A dialogue among primates: creationism in Mexican education?)

Abstract

As in other countries in which Catholicism is an important part of the cultural background, Mexican society as a whole is not only predominantly secular, but also takes for granted the existence of strong laical institutions. These include our public school system, where evolutionary biology has been part of curricula without leading to rejection from the Church. In contrast to fundamentalist groups, Catholics tend not to read the Old Testament as the literal truth, but as a depiction of the ways in which divine creation, when it is accepted, may have taken place. The high number of fundamentalist missionaries and the influence of American creationists must be acknowledged as a potential threat to Mexican public education, together with the reduced budgets for primary and secondary schools, poor libraries and laboratories and, equally significant, the reduced attention to teachers’ working conditions and social appreciation.