Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

More than 30% of students in the UK believe in creationism and intelligent design

Salvador Cordova
August 15, 2006
Intelligent Design
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In a survey last month, more than 12% questioned preferred creationism – the idea God created us within the past 10,000 years – to any other explanation of how we got here. Another 19% favoured the theory of intelligent design…This means more than 30% believe our origins have more to do with God than with Darwin – evolution theory rang true for only 56%.
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Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London…. has been talking about evolutionary biology in schools for 20 years. For the first 10 of those he was lucky to find one student in 1,000 expressing creationist beliefs. “Now in any school I go to I meet a student who says they are a creationist…”

He blames the influence of Christian fundamentalists in America…

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Comments
Just to clarify: The survey was all students not just science not just science students. The survey is based on self selection, so what it actually tells us is of the people with a .ac.uk email address (includes anyone who works at a UK university including possibly secretaries, IT technicians etc), who are registered with the website and decided to fill in the survey. I think that the statistic \"nearly 20% said they had been taught creationism as fact by their main school.\" is very suggestive that the survey is biased. Most people in the UK think that intelligent design is the same thing as theistic evolution. Almost all antievolutionary activiy in the UK is youg earth creationism, eg AIG. The students in science subjects claim to reject evolution becuase of their religious beliefs.Chris Hyland
August 16, 2006
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If the preponderance of the evidence warrants intelligent science (e.g. as an inference to the best explanation), that's all well and good, and we should be concerned about how a priori metaphysical commitments (e.g. to materialism) interfere with recognition of the available evidence. But shouldn't even intelligent design theorists and their supporters be concerned about students who admit that their beliefs are not constrained by evidence?Carlos
August 15, 2006
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In even more related news . . .tribune7
August 15, 2006
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"For the first 10 of those he was lucky to find one student in 1,000 expressing creationist beliefs. 'Now in any school I go to I meet a student who says they are a creationist or delude themselves that they are.'" Have students changed their minds, or were they afraid/embarassed to support a minority view? Or have some said "My skepticism about evolutionist claims now has a name and I think I'll embrace it."?russ
August 15, 2006
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One thing I found frustrating about this survey report was that it didn't clearly discuss who the participants were. Were highschool students included or was it only college kids? I like the surveyor's definition of ID: "the theory of intelligent design - that some features of living things are due to a supernatural being such as God." I found the following statement interesting, "10% of those with no particular religion favoured intelligent design." 10% of the non-religous population accepting the ID position, with only 30% of the overtly Christan community accepting it certainly doesn't support the "ID is religion" argument, does it?bFast
August 15, 2006
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The number identifying themselves with ID is shocking!!! The term ID has only been around since 1987, and its modern formulation was laid out in 1996 by Behe and 1999 by Dembski (correct me if I am wrong anyone). Apparently the kids can distinguish between creationism and ID, and its important that pollsters are at least attempting to make the distinction. My only reservation is that it really is not an either or situation, but at this stage I am not going to complain.scordova
August 15, 2006
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