Posted on 08/15/2006 11:34:34 AM PDT by gobucks
Evolution is on the way out - more than 30% of students in the UK say they believe in creationism and intelligent design. Harriet Swain reports on a surprising new survey. *snip*
This means more than 30% believe our origins have more to do with God than with Darwin - evolution theory rang true for only 56%.
Opinionpanel Research's survey of more than 1,000 students found a third of those who said they were Muslims and more than a quarter of those who said they were Christians supported creationism.
Nearly a third of Christians and 10% of those with no particular religion favoured intelligent design.
Women were more likely to choose spiritual explanations: less than half chose evolution, with 14% preferring creationism and 22% intelligent design. While three years of learning how to weigh evidence appears to make students slightly more inclined towards evolution, with 57% of third-years choosing it compared with 54% of first-years, it does not appear to put them off belief in God.
As many third-years as first-years believed in creationism, although slightly fewer supported intelligent design.
The findings come as little surprise to Roger Downie, professor of zoological education at Glasgow University. Two years ago he surveyed the views on evolution of biology and medical students there. *snip* He says schools and universities need to be clearer about how science differs from other evidence, such as that provided by religion.
"The impression people get is that science is about accumulating a lot of facts in your head rather than testing of evidence and fine-tuning what you find." Scientists have recently expressed growing concern about creationism being taught alongside evolution in schools, particularly at the new academies run by the Christian Vardy Foundation.
(Excerpt) Read more at education.guardian.co.uk ...
He blames the influence of Christian fundamentalists in America....
Rather misleading when you read up on this foundation:
You can't measure a rate of evolution. You can't predict what will evolve next. It loses believers as it fails to provide utility.
It loses believers as it has not produced a new species of serious change to an existing one in human memory.
Life does not come from non-life.
It's that simple.
Science is not done via polls. Science is done by scientists.
Polling people regarding scientific questions is a waste of time.
"Life does not come from non-life.
"
The Theory of Evolution has never said that it did.
Liberals haven't made it terribly far.
The drop in "belief" in evolution is most likely due to the increase in islamomaniacs, who share with Christians a certain suspicion of science, particularly biological science.
As to whether the Theory of Evolution depends on popular "belief" to be considered the consensus theory in biology... well, we all know the answer to that one, even those of us who don't want to admit it.
It's that simple-minded.
Fixed it for you.
It's hard to imagine anyone calling Dr. Stephen Hawking a Christian fundamentalist. He is a pre-eminent theoretical physicist. (I am a less-than-eminent psychologist with a great deal of skepticism about religious and scientific dogma).
Hawking pointed out that the "big bang" theory central to evolutionary thought could only be true if we contradict all known laws of physics. He also pointed out that extremely minute changes in the weights of different atoms would have made the carbon molecule impossible. In other words, human life could not exist.
Other scientists have pointed out that the theory of evolution cannot explain the development of the human neuron. The point is that evolution/mutation likely plays a role in species development, but there are huge gaps that the theory cannot explain.
The other point is that it seems intellectually dishonest to discredit Intelligent Design as an alternative or even enhancement to the theory of evolution.
Hello patrick.
I think the rise of Islam is going to convince a lot of people that evolution is crap
"The Big Bang is not "central" to the theory of evolution".
Just peripheral...., but necessary.
Sadly, I see dumbing down isn't limited to the US.
What gets me is this isn't malicious -- just misguided.
ID isn't a scientific alternative and therefore needs no discrediting.
nope, it's not even necessary. Nothing about how the universe came to be matters at all for evolution. Evolution is all about what happened AFTER the universe came to be and AFTER the first life showed up on Earth, from an evolutionary science perspective all that other stuff is back story.
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