The article, Darwin’s Birthday Poll: Fewer Than 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution, just up at foxnews.com, references this Gallup poll, in which this question is asked, “Do you, personally, believe in the theory of evolution, do you not believe in evolution, or don’t you have an opinion either way?”
Why don’t they ever ask about the specifics of the theory? For example: 1) Do you believe that all living things came from a universal single-celled common ancestor? 2) Do you believe that random mutation or random variation and natural selection explain the origin of all life and its complexity? 3) Do you believe that humans evolved from a primitive ape-like ancestor in the last several million years, and if so, does the Darwinian mechanism in question 2) explain how it happened?
The Gallup poll then goes on to discuss educational level and church attendance, and how this correlates with belief in “evolution.” As expected, those with more “education” are more likely to be true believers, and those who attend church weekly are less likely to be true believers. The conclusion is obviously that educated people can see the truth and wisdom of evolution, and those who attend church regularly are blinded by religion.
But perhaps a major factor is that those with more education who never attend church have never been exposed to anything but pro-Darwin indoctrination in public schools and universities, as well as the mainstream media, and have never heard about any of the weaknesses of the theory. That was the case in my situation.
During all my education, up through three college degrees, I never heard a word that challenged Darwinian orthodoxy, and you can bet that I was a true Darwinian believer. It wasn’t until a Christian friend suggested that I read Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis that I slapped myself on the forehead and realized that I’d been conned. Perhaps church is one of the few places where people are likely to be exposed to the scientific problems with Darwinism.
The news story mentioned above is followed by the article, ‘Missing Links’ Reveal Truth About Evolution, in which we read, “As key evidence for evolution and species’ gradual change over time, transitional creatures should resemble intermediate species, having skeletal and other body features in common with two distinct groups of animals, such as reptiles and mammals, or fish and amphibians. These animals sound wild, but the fossil record — which is far from complete — is full of them…”
This is a perfect example of the one-sided indoctrination to which people are exposed in public education and the mainstream media. To be honest and fair, they should also quote Niles Eldredge, who said:
No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change–over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that’s how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution.