Evolution News & Views is reporting on a rather revealing study of Scottish first year students at Glasgow University who doubt Darwinian evolution. In fact, the Times Education Supplement (TES) article reports that “One in 20 first-year biology students at Glasgow University don’t believe in the theory of evolution, according to new research.”
The article further reports that,
The study, presented at last week’s Edinburgh International Science Festival, at a “Creeping Creationism” seminar run by the Humanist Society, found that 85 per cent of students who reject evolution and 85 per cent of students who accept it were able to identify the definition most closely describing intelligent design (the most recent alternative to Darwinism).
And,
When asked why they rejected evolution, 41 per cent said they believed there was an alternative explanation for the diversity of life, while a third said they simply had insufficient knowledge of evolution.
The concept that humans descended from ancient species of apes, one of the theories creationists most rigorously reject, was accepted by over one third of evolution rejecters, and two thirds of them agreed that natural selection acted within species to adapt to environmental change.
So, it would appear that many of those “evolution rejectors” accept at least some level of common ancestry, which likely reflects an increasing awareness that there is much more at stake in this debate than merely the proposition of descent with modification.
And, moreover,
“There is a move away from the traditional,” said Mr Southcott. “Instead of using the bible to say you shouldn’t accept evolution, it seems they are trying to use science as a way forward.”
The future of ID is certainly looking bright in Scotland. The Darwinian monopoloy on academia is slowly but surely eroding. Perhaps in a generation or two we will see Darwinism’s long over-due collapse. Perhaps we’ll even live to see it. I live in hope…
Only one in twenty?
They must do a real good job at pre-college indoctrination.
I doubt that’s changed much from when I was a kid growing up in Glasgow. A good portion of first year Glasgow University students are only 17 — you have the option to leave high school a year earlier than most countries (including England) to go to university, and you don’t specialize in your degree subject until your third year, so those taking biology courses in first year don’t necessarily end up as biology grads.
So all in all, I’m surprised the number isn’t higher.
Either way, with all these survey numbers, you can’t determine anything unless you have something to compare it with to establish a trend. I remember British surveys from years ago that showed quite low acceptance of evolution amongst the British public, and that was before ID was in the public consciousness over there at all.
The interesting aspect of these surveys is that while Britain is a much more secular nation than the USA (Christianity — particularly of the conservative/fundamentalist kind — has been pretty much sidelined as a force in British society) that has not translated into a widespread belief in materialism.
Yes there are a lot more atheists and non-believers in the UK than in the USA, but they are still the minority. A larger number of Brits still adhere to some kind of belief in the supernatural which isn’t Christianity, though it is influenced by it, rather a vaguer belief that there is more to the life than just this material existence.
That’s what I suspect is behind the findings of these survey — inasmuch as evolution represents a materialistic explanation of origins — rather than some logical rejection of evolution.
So while ID might be able to tap into this reluctance to embrace materialism, I doubt positive support for ID is the reason for the results of the surveys.
I give Darwinism 20 years, max. And I predict that when Darwinism collapses, there will be a concomitant rebirth in spirituality in the world (but not necessarily formal religion as we now know it).