How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [153]
In a forced choice between the “theory of creationism” and the “theory of evolution,” 57 percent chose creationism against only 33 percent for evolution (10 percent said they were “unsure”). Only 33 percent of Americans think that the theory of evolution is “well supported by evidence,” while slightly more (39 percent) believe that it is not well supported, and that it is “just one of many theories.” One reason for these disturbing results can be seen in the additional finding that only 34 percent of Americans consider themselves to be “very informed” about evolution. Clearly the 66 percent who do not consider themselves well informed have not withheld their judgment on the theory’s veracity.
This fact was brought to light for me in the overwhelming response to my February 2002 Scientific American column on evolution and Intelligent Design creationism. Where I typically receive a couple of dozen letters a month, for this one no less than 134 were submitted (117 men, 4 women, 13 unknowns—a ratio equivalent to the magazine’s gender split).
When I first started writing for Scientific American I found reading critical letters mildly disconcerting, until I hit upon the idea that these are a form of data to be mined for additional information on what people believe and why—an informal vox populi. Conducting a content analysis of all 134 letters, I discovered a pattern within the cacophonous chaos that gave me additional insight into why people reject the theory of evolution. Initially I read through them all quickly, coding them into about two dozen one-line categories that summed up the reader’s point. I then coalesced these into six taxonomic classes, and reread all the letters carefully, placing each into one or more of the six (many readers made more than one point), giving a total of 163 ratings from which the following percentages were derived:
Excerpts from the letters illuminate each taxon. (Although most were friendly and reasonable, one fellow opined that my column “could have been written in 1939 by a Nazi,” while another said that “Michael Shermer must not only be a sceptic but also stupid in the 3rd degree the way he talks about ‘Intelligent Design.”’) I was initially surprised to discover that only 7 percent agreed with me about the veracity of evolution (and the emptiness of creationism), with one reader going so far as to claim, “The defenders of science behave too well. No amount of evolution education will counter the deliberate, sly, selective ignorance of creation ‘science.’” Nearly double that number argued that evolution is God’s method of creating life, such as one correspondent who agreed “that evolution is right—but still I see GOD in the will and cunning intention in the genetic system of all living organisms and in the system and order present in the laws of nature. Seeing all the diversity in the methods of camoflage in animals and plants for an example, I know that there is a will behind it.” Another reader sees creation and evolution “as complementary to each other. Put simply, since all parts of the universe follow intelligible law as educed through human intelligence, and such a law is a principle or cause, it follows that the universe as a whole must be the effect of the operation of a singular all-encompassing Principle.”
Figure 3. Why people do not accept evolution.
Critics of evolution in the third taxon hauled out an old canard every evolutionary biologist has heard: “I want to point out that evolution is only a theory.” And: “To my knowledge evolution is just a theory that has never been put to the test successfully and is far from being conclusive.” That evolution requires