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By Park Jae-hyuk
The deep-rooted dispute over creationism has arisen here again after Park Seong-jin, the designate for SMEs and startups minister, was found to have worked for an institute supporting what most scientists regard as pseudoscience.
Creationism is a fundamentalist Christian movement that denies the theory of evolution and considers Biblical creation stories as proven facts.
Although Park told reporters this week that he "respects" the theory of evolution despite his religious beliefs, controversy over the issue will highly likely go on, given that opposition parties are expected to mention it during the upcoming confirmation hearing.
"As a Christian, I have a faith in a religion based on creation, but I do not believe creation as a science," the minister nominee told reporters. "I've never individually studied creation science either."
In response to his remarks during a symposium at Yonsei University in 2007 that "People armed with belief in creation should be deployed in every fields of society," Park explained the remarks were just made for guests from the United States.
Saying that faith is not subject to qualification, Cheong Wa Dae has dismissed the controversy. Park quit his position as director at the Korea Association for Creation Research (KACR) just a day before his nomination.
In fact, it is not the first time that the government officials in Korea faced criticism over their support for creationism.
Chang Soon-heung, a former professor at KAIST and an incumbent president of Handong Global University, was also embroiled in dispute in 2013 when he took part in the presidential transition team for the Park Geun-hye administration.
As Chang was in charge of the transition team's education and science policies, he faced a strong backlash from opposition parties at that time.
Former Rep. Jang Ha-na of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, which is now the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, criticized him and the KACR.
The supporters for creationism were also suspicious of exerting their influence on the naming of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, which includes the word "creation science" in Korean.
The previous administration dismissed the issue back then, saying that Chang does not deal with text books.
The Moon Jae-in government's explanation was similar to the Park Geun-hye administration's as both said the religious beliefs are irrelevant to the ministry.
Park and the government have stressed his previous careers as a startup founder and his research as a mechanical engineering professor of POSTECH.
The KACR also posted an explanation on its official website, Monday, which reads that creationism is not a pseudoscience as it does not deny science.
However, some come up with fears over possible setbacks in fostering startups specializing in the bio-industry.
Considering that the key factors for the Fourth Industrial Revolution are science and technology, critics raised question about the government's explanation.
On its official website, the startup ministry vows to train human resources for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
"Supporting creation science is not a religious choice. It is a denial of the scientific achievements of the humankind so far," Jeong Jae-seung, professor of KAIST, wrote on his Facebook. "I regard scientists supporting creation science as very dangerous scholars."
Given that KAIST and POSTECH, the two-largest incubators of the nation's scientific technologies, are known for being full of supporters of creationism, controversies over nominations of scientists will likely continue in the next administrations.
"I am really ashamed of the fact that KAIST is the root of Korea's creation science," Prof. Jeong said.
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