U.S. Lags Behind Europe, Japan in Acceptance of Evolution
Thursday, August 10, 2006

. . . as usual my comments are in italics.

The following is a delightful Fox story shot through with evidence that those arguing for Darwin still don’t get it. They keep trying the same “our opponents are stupid” and “mainstream religion is for Darwin” arguments. . . but have made little progress.

By the way, a quick survey of the studies findings, of the polls used, and of the questions asked, makes me a bit dubious about how accurate it all is, but the fun is the Ker Than story where Than demonstrates a studied attempt to write the same story that was written on the topic in the Victorian era.

What is the shock in that? Secular fundamentalists who are skeptical about everything but their skepticism have so little respect for their foes that they keep recirculating the same Victorian theory as science. Still it is always a good reminder of the state of discussions in the world to read a story like this one. Socratic discourse is the long hard road to truth, but it is the only one I know. Here is hoping stories like this one don’t deceive too many people into believing that faith in experts should replace hard thinking about important questions.

By Ker Than

A comparison of peoples’ views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution.

Or near the top when it comes to denying Darwinism. . .

Only Turkey ranked lower.

Among the factors contributing to America’s low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say.

Small? Eighty percent of the population in the US claims to be Christian. The vast majority take the Bible very seriously.

“American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalists, which is why Turkey and we are so close,” said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University.

Look! Guilt by association! During the War on Terror, we will link traditional Protestants with traditional Moslems.

Use of the term “fundamentalist” to describe both traditional Christians and traditional Moslems is to stretch a term to meaninglessness. It is just a devil word in this context and should be treated as such.

The traditional Christians and traditional Moslems have little in common, for example, in how they treat texts or interact with the West, but it makes for good copy. What both countries might have in common is a strong religious community that views religion as a knowledge tradition, but since that is less frightening to most Americans and would not allow misuse of the term fundamentalist this hypothesis is not considered.

The researchers combined data from public surveys on evolution collected from 32 European countries, the United States and Japan between 1985 and 2005.

One should always be suspicious of these “combined data” studies. How good is each study? How different the questions asked? Were studies included that did not fit the preconceived conclusions of the researchers? These are questions that are impossible for me to answer at the moment, but they do weaken my faith in even the numbers tossed about. We can assume the reporter, paid to look into such things, did not. The author appears to have phoned the usual suspects, wrote up their quotes, and filed the story.

Adults in each country were asked whether they thought the statement, “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals,” was true or false, or if they were unsure.

The study found that over the past 20 years:

— The percentage of U.S. adults who accept evolution declined from 45 to 40 percent.

— The percentage overtly rejecting evolution also declined, from 48 to 39 percent.

— And the percentage of adults who were unsure increased, from 7 to 21 percent.

Of the other countries surveyed, only Turkey ranked lower, with about 25 percent of the population accepting evolution and 75 percent rejecting it.

In Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and France, 80 percent or more of adults accepted evolution; in Japan, 78 percent of adults did.

The findings are detailed in the Aug. 11 issue of the journal Science.

That is an odd way of determining who accepts evolution. Darwin critic Mike Behe would “accept evolution” by this standard. After all, one could be critical of the mechanism of evolution and of the metaphysics without doubting animal origins for humankind. By itself, this might be enough to account for the decline in “doubters of evolution.”

Religious belief and evolution

The researchers also compared 10 independent variables — including religious belief, political ideology and understanding of concepts from genetics, or “genetic literacy” — among adults in America and nine European countries to determine whether these factors could predict attitudes toward evolution.

The analysis found that Americans with fundamentalist religious beliefs — defined as belief in substantial divine control of the universe and the efficacy of frequent prayer — were more likely to reject evolution than Europeans with similar beliefs.

Of course we now learn from this story that ANY traditional Christian, Orthodox or Catholic, is now “fundamentalist.” The use of the term is now revealed as not only a devil word, but also one applied to any serious Christian.

What Christian doubts “substantial divine control of the Universe” or the “efficacy of frequent prayer?” Only fringe modernist groups would say “no” to either question.

The only interesting thing here is that European Christians are more likely to accept evolution than American Christians. Here is a control I do not see in the study: as a minority group in Europe perhaps European Christians are less confident on many side issues and have simply conformed in as many ways as they can to the dominant culture. American Christians are not such an embattled minority, in fact in most places are the majority (if we accept this bizarre definition of fundamentalism than the entire Orthodox Church for example is fundamentalist) and feel freer to express dissent.

The researchers attribute the discrepancy to differences in how American Christian fundamentalists and other forms of Christianity interpret the Bible.

While American fundamentalists tend to interpret the Bible literally and to view Genesis as a true and accurate account of creation, mainstream Protestants in both the United States and Europe instead treat Genesis as metaphorical, the researchers say.

How are they mainstream? They are a minority of Protestants in the US and perhaps in Europe. They have views that are not those of the historic Protestant faith. Why call them mainstream? What makes them mainstream? Is it, drum roll please, their acceptance of Darwinism?

What does it mean to interpret the Bible literally? Is the author aware that a literal and metaphorical reading of Genesis can be held by the same person (see Saint Augustine)? Does the author know anything about any of these terms? There is no evidence he or she does.

Ker Than might read this, which is a statement by traditional Christians that contradicts the definitions used in this article. It is the standard conservative statement of the doctrine. Not knowing this is simply incompetent when writing about religion and using terms from religious studies.

“Whether it’s the Bible or the Koran, there are some people who think it’s everything you need to know,” Miller said. “Other people say these are very interesting metaphorical stories in that they give us guidance, but they’re not science books.”

Who says this? Were people in the study asked this? How does Miller know this? It contradicts this standard account of how to read the Bible from the most conservative mainstream group of Protestants in the US.

I personally know nobody, including my very conservative grandparents when they were alive, who thinks the Bible is “everything they need to know.” There might be some people who think this, but I can assure Miller the vast majority of folk who believe God acts and in the power of prayer (remember that makes you a fundamentalist!) would not believe such an absurd thing.

I work at a University that is Christian, conservative, and thinks the Bible without error. I know nobody who would accept this statement.

I shall assert the following:

The Bible is not a science textbook. We need other works to study science, but it may contain scientific truths. The Bible speaks truth, in its literary context, when it speaks about science.

The Bible is not a history book. We need other works to study history, but it may contains historical truths. The Bible speaks the truth when it talks about history.

The Bible is not a philosophy book. We need other great works to study philosophy, but the Bible contains many philosophical truths. The Bible speaks the truth when it makes philosophical claims.

I challenge the writer of this article to send these statements to the President of Biola University (which helped start American fundamentalism if we use the proper theological definition not the one used in this “study”).

The author will note that I will not lose my job nor will these statements generate heated debate on campus.

Has the author read Aquinas (a fundamentalist by the article’s definition)? Or even C.S. Lewis (also an Anglican fundamentalist)? Can someone tell a reporter like Ker Than any absurdity about religious people and be believed?

I assume Ker Than is a fine reporter who means well. I assume that there is no intention to misuse terms, but these terms are misused. Even if evolution is true, it would be helpful if Ker Than would write about the religious aspects of the discussion correctly. If critics would learn something about religious objections and respect their foes, then they might make progress.

The latter view is generally shared by the Roman Catholic Church.

Politics and the flat Earth

Politics is also contributing to America’s widespread confusion about evolution, the researchers say.

Major political parties in the United States are more willing to make opposition to evolution a prominent part of their campaigns to garner conservative votes — something that does not happen in Europe or Japan.

This might say more about the lack of a religious elite willing to buck the secular elite than about the merits of either case. Again this hypothesis is not considered.

Miller says that it makes about as much sense for politicians to oppose evolution in their campaigns as it is for them to advocate that the Earth is flat and promise to pass legislation saying so if elected to office.

“You can pass any law you want, but it won’t change the shape of the Earth,” Miller told LiveScience.

To associate doubts about Darwin, shared by many hundreds of Ph.D. scientists, philosophers, and theologians, with a “flat earth” is why the Darwinists cannot win the public mind. I have read most of the major pro-Darwin, anti-ID books. I find their argumentation lacking. I just don’t agree. Does that mean I will be attracted to a flat earth?

There are essentially no sophisticated arguments for it, no agreement in the historic Church for it, and few (if any) sophisticated thinkers who buy it. This is just argument by slander on the part of secularists.

Democrats who think all Republicans fools are foolish if they say it. The same is true for simple Republicans. You have to respect your foes using reasoning to defeat them.

Paul Meyers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study, says that what politicians should be doing is saying, “We ought to defer these questions to qualified authorities and we should have committees of scientists and engineers whom we will approach for the right answers.”

What about the nature of science questions? What about definitions of theological and philosophical terms? Can that be left to philosophers and theologians? To pretend that this article is all or even mostly about science and not about a particular view of the world is just not honest.

The researchers also single out the poor grasp of biological concepts, especially genetics, by American adults as an important contributor to the country’s low confidence in evolution.

“The more you understand about genetics, the more you understand about the unity of life and the relationship humans have to other forms of life,” Miller said.

Except when a Ph.D. in genetics does not agree. . .

The current study also analyzed the results from a 10-country survey in which adults were tested with 10 true or false statements about basic concepts from genetics. Americans had a median score of 4 out 10 correct answers.

One of the statements was “All plants and animals have DNA.” (The correct answer is “yes.”)

Science alone is not enough

But the problem is more than one of education — it goes deeper, and is a function of our country’s culture and history, said study co-author Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif.

“The rejection of evolution is not something that will be solved by throwing science at it,” Scott said in a telephone interview.

Somehow we have gone on for decades with this rejection in place. We have survived, but foes of design in science as an option always point to future doom. Isaac Asimov saw armies of the night coming to burn our books and kill us all . . . a quarter of a century ago. We are still waiting.

Myers expressed a similar sentiment.

About the recent controversy in Dover, Pa., over the teaching of “intelligent design,” Myers said, “It was a great victory for our side and it’s done a lot to help ensure that we keep religion out of the classroom for a while longer, but it doesn’t address the root causes. The creationists are still creationists — they’re not going to change because of a court decision.”

Scott says one thing that will help is to have Catholics and mainstream Protestants speak up about their theologies’ acceptance of evolution.

“There needs to be more addressing of creationism from these more moderate theological perspectives,” Scott said. “The professional clergy and theologians whom I know tend to be very reluctant to engage in that type of ‘my theology versus your theology’ discussion, but it matters because it’s having a negative effect on American scientific literacy.”

Of course, the type of theologians Scott likes speak to empty churches and dying religious groups. Besides, I thought this was all about science? Now I see atheists like Scott are going to determine what good religion is (agreeing with Scott) and bad religion is.

The latest packaging of creationism is intelligent design, or “ID,” a conjecture which claims that certain features of the natural world are so complex that they could only be the work of a Supreme Being.

This sentence in the “news story” is simply the critics of ID’s take on the issue. It is false. Otherwise Plato is a creationist as is Aristotle, but since neither could have been Christians (!), this position is hard to defend.

ID proponents say they do not deny that evolution is true, only that scientists should not rule out the possibility of supernatural intervention.

But scientists do not share doubts over evolution. They argue it is one of the most well tested theories around, supported by countless tests done in many different scientific fields.

Of course, if you are a scientist and you DO have doubts about Darwin would stories like this (”you are an idiot!”) make you more likely or less likely to share them?

Imagine a president of a very conservative Bible school claiming, “We have no gay students. Ask them!” and then he hands out a list of students, pointing to a long list of students claiming not to be gay.” One might suspect that the gay students might, just might, hesitate to come out if the school was intolerant of their position and that many students would sign such a statement for sociological reasons. That would be a bad argument by the Bible college President. It is equally suspect here. There is good reason to suspect that many people suppress their doubts about Darwin in public due to the reaction, peer pressure, they will get. Science is very competitive and like many fields conformity to major norms is the best way to get along. Scientists like to pride themselves on following truth where it leads. . . but the history of science (like any field) is filled with examples that show that this is often false. In fact, in the US I think dissent from religious orthodoxy is easier than dissent from scientific orthodoxy.

Scott says promoting uncertainty about evolution is just as bad as denying it outright and that ID and traditional creationism both spread the same message.

We must never, ever, doubt Darwin. It is bad, bad (!), to do so. Repeat after me: “I will never doubt Darwin. I will never doubt Darwin.” I would never teach my students to take this view of the Bible. Who are the real deniers of free thought here?

“Both are saying that evolution is bad science, that evolution is weak and inadequate science, and that it can’t do the job, so therefore God did it,” she said.

In fact, that is a parody of design arguments, even design arguments as old as Plato (Laws X). The fact that someone designed a thing need not mean God did it or God would be responsible for cars! You would need another argument to move general claims about design to God.

Another view

Bruce Chapman, the president of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, the primary backer of intelligent design, has a different view of the study.

“A better explanation for the high percentage of doubters of Darwinism in America may be that this country’s citizens are famously independent and are not given to being rolled by an ideological elite in any field,” Chapman said. “In particular, the growing doubts about Darwinism undoubtedly reflect growing doubts among scientists about Darwinian theory. Over 640 have now signed a public dissent and the number keeps growing.”

Nick Matzke of the National Center for Science Education points out that most of the scientists Chapman refers to do not do research in the field of evolution.

What is a logical reason for this? Might it be that careers would be in danger? Are the arguments for evolution so obscure that only a Ph.D. in Biology can follow them? What happened to the claim that evolution was like a spherical earth and so obvious only a fool would doubt it?

There are two incompatible claims in this article:

1. Evolution is so clearly true that all thoughtful people (including theologians) get it.
2. Evolution can only be understood by specialists so lists of thoughtful people who doubt it do not matter.

Which is it?

I don’t need to be a cartographer to follow the basic arguments for a spherical eart. In fact, there many biologists who do dissent from Darwin, some not religious, and that is the shocking fact given what we would anticipate from this article.

“If you look at the list, you can’t find anybody who’s really a significant contributor to the field or anyone who’s done recognizable work on evolution,” Matzke said.

As even critics of Darwinism would concede, this is either false or arguably false if for no other reason than the existence of such folk as Stanley N. Salthe . (HT to the Panda’s Thumb anti-ID site for the modified concession.)

Scott says the news is not all bad.

The number of American adults unsure about the validity of evolution has increased in recent years, from 7 to 21 percent, but growth in this demographic comes at the expense of the other two groups.

The percentage of Americans accepting evolution has declined, but so has the percentage of those who overtly reject it.

“I was very surprised to see that. To me that means the glass is half full,” Scott said. “That 21 percent we can educate.”

Copyright © 2006 Imaginova Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Or we can education them in sound reasoning. Education is good. Debate is good. Socratic dialog is good. Let the discussion begin. But wait! This is a discussion government school students cannot have. . . at least in science class. Too bad. Power is always a bad way to settle debates or questions people are having, but it is good for my side. Students want to know this stuff and now cannot hear my side. That just makes us all the more interesting to them.