About half of Britons doubt Darwin
The Darwinists claim that Darwin-doubting is primarily an American phenomenon and that the USA is therefore technologically falling behind other countries. Opinion polls in foreign countries show that this is not the case. A news article says,
Darwin-doubting is even more widespread in predominantly Moslem countries -- the National Center for Science Education gives the following figures for predominantly Moslem countries: “Only 16% of Indonesians, 14% of Pakistanis, 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, and 22% of Turks agree that Darwin’s theory is probably or most certainly true.”
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More than half of the public believe that the theory of evolution cannot explain the full complexity of life on Earth, and a "designer" must have lent a hand, the findings suggest.
And one in three believe that God created the world within the past 10,000 years.
The survey, by respected polling firm ComRes, will fuel the debate around evolution and creationism ahead of next week's 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.
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Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, said the findings revealed a worrying level of scientific ignorance among Britons.
In the survey, 51 per cent of those questioned agreed with the statement that "evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages"
A further 40 per cent disagreed, while the rest said they did not know.
The suggestion that a designer's input is needed reflects the "intelligent design" theory, promoted by American creationists as an alternative to Darwinian evolution.
Asked whether it was true that "God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years", 32 per cent agreed, 60 per cent disagreed and eight per cent did not know.
The findings – to be published tomorrow in a report by Theos, a theology think-tank – follow a row over the place of creationism in education.
A recent poll of science teachers found that one in three believe creationism should be taught in science classes alongside evolution and the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.
However, Michael Reiss, a biologist and Anglican cleric, was forced to resign as the Royal Society's director of education after suggesting that creationism should be discussed in lessons "not as a misconception but as a world view".
Darwin-doubting is even more widespread in predominantly Moslem countries -- the National Center for Science Education gives the following figures for predominantly Moslem countries: “Only 16% of Indonesians, 14% of Pakistanis, 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, and 22% of Turks agree that Darwin’s theory is probably or most certainly true.”
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Labels: Evolution controversy abroad (new #1), Islam and evolution
posted by Larry Fafarman | 2/03/2009 09:26:00 AM
5 Comments:
Very interesting. This means that 52% of Britons are intelligent design proponents, while 32% believe not only in intelligent design, but also in creationism.
Of course, the article tries to claim that ID is propounded only by creationists. In fact, some intelligent design proponents are "intelligent design evolutionists," who partially agree with the old conventional evolutionary biologists (who have long been called "Darwinists.") They agree with the Darwinists that all species have descended from older ones, over long time spans; but hold that intelligence designed most of the changes involved.
Anyway, it seems that the Darwinist propaganda-line is failing, even in Britain; while ID is gaining supposrt.
It's good to read that the vast majority of Indonesians, etc., reject the old dogmas or so-called "science" of the Darwinists. But there is a lot of confusion about what "Darwin's theory" means. Most people think that it means simply that humans descended from some ancient monkey-like species.
In fact Darwin's theory means that, but also much more. It means such descent by perfectly mindless, mechanistic processes; by competitive struggle and death.
I suspect that a lot FEWER Indonesians, etc., would swallow Darwin's theory if they were clear on exactly what it is!
Meanwhile, congratulations to all who are wise and sensible enough to reject Darwinism. Perhaps Americans will soon catch up to Indonesians in doing so.
This is extremely interesting, especially because blind adoration of Darwin has long been a point on nationalistic pride with many Brits. Britannia no longer "rules the waves," but at least it may, through Darwin, rule the minds of millions of clueless and unrefelective people around the world. Hence its not suprising that, among those conformists who run with the thundering herds of conventional British scientists, academics and intellectuals, doubting old Chuck Darwin is generally thought to be far worse than spitting in the face of the Queen.
And many generations of schoolkids have thus been indoctrinated in dogmatic Darwinism, in their public schools.
So my hat is off to the people of Britain. Their capacity to question archaic dogmas and to use their own heads, must be far greater than I had supposed.
This is the first survey that I've ever seen that has used an even reasonably-adequate definition of the position of intelligent design proponents. Most surveys incorrectly suggest that ID holds the designing intelligence must be supernatural or be God; or that intelligent design holds that existing species cannot have descended from older ones; or that ID claims that all features of living things were designed instead of perhaps only some of them; or that ID is based upon religious faith rather than upon an analysis of the evidence, etc., etc! The article does incorrectly imply that all ID proponents are creationists; but at least the definition of ID is not so bad.
And it suggests that the ID position is very popular, even in heavily Darwin-indoctrinated Britain!
I notice that the Darwin-addicts and materialists who rant against this blog haven't yet commented on this post, concerning the high popularity of Darwin-doubting and ID, even in heavily Darwin-indoctrinated Britain.
Probably the reason is that they are self-anointed elitists, who have contempt for the views of people in general: and who hope to prevail by simply seizing control of the public schools and forcing the rather absurd dogmas of Darwinism and materialism down the throats of schoolchildren.
But that didn't work in Britain, if we can believe this survey. Nor did it work in the old Soviet Union, where orthodox Neo-Darwinism was taught to all schoolkids, for many decades. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Darwin-doubting in Russia rapidly increased.
And the Internet has greatly augmented the ability of all people to investigate freely and to arrive at their own views; much to the horror of the apostles of old pseudoscientific dogmas, such as Darwinism.
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