teach the theory of evolution in undergraduate and graduate schools,” he says. Having seen the fierce debates over evolution in the United States, he adds, some scientists also worry that engaging with creationists might give creationist views more credibility among the public. He is now organizing a group of experts, including evolutionary scientists and theologians who believe in evolution, to counter the STR’s campaign by working to improve the teaching of evolution in the classroom, and in broader public life.
– A group opposed to the teaching of evolution has won a major victory in the Deep South—of the Korean peninsula. A creationist group has successfully petitioned South Korean publishers to remove several references to evolution from high school textbooks, Nature reports. The group—set up by the US Institute for Creation Research in the '80s as Christianity spread across South Korea—says it wants the "error" of evolution removed from textbooks to "correct" students' view of the world. Biologists complain that the government did not consult them on the issue, but merely forwarded the group's petition to publishers. "When something like this comes to fruition, the scientific community can be caught flat-footed," a director at the National Center for Science Education tells the New York Daily News. "Scientists are not by their nature political." Polls show that some 40% of South Koreans don't accept the theory of evolution, about the same proportion as in the US, but much greater than in Canada and in many European countries, io9 notes.