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Brazil's pick of a creationist to lead its higher education agency rattles scientists

Brazil's pick of a creationist to lead its higher education agency rattles scientists

4 years ago
Anonymous $yQ5BfQaAxy

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/brazils-pick-creationist-lead-its-higher-education-agency-rattles-scientists

São Paulo, Brazil – The appointment of a creationism advocate to lead the agency that oversees Brazil’s graduate study programs has scientists here concerned — yet again — about the encroachment of religion on science and education policy.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration on Saturday named Benedito Guimarães Aguiar Neto to head the agency, known as CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior). Aguiar Neto, an electrical engineer by training, previously served as the rector of Mackenzie Presbyterian University (MPU), a private religious school here. It advocates the teaching and study of intelligent design (ID), an outgrowth of Biblical creationism which argues that life is too complex to have evolved by Darwinian evolution, and so required an intelligent designer.