According to a story in today's Guardian, more than 30% of students in the UK say they believe in creationism or intelligent design. The piece makes for uncomfortable reading for anyone capable of rational thought.
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 - that some features of living things are due to a supernatural being such as God. This means more than 30% believe our origins have more to do with God than with Darwin - evolution theory rang true for only 56%.
Academics are unsurprised
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. "What was extremely worrying for students embarking on evidence- and science-based disciplines was that they were perfectly prepared to say they had rejected it not on the basis of evidence but on the basis of their religious beliefs," he says.>
And
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 or delude themselves that they are."
He blames the influence of Christian fundamentalists in America and political correctness among teachers here who, he says, feel they have to give a reasonable hearing to beliefs held by people from other cultures, particularly Muslims.
Let's be clear here, I'm all for being open-minded and listening to other people's points of view. But when those points of view include positing the existance of an invisible sky-pixie who magicked the whole universe into existence, then surely the only sane response is to laugh at them. Very loudly.
I think that there was a hidden third option in this study, "Couldn't care less either way" or even "Haven't thought about it". That might change the results a fair bit.
The important thing to remember about keeping an open mind is that if you open it too far your brain will fall out.
I'm totally agree with Ian.
I guess I'm inclined to be more open-minded than you when it comes to listening to other people's point of view: if they posit the invisible sky pixie to me then I won't laugh in their faces. However, if they try to tell my kids that it's science - *that's* when I'll go postal ...
I was going to go postal, but now I can't work out how much it would cost me. Do I have to buy different stamps for bigger letters or what?