Aside from the US, is there even a debate regarding evolutionary theory in the rest of the world?

Not here, no.

I don’t know of many (any) contemporary religious groups that deny evolution.

But I do know of many religious and scientific folk who “debate” HOW it works. And some interpretations of how it works fit the creator model better than a chaos model.

Belief in genuine evolution is not threatening to a religious creator model. Belief in pseudo “apparent” evolution is a threat to science.

Doesn’t answer your question, but related. “Creationists reject not just evolution but most of the Enlightenment and pretty much all intellectual development since. Rather than celebrate the brilliance of the human mind, they disparage free thought as dangerous and sinful. Instead of extolling the virtues of creativity and imagination, they malign all unorthodox ideas as immoral and wicked. For all creationists’ insistence that evolution denigrates humanity, creationism is fundamentally anti-human, commanding us to spurn our own logic and cognition in favor of absurd sophism derived from a 3,000-year-old text. It turns our greatest ability—to reason—into our greatest enemy. Using our brains, according to creationism, will lead us to sin; only mindless piety can keep us on the track to salvation.”

How about this?: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/21329204.html

Maybe because of poor science knowledge?: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/education/us-students-still-lag-globally-in-math-and-science-tests-show.html?_r=0

Nope…. People here are all quite sure about creation w/o evolution.

@whitenoise are you in Turkey?

Nope Turkey is secular and far more liberal. Far from what this place is like.

It depends on the religious nature of the country. Australia for instance, that is largely secular and non-religious, doesn’t have the kind of debating going on that the US does.

The theory is a work in progress however and healthy debate is warranted.

Yeah, so far all the facts point to evolution.