Charles Darvin. Photo: Pixabay

After the English biologist Charles Darwin in 1859 presented his landmark book, “On the Origin of Species”, most people in the West accepted his theory that all species of life evolved over time, rather than being created by a divinity.

While few intellectuals question its basic premises today, Darwin’s theory has again become a focus of debate in Serbia, however, where more than 160 self-styled anti-atheist intellectuals - including doctors, biologists, chemists, and a former minister of education - have signed a petition asking the Ministry of Education to “revise” its postulates and their use in the school curriculum.

“Globalists and atheists, who hold positions of power across the world, affirm the theory of evolution for personal and globalist reasons, and fund the theory’s advocates,“ reads the petition sent to the Ministry of Education, parliament, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, SANU, and state universities.

The list of signatories includes Ljiljana Colic, a former minister of education who was forced to resign in 2004 after proposing to exclude Darwin’s theory from the curriculu