Britons Unconvinced on Evolution

pryonic writes "The BBC is reporting that more than half of Britons do not believe in evolution, with a further 40% advocating that creationism or intelligent design should be taught in school science classes. I'm a Brit myself, and I thought most people over here thought these views were outdated and lacked substance. None of my close friends give any credit to creationism or ID, but we're all well educated athiests so I guess that's to be expected. Maybe I've been blind to the views of the majority in this proudly secular country?"

Comments

Et tu, Britannia?

[TripMaster Monkey]

On one hand, I'm happy to see that rampant idiocy isn't a uniquely American trait.

On the other hand, however, I'm seriously troubled by this. I guess I was kinda counting on the rest of the world to bitchslap America back to sanity sooner or later, but now it appears that we can't count on the global community saving the day for rationality.

Of particular concern is the statistics quoted:

• 22% chose creationism
  
• 17% opted for intelligent design
  
• 48% selected evolution theory
  
• and the rest did not know.

In other words, 39% chose creationism, as there is no discernable difference between creationism and ID. Score another victory for ID, for once again successfully obfuscating the issue.

Even worse were the statistics regarding what to teach in schools:

• 44% said creationism should be included
  
• 41% intelligent design
  
• 69% wanted evolution as part of the science curriculum.

Again, nice and confusing, especially when you consider that these statistics don't add up to 100%. I understand that some people would like to see more than one 'theory' taught (the old 'teach the controversy' BS), but displaying the results in this manner is misleading in the extreme. Equally confusing is the fact that the percentage of people who 'did not know' in the previous set of statistics isn't enumerated. One would assume it to be 13%, but in the light of the second set of statistics, who knows?

Re:Et tu, Britannia?

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>39% chose creationism

still less in total than evolution though.

one important thing (in my experience) the UK doesn't have so much of is militant fundamentalism. people might say they believe in creationism, but then lots of people still claim to believe in god. they don't do anything about it though. even if they agree it should be taught in schools they aren't taking over schoold boards for it.

basically I think the difference is that in America you have the very dangerous combination of
1. Churches are big businesses (much more so than elsewhere)
2. businesses can easily buy into politics

the ID movement is 99.9% a PR campaign.

Re:Et tu, Britannia?

[meringuoid]

But that doesn't mean I think Intelligent Design is science, either. But neither is a whole lot that goes on with Evolution and other supporting theories that are based on something other than experimentation. Fact is, there has never been an experiment with macro-evolution - until there is, Macro-Evolution is simply a theory and, IMO, a weak one at that.

You're right there. Same with Plate Tectonics. I mean, sure, we've found the mid-Atlantic ridge and measured how it's spreading a tiny amount each year, I don't disagree with Micro-Continental-Drift. It's only Macro-Continental-Drift I disagree with. Pangaea? Rubbish. And all the magnetic reversal patterns and matching rock formations on separate continents that the scientists come up with are IMO really weak.

And don't get me started on Macro-Addition. I mean, we know 1+1=2, we can test that by counting things, but AFAIK nobody in the world has ever seen more than a few million of anything at one time. And yet these scientists tell us about billions of this and trillions of that, and then they even make up a new way of writing numbers that doesn't even use names! Exponential notation is only a theory, and IMO, a weak one at that.

Re:Et tu, Britannia?

[The Only Druid]

As a particularly comical example of this, have a look at the recent Dover County court decision (Kitzmiller). In it, the ruling Judge wisely points at that amongst the advocates of intelligent design, there was essentially no agreement as to its meaning. In fact, one school board member continually referred to it as "intelligence design [sic]", another believed it was the same as creationism, another believed it only referred to the emergence of intelligence, etc.

Re:Et tu, Britannia?

[realnowhereman]

Personally, I don't believe in Evolution. That doesn't make me an idiot.

Yes it does. Do you believe in gravity? Do you believe in medicine? Electricity? Mobile phones? Radio? Nuclear physics? Biology? Geology? Maths?

Why is it that evolution gets special treatment in the world of science? It's as scientifically valid as all these other things, and yet somehow ill-educated pseudo-itellectuals like yourself think that you get to pick and choose what is valid and what isn't. Science is not a democracy, it's fact based. Don't "believe" in evolution, show us something better.

That doesn't mean I don't understand it

Yes it does.

Just as the Theory of Gravity has some problems

Really? You pass yourself off as being some sort of expert. What exactly are the problems you see with the theory of gravity? Why not write them down, present some evidence, I'm sure your views will be published in some learned journal and then we can all see how wise you are. Then you can tell us what's wrong with evolution as well.

Throughout the entire history of science, when things "need to be understood better" it has generally been through an evolution of ideas -- Newtonian mechanics wasn't wrong, it just needed some extra bits bolting on, Einsteinian relativity isn't wrong, it just need some quantum stuff attaching. Each discovery builds on the last. Evolution is the same, there are holes and gaps and things we don't yet understand, but these will be filled and modified and adapted - the theory will get better.

There have been very few absolute reversals in science, why do you expect that evolution will be any different?

Re:Et tu, Britannia?

[Nightwing]

Well, lots of nice beliefs there, little in the way of science.

The fact is that evolution flies in the face of the second law of thermodynamics, which makes it very much unlike any other accepted area of science.

No, it doesn't. The Second Law of Thermodynamics only applies to closed systems, which life clearly isn't. The sun constantly provides energy input to life on this planet.

Re:Et tu, Britannia?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Your post illustrates that you do not understand what a "theory" is in the context of science.

From Wikipedia:

In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it often does in other contexts. Scientific theories are never proven to be true, but can be disproven. All scientific understanding takes the form of hypotheses, or conjectures. A theory is in this context a set of hypotheses that are logically bound together (See also hypothetico-deductive method).

Theories are typically ways of explaining why things happen, often, but not always after their occurrence is no longer in scientific dispute. In referring to the "theory of global warming" for example, the worldwide temperatures have been measured and seem to be increasing. The "theory of global warming" refers instead to scientific work that attempts to explain how and why this could be happening.

In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from or supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations made that is predictive, logical, testable, and has never been falsified.

Hope this helps.

Re:Et tu, Britannia?

[tgibbs]

Look how many people will defend evolution, even though strictly speaking, they need to post-fix each sentence with ", maybe.".

In science, all knowledge is provisional, so it is belaboring the obvious to say, "The earth orbits around the sun maybe", or "F = MA maybe." This was one of the most telling points that the judge made in the Dover trial. Because all science is provisional, attaching a disclaimer to evolution, and not to other statements of scientific knowledge, gives the false impression that evolution is somehow more subject to doubt than other scientific knowledge.

Look how science is taught, with the assumption that everything written in the textbooks are true.

Every science course I ever took began with an explanation of the scientific method.

Look how people will base their scientific careers and life-work on things that may or may not be correct.

Every scientist does that. So what? It is the only workable way of doing science that anybody has ever found. The people who go into science are the ones who find that fundamental uncertainty exciting and inspiring. It is not what is known that attracts people to science; it is what is not known. Those who are uncomfortable with living among the shifting sands of scientific knowledge should go into fields such as mathematics, where true proof exists, or into religion, where faith does not require evidence.

I have the Old Testement/New Testement/Koran/"insert any religous text", which is a set of recorded assumptions. I base theories from these assumptions. From observation of human interactions and from human history I think that the validity of these assumptions remain true. Am I a scientist performing science?

No because you are leaving out the part about continually seeking ways to test and challenge these assumptions. For a scientist, nothing is more exciting that finding a way to challenge and test something that he or she has always previously been forced to take as an assumption.

The Economist

[thefirelane]

I think The Economist said it best:

"Intelligent Design is something Britons read about with a smirk before they turn to the Horoscope section"

(from memory, but very close)

Proudly secular?

[Snamh Da Ean]

You mean that country in Europe where the head of state is also the head of the state's established church? And where you can't be head of state unless you're a member of the established church.

Species Evolve

[krgallagher]

I am always confused by the fact that everyone thinks the theory of evolution is a theory about the creation of life on earth. The theory of evolution can be summed up in two words; species evolve. Sure there is all that subtext about natural selection, but in essence, the theory is that species evolve.

I do not understand how anyone can deny the truth of this. We see it in action time and time again. There are species that were introduced to Hawaii in modern times that have since evolved into new species. I saw one of the best arguments for evolution here on /. as a sig. It said "If you do not believe in evolution, why are you worried about the bird flu?"

I'd like to see the questions they asked

[arevos]

I'd like to see the questions they asked for the survey. It's all too easy to get the results you want with carefully worded questions. I can't think of anyone I know who believes in such nonsense, so I'm taking this with significantly large grain of salt.

Re:Not surprised

[mrjb]

Damn spaghetti monster? BLASPHEMY!!!!

I call major bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

As an Englishman in my late 30s I call utter bullshit on this article. These are the fanciful lies of someone with an agenda. I don't know where they pretend to have got their research from, but it's patently untrue. I never met a single person over here who even heard of "intelligent design" (a USA manufactured nonsense) and seriously nobody believes in creationism, even really old people. A more interesting question for me is, why would someone make up such an obvious pack of lies and for what reason?

Re:ID != Christian creationism

[cyclop]

If evolution is scientifically sound, can't you present sufficient evidence in the classroom to prove it?

Yes. Any molecular biology textbook is full of factual proofs of evolution.

Close Friends

[Anonymous Coward]

None of my close friends give any credit to creationism or ID, but we're all well educated athiests so I guess that's to be expected.

None of my close friends like eating pork, but we're all well educated jewish rabbis so I guess that's to be expected.

Re:Close Friends

[nathanh]

As has been said over and over and over again by quite a few people on /. in the many ID debates: Maintaining a belief is not incompatible with being well educated, logical and analytical.

Quoth Albert Einstein (again): "God does not play dice".

Every fucking time there's a discussion about religion, somebody trots out the "God does not play dice" quote...

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

I don't mind if you want to argue that religious conviction has no clear connection with intelligence or lack thereof, but leave Einstein and his quote about gambling gods out of it. Einstein did not believe in the Christian God.

Re:The power in reacting seriously

[ulfaen]

I think the problem with not reacting to this ridiculous 'Theory off Intelligent design' lies in the propensity of stupid ideas to re-germinate in the lazy minded despite evidence to the contrary. (note that I did not say the stupid, I really wanted to.) Its far easier to have a few inane soundbites handed to you by your faith leader, to not do any actual study of the Theory of Evolution, to react at a viceral level (I ain't decended from no MONKEY!)and then to become a member of your local school board.

Once you have managed to get to that point, why its a short hop to restupidifying the youth of your community with this crap.

I thik it is far wiser to address idiocy when it springs up with withering facts and dessicating satire. if you ridicule an idiot long enough, they usually shut their moronic piehole.

Ulfaen

Re:Water in the Tub? Re:Et tu, Britannia?

[Michael Woodhams]

The first thing we do is the calculation you refer to. We discuss how plausible the constancy of rate hypothesis is. (In this case, we note that the tap (faucet, to you) is capable of delivering more or less water.) Then we discuss how the inferred filling time relates to our other knowledge (does it imply the bath was half full before the house was built?) That is the first paper. It presents an interesting observation, and the most obvious interpretation, with suitable caveats.

In the second paper, we try to infer subtle effects of the constant-rate hypothesis (CR). We observe material deposited on the side of the bath at water level, and conclude that under CR, we should see these deposits uniformly continued at deeper levels. We start applying for grants to do a bath-dive expedition to observe them, but don't get funding.

In the third paper, different group calculates that, had the rate been much higher in the past, we should observe water droplets splashed on the wall. This being easily accessible, they have looked for them and found them.

The fourth through tenth papers are analyses of how fast the water flow needed to be to spash that high, how long it was high flow to explain the frequency, and how old the drops are. It takes a while before the theorists agree on the correct mathematical treatment. The question of whether the quantity of water added by dripping is significant is still within the margin of error.

Now there is sufficient interest, we finally get the grant to do the bath dive. We observe no deposits below the current level, and conclude the dripping phase has been at most a few days. The Fast Fill theory of the bath enters the textbooks.

10 years later, the principle authors of the first and third papers share the Nobel prize in Domestic Hydrology.

I am an evolutionary scientist. We don't follow your straw-man portrayal of how science works.