7/27/2019 Teaching Evolution in Mexico (a. Lazcano)

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Antonio Lazcano

Mexico

CREDIT:YEYONG

Antonio Lazcano, a biology professor at the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico (UNAM) inMexico City, has studied the origin and early evolution of life for more than 30 years. He was trained

both as an undergraduate and graduate student at UNAM, where he focused on the study of prebioticevolution and the emergence of life. An academic deeply committed to public education, he hasdevoted considerable efforts to scientific journalism and teaching. He is the author of several bookspublished in Spanish, including The Origin of Life, first printed in 1984 and which has become a bestsellerwith more than 600,000 copies sold. He is an avid promoter of evolutionary biology and the study of theorigins of life in Latin America, and has been professor-in-residence or visiting scientist in France,Spain,Cuba, Switzerland, Russia, and the United States. In addition, he has served on many internationaladvisory and review boards, including ones for NASA and other international organizations.He has justbeen reelected president of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, the first LatinAmerican scientist to occupy this position.

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In some of his writings, Charles Darwinexpressed his interest in visiting Mexico.Although he never fulfilled that wish,

Mexicans have reciprocated his interestwith a long-standing commit-ment to his ideas. Based on thecommon misapprehension thatMexicos strong Catholic back-ground has led to a rejectionof evolution, many people inthe United States remain convincedthat teaching and research onthe origins of life must be severelylimited in my countr y. Deriv-ing in part from Spains BlackLegendin which the stunningintolerance exercised by the Inquisi-tion became unfairly viewed insubsequent centuries as iconic ofthe country and its colonial exploitsas a wholethis self-assuring American pre-judice has led many uninformed observers tobelieve that todays Mexicans are the intellec-tually suffocated children of the Counter-Reformation, still ruled by a taciturn Papistchurch that rejects the notion of Darwinianevolution and other major scientific advanceswhile clinging to its theological obsessions.

I am always amused when I am asked bymy American colleagues about the problemsand pressures they imagine I face in Mexicobecause of my interest in lifes beginnings.However, pressure to include creationism in

public pedagogical and research settings hasbeen primarily a phenomenon in the UnitedStates. Only twice during my 30 yearsof teaching about evolutionary biology

and research into the origins oflife, have I encountered religious-based opposition to my work. Inboth cases, it came from evangeli-cal zealots from the United Statespreaching in Mexico. One of thelittle recognized U.S. imports intoMexico is a small flow of cre-ationists, who, through religion,are trying to impose their funda-mentalist beliefs and hinder theteaching of Darwinian evolutionin all levels of schooling.

It is true that the arrival ofDarwinism was an unsettling eventfor a number of Latin American

Catholics, and led to criticism from varioussectors of the Church. However, historianshave recorded no major controversies develop-ing in Mexican society after the publication in1859 ofThe Origin of Species. Such quietudestemmed in part from the fact that Rome doesnot advocate the literal reading of the Biblethe way Protestant evangelists do. Withtime, the clash between the Old Testamentand Darwins ideas faded into a more or lesspeaceful coexistence between the theoriesand discoveries of evolutionary biology,on the one side, and the teachings of

the Church, on theother. Although it mightnot be generally or frequently acknowledgethere has been an age-old tradition of compability between science and the Catholic ChurThe Galileo affair stands out as an anomalomoment of extreme intolerance.

Of course, neither the Church nor its members are monolithic entities. As in other placwith a strong Catholic background, such France, Italy, Spain, and most Latin Americcountries, Mexican society as a whole is nonly predominantly secular, but it also takes fgranted the existence of strong laical instittions. This is a subtle but important distinctithat explains why Mexico and many largeCatholic countries succeed at maintaining extended form of secularism while alsupporting religious freedom. This works long as citizens in these countries express thfreedom within the realm of their personbeliefs and not within a context of pubpolicy-making. It helps here that in LaAmerica most Catholics tend to read the OTestament not as the literal truth, but asdepiction of the ways in which divine creatimay have taken place. It is thus possible to bCatholic Bible-reader, or more generallybeliever in the supernatural origin of life, wiout being a card-carrying creationist who hto reject Darwinian evolution in order maintain logical consistency within a framwork of fundamentalist Christian premises.

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Teaching Evolution in Mexico:

Preaching to the ChoirAntonio Lazcano

ESSAY

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7/27/2019 Teaching Evolution in Mexico (a. Lazcano)

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G L O B A L V O I C E S O F S C I E N C E

A Love Affair with DarwinThe study of the origin of life and other issuesof evolutionary biology run deep in Mexicanculture. This shows up in many ways, includ-ing Diego Riveras cheerful mural paintings ofCharles Darwin in public buildings and thepopularity of Aleksandr Oparins ideas aboutlife emerging from a primordial soup. More

than 70 editions ofThe Origins of Life, one ofOparins earliest books, have been publishedhere and read by generation after generationof high-school students since it was first trans-lated in 1937. Perhaps even more important isthe nationwide exposure for many decades ofMexicos schoolchildren to evolutionary ideasincluded in the textbooks published by theMexican Secretary of Public Education,which are provided free to all students. Thelessons based on these materials are a pre-amble to in-depth teaching of evolution insecondary (middle school)and high schools.

In the early part of the20th century, the Mexicannaturalist Alfonso L. Herrera(18651942) became oneof the most active earlypopularizers of evolution-ary ideas. With relentlessenergy, he lectured, wrote,and established publicmuseums devoted to thepromotion of Darwinism.He also contributed to thescience of evolutionary biology by develop-ing a theory on the autotrophic origins of life,according to which the first cells had beenendowed since their emergence with theplantlike ability to synthesize their owncomponents from carbon dioxide. Althoughnone of Herreras associates built upon histheory, he had a lasting influence in Mexicanbiology. Many years after he died, his con-tributions are still acknowledged, a factthat indirectly helped my own early pro-fessional development.

Some 30 years ago, I became intenselyinterested in the prebiotic significance ofextraterrestrial organic compounds, anddecided to teach a course on the origins of lifeat the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de

Mxico (UNAM). In large part because of theintellectual foundation Herrera had laid downmany decades ago, and the sympathy thatDarwins ideas inspire in Mexico, my pro-posal to teach the coursein spite of myyouth and lack of experiencewas greetedwith considerable enthusiasm by my col-leagues, the university administration, andthe students. To this day, new generations ofstudents continue to flock to this and othercourses on evolutionary biology.

In yet another sign that Mexicos educa-

tors and students embrace Darwinism, myassociates and I are often invited to speak inpublic and private schools, including thoserun by Catholic nuns and priests, to talk aboutthe origin and evolution of life. The list ofvenues includes a conference at the oldestMexican Catholic seminary. Many of the stu-dents and professors at the seminary may

have seen evolution as the unfolding of adivine plan, but they also saw no doctrinalconflict between their own personal faith andDarwins scientific ideas. They even foundhilarious the idea of teaching creationismbased on biblical literalism.

As shown by the opinion article publishedon 7 July 2005 in the New York Times byChristoph Cardinal Schnborn, not all mem-bers of the Catholic hierarchy feel comfort-able with the premises and results of evolu-tionary theory. It is equally true that some

Church thinkers and theologianshave tried to criticize the philosophi-cal tenets of evolutionary theory, butmost tend to accept the results of

experimental research and the gen-eral evolutionary framework, whilemaintaining a spiritualist stand. Thisattitude, which has been prevalentamong Vatican theologians espe-cially since the times of Pope Pius

XII in the middle of the last century, owesmuch to the intellectual sophistication oforders like the Jesuits and the Dominicans.

In his famous 1996 address to thePontifical Academy of Sciences, the late PopeJohn Paul II acknowledged that the theory ofevolution is not a mere hypothesis, while alsoreiterating the supernatural origin of thehuman soul. By shifting emphasis from cre-ation per se, to the origin of the soul, Pope JohnPaul II found a relatively safe common groundto stand on, since scientists are entirely unableto prove (or have no interest in proving) theexistence or nonexistence of the soul. In spiteof such subtleties, most Mexican Catholicsclearly do not view the premises and develop-ments of evolutionary theory as a battleground

or as major theological risk. Stealing the spot-light for the moment for Mexican Catholicsand other Christians are ethical controversiesassociated with new and emerging biotech-nologies, especially those based on stem cells,fertility research, and genetic manipulation

Science Be DamnedIt is hard for Mexicans to understand thehold that religion has in America, and manyof us are baffled by the lax attitude of policy-makers in the United States to the religious

right, who manage to influence ansometimes undermine the public eductional system. Thomas Jeffersons famophrase about the wall of separatiobetween the Church and State may beguiding principle of American politicbut the huge cultural space that evangecal Protestantism and other political

active religious movements have gainedthe United States demonstrates how tenous are the boundaries between the seculand the religious.

As summarized by Noah Feldman in hbookDivided by God, the belief that the Oand New Testaments were literally and vebally inspired is deeply rooted in Americmainstream culture, and remains a pervasiinfluence in many aspects of everyday liincluding elementary and higher education. contrast, Mexico still maintains some anticleical attitudes, and public education bears tsecular trademark of the Enlightenmenwhose introduction into the country was facitated by some prominent priests and Jesuits

Feldmans thesis itself has deep roots. Fmore than a thousand years, wrote ThomH. Huxley in 1843 in the preface to his boScience and Hebrew Tradition, the gremajority of the most highly civilized aninstructed nations in the worldhave heldto be an indisputable truth that, whoever mbe the ostensible writers of the JewisChristian, and Mahometan [Islamic] scritures, God Himself is their real author; ansince their conception of the attributes of tDeity excludes the possibility of error andat least in relation to this particular matterof willful deception, they have drawn the loical conclusion that the denier of the accuraof any statement, the questioner of the bining force of any command, to be found these documents is not merely a fool, butblasphemer. From the point of view of reashe grossly blunders; from that of religion grievously sins.

Although many American churches appeto reject the fundamentalist campaign againDarwinism, some of the most aggressive vesions of creationismincluding the lateone dubbed intelligent design by its chamionshave been growing rapidly in t

fertile soil provided by some of the evangecal churches that sprung up in the 19th aearly 20th centuries. The United States unique among Western countries for ireligiosity. Polls consistently show that onlysmall percentage of Americans hold a secuview of the world, compared with an ovewhelming 40% of the population thbelieves in strict biblical creationism.

This explains in part why following t1987 United States Supreme Court ruling thopposed the teaching of so-called creati

What a guy. In Mexico, Darwin doesntget a lot of grief.

Published by AAAS

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science in the classroom, a new, recycled,highly pragmatic creationism has evolved (ifyou pardon the pun). It is a movement that haseliminated open references to Christianity;built networks of lecturers and researchers thatpropagate the creationist theology; introducednew players like the intelligent design move-ment; found major sources of funding from

foundations run by politically active Christianconservatives; and adapted its fundamentalistliteralism not only to the rhythm of pop musicbut also to the Web.

Their accomplishments can be measurednot only by their emerging success in under-mining the separation of Church and State inthe context of science education in publicschools in some states like Kansas, Ohio, andPennsylvania, but also in the statements bymajor political figures, including PresidentBush, that attempt, if not to appease the reli-gious right, at least to assure the public oftheir unwillingness to take a firm stand in

support of evolutionary theory.

Dangerous ExportsSince we can never know in full detail howthe origin of life took place, it is not surpris-ing that it is becoming a target for intelli-gent design creationists. The geological andchemical evidence required to understandlifes beginnings remains insufficient anddifficult to understand. For creationists, thatevidentiary gap provides an opportunity toerect a framework of controversy and end-less discussion around the study of prebi-otic evolution and the origin of life, whichthey assume are best explained by an intel-ligent cause rather than by an undirectedprocess like natural selection.

It is true that there is a huge gap in the cur-

rent descriptions of the evolutionary transi-tion between the prebiotic synthesis of bio-chemical compounds and the last commonancestor of all extant living beings. Even theunanticipated discovery in 1982by theresearch teams directed by Thomas Cech andSidney Altmanof catalytic RNA molecules(ribozymes), which can be loosely describedas nucleic acids that simultaneously havecharacteristics of DNA and enzymes, has notclosed this gap. Instead, that and related dis-coveries have led to a more precise definition

of what should be understood as the origin oflife. The origin of protein synthesis is still notunderstood, but the surprising conservationof widely distributed polypeptide sequencesrelated to RNA metabolism has led my groupand others to suggest that these sequencesprovide insights into an RNA/protein worldthat may have resulted from the interaction ofribozymes with amino acids, and that verylikely preceded our familiar DNA/RNA/pro-tein world. Our understanding of the originand early stages of biological evolution stillhas major unsolved problems, but they arerecognized by the scientific community asintellectual challenges, and not as requiringmetaphysical explanations, as proponents ofcreationism would have it.

Scientists from other countries could take

a certain solace in the fact that the creationistmovement appears to be largely confined tothe United States. I find it extremely encour-aging that Mexican students, for the most part,are not driven by gaps in the scientific view oflife to search for religious explanations or tovitiate evolutionary theory by advocatingintelligent design. Our teachers and pupilsalike generally view the framework of intelli-gent design as a thinly disguised attempt tointroduce religious preconceptions into theclassroom. Even so, it would be unwise to

simply sit back and watch wiincredulity as our American colleagustruggle against intelligent design crationists and other fundamentalismThere are, in fact, manifold indicatiothat the creationism movement has beflexing its muscles and looking to proelytize far and wide. Its potential thre

to science education in Mexico another Latin American countries shounot be underestimated.

In the United States, Hispaniaccount for 14% of the population, bthe demography of American sciendoes not reflect this f igure. The succeof the American educational system attracting Latinos (many of whom livin the Bible belt) into science careers hbeen limited, but the evangelical movment has not lost time in recruitinthem. Its progress in the United Stathas been extended by many fundame

talist Mormons and Pentecostalist missionaies who travel abroad to search for adherenin other countries. Their followers noinclude growing numbers of legal and illegMexican migrants, driven by the Americdream, who go back and forth across the boder. Steeped in the parochial thinking of bibcal literalism, the open commitment by themissionaries to impose nonsecular views education is an indication of a looming cofrontation in both countries. Tall fences makgood neighbors, but stronger new forms cooperation between the academic commnities on both sides of the Mexican-Americafrontier could do better.

Creationism is a danger to science eduction that should be addressed by a constru

tive dialogue and collective actioled by imaginative researchers aneducators on both sides of the bordeOur answer to the fundamentalichallenge could include better acdemic exchange programs, commostrategies designed to promote thteaching of evolutionary biology, anjoint outreach activities for boMexican and U.S. Latino studentwho share important cultural bac

grounds. The potential benefits of such com

mon strategies could be manifold, includina proper honoring of the freedom of all follow (or not) religious beliefs, while redering to Caesar the things that are Caesarto God the things that are Godsand Darwin those that are Darwins.

Darwins place.At this elementary school,namedEvolucin, in the small Mexican city of Pachuca, childrencelebrate Darwins birthday (12 February) with a cere-mony and display of murals on his life and theory.

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The author is in the Facultad de Ciencias, UNAMApdo. Postal 70-407, Cd. Universitaria, Mexico D.04510 Mexico. E-mail: alar@correo.unam.mx

10.1126/science.11151

One of the little recognized U.S. imports into Mexicois a small flow of creationists, who, through religion,are trying to impose their fundamentalist beliefsand hinder the teaching of Darwinian evolution in alllevels of schooling.

CREDIT:ULISESITURBE

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