[Textbook-l] Re: Textbooks

[Jimmy Wales]

I very strongly disagree with LittleDan's claim that the U.S.  is
"backwards".  But we shouldn't spend too much time on this, as we're
getting pretty far afield from discussing textbooks.

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> Seriously, I haven't heard of anyone other than radical US
> protestant sects supporting creationism.

I read in Wikipedia that a poll conducted by the UN revealed that "18%
of Europeans polled believed that man was created divinely by God
(although this does not necessarily exclude evolution of the rest of
nature)."  On a talk page, someone claimed that the same survey found
that 33% of people in Poland believe the same thing.  (I've been
unable to find the survey online, so I can't confirm.)

It's worth noting, too, that while the Catholic Church stance on
evolution is complicated, it's a form of "intelligent design".

A serious evaluation of why theories liket his have more impact in the
U.S. needs to consider the impact of the First Amendment and on the
way the school curricula are controlled by local school boards in the
U.S.  In other nations, scientific elites have more power, as opposed
to the power of ordinary unscientific people here.

See:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ecc-account.html

for more on Creationism in Europe.