Thread: The extent of creationism in Britain Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Story here. It's 'only' one in three, but over 50% believe that evolution alone accounts for why we're all here - but presumably that would include intelligent designers and the kind of theistic evolutionists who comprise the vast majority (I suspect) of Shipmates. But it's the one in three tending towards YECies who interest me the most - are they all thick, invincibly ignorant, or does it illustrate that the depth and extent of religious feeling in this country is greater than most of us think...?
 
Posted by davelarge (# 186) on :
 
I've got a terrible feeling that I might agree with Richard Dawkins about something [Help]

What the survey really shows is the generally low level of scientific education in the British public. Having said that, I would not go so far as to call Britons 'pig-ignorant'.
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
One in three, though? That's an awful lot for it to be just 'pig-ignorance'.
 
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :
 
quote:
Asked whether it was true that "God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years", 32 per cent agreed,
[Eek!] [Eek!] [Eek!]

Isn't that vastly more than the percentage of people in church on a Sunday?
 
Posted by davelarge (# 186) on :
 
But look at how the question is worded. It explicitly says "within the last 10000 years". To someone who isn't scientifically educated, that could sound like a long time so they could mistakenly answer in favour of YEC without meaning it.

The other thing to mention is that this was a phone survey. It takes a certain bias to be bothered to stay on the line and answer someone's questions.

So, I suspect that the number of people who believe in YEC is worryingly high, but probably not one in three.
 
Posted by Figbash (# 9048) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by davelarge:
But look at how the question is worded. It explicitly says "within the last 10000 years". To someone who isn't scientifically educated, that could sound like a long time so they could mistakenly answer in favour of YEC without meaning it.

Haven't you got to be seriously uninformed or at least amazingly incurious to not be aware of dinosaurs living tens of millions of years ago, stars being billions of years old, etc, etc?

Or am I just assuming that most people are as interested in stuff as I am when they aren't?
 
Posted by Bachbuff (# 14512) on :
 
My experience with intellegent non-scientists is that both the above are more often true than is comfortable

[ 01. February 2009, 13:14: Message edited by: Bachbuff ]
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
There may be green and Pomo dimension to this, Matt, rather than the results saying anything about, for example, religious beliefs. Incredulity about established metanarratives does tend to confirm in people the notion that they can choose what they believe, regardless of what anybody says. "Let a hundred flowers bloom ,so long as they are pretty."

And scientific processes have moved to being perceived as part of the problem (over-exploitation of the earth) rather than being part of the solution (the application of discoveries can make life better). There is a kind of inchoate distrust around in the minds of some.

I don't think the dots get joined up, but then on issues like creationism it's not immediately obvious that anyone has to. Even on issues of sound education. It's hardly credit-crunchy either. I guess that, often enough, opinions expressed in these ways are little more than relaxed "shooting the breeze". Many folks will perceive that there is not a lot depending on getting the answer right.

[I think the thread is fine for Purg BTW as long as it avoids migrating into creationism per se - which will get it into the Ole Corral. That's not a ruling either. It's Sunday afternoon and I'm sleepy!]
 
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Figbash:
Haven't you got to be seriously uninformed or at least amazingly incurious to not be aware of dinosaurs living tens of millions of years ago, stars being billions of years old, etc, etc?

Or am I just assuming that most people are as interested in stuff as I am when they aren't?

I think second paragraph is right. I was listening to an article from New Scientist of 24 Jan today - the article on how the 'tree of life' diagram is having to be re-drawn into a sort of web because varioius single cell things have always exchanged DNA and RNA. It pointed out that the discovery of DNA has added so much to the knowledge and understanding of the evolutionary process. I just love reading about it all and wish I had known much more years ago.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
Barnabas wrote:

quote:
There may be green and Pomo dimension to this, Matt, rather than the results saying anything about, for example, religious beliefs. Incredulity about established metanarratives does tend to confirm in people the notion that they can choose what they believe, regardless of what anybody says. "Let a hundred flowers bloom ,so long as they are pretty."

You might be onto something here. On the other hand, whenever it gets reported that X percentage of Americans believe in creationist ideas, no one seems to feel any need to speculate about "Green and Pomo" dimensions to the belief. The only dimensions usually referenced are "bible thumper", "trailer trash", and the like.
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Figbash:
Haven't you got to be seriously uninformed or at least amazingly incurious to not be aware of dinosaurs living tens of millions of years ago, stars being billions of years old, etc, etc?

I suspect people's ability to reconcile the existence of dinosaurs with the concept of a young earth may have more to do with watching The Flintstones as a child, than the teaching of the Church.
 
Posted by Al Eluia (# 864) on :
 
What do you mean by "green and Pomo"?
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
We've discussed this sort of survey several times down in Dead Horses. Usually, the wording of the questions leaves a lot to be desired. At the moment, I don't know exactly what questions were asked. But, in previous polls it's not unusual for there to be no option between a 'God of the Gaps' design or a totally atheistic evolution only position. Traditional Christian theism would mean that you can't say yes to a statement like "Evolution, without any divine action, fully accounts for life on earth", nor the next statement up the "creationist scale" which says that God actively intervened at points in history to work outwith the pattern of evolution. That would tend to seriously skew the number of 'creationist' responders from what you'd get with a better worded questionairre.

It doesn't explain the high proportion of young earth creationist responders. Of course, YEC is also going to be the view of some Jews and Muslims (although, in both cases, I'd not expect all adherents of those faiths to be Young Earth, or even Intelligent Design, Creationists).
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Figbash:
quote:
Originally posted by davelarge:
But look at how the question is worded. It explicitly says "within the last 10000 years". To someone who isn't scientifically educated, that could sound like a long time so they could mistakenly answer in favour of YEC without meaning it.

Haven't you got to be seriously uninformed or at least amazingly incurious to not be aware of dinosaurs living tens of millions of years ago, stars being billions of years old, etc, etc?

Or am I just assuming that most people are as interested in stuff as I am when they aren't?

I'm suspicious that most people think dinosaurs happened a long time ago, the earth was created a long time ago and 10000 years is a long time ago. When dealing with large numbers people are not very good at dealing with magnitude. That is why scientists changed to orders of ten, it means dealing with smaller numbers for big quantities.

Jengie
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
I'm a little suspicious, having met only about four creationists in my entire life (all very conservative evangelicals). Where are they all hiding?
 
Posted by Patrick the less saintly (# 14355) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Barnabas wrote:

quote:
There may be green and Pomo dimension to this, Matt, rather than the results saying anything about, for example, religious beliefs. Incredulity about established metanarratives does tend to confirm in people the notion that they can choose what they believe, regardless of what anybody says. "Let a hundred flowers bloom ,so long as they are pretty."

You might be onto something here. On the other hand, whenever it gets reported that X percentage of Americans believe in creationist ideas, no one seems to feel any need to speculate about "Green and Pomo" dimensions to the belief. The only dimensions usually referenced are "bible thumper", "trailer trash", and the like.
That's because it's America. I have nothing against America, but it tends to be filled with Americans.
 
Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Al Eluia:
What do you mean by "green and Pomo"?

Environmentally friendly and post-modern.
 
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on :
 
People seem to be focusing on YEC, but that's not solely what the poll was about. It asked about the origins of life as well as the timespan.

Personally, I have a hard time swallowing some evolutionary theory as espoused today (which I believe is a development from Darwin). When I hear the likes of Attenborough make some of the links between species and individuals within species, there is an element of the looney tune there. They really can be far-fetched. It is, in fact, easier to believe that 'a creator' stepped in sometimes. I certainly find it more convincing that 'a creator' sparked it all off.

I am neither pig ignorant nor uninteligent. Many people, including me, have had plenty of opportunity to think about evolution given its pervasive presence in education, on the TV, in the press. Just because something is taught as a given does not mean it is accepted as such by the recipients of the teaching and in some ways I am reassured by that. At least individuals continue to have minds of their own!

I think the point in the article about creationism being taught as an alternative worldview is a good one. If indeed over half the population do believe that 'a creator' had some influence in the emergence and diversity of life on this planet, surely it is better to run that theory alongside evolutionary theory so that from the outset people can make informed choices? After all, there appears to be a general consensus in society that 'informed choice' is the way to go in virtually every other area of life, why not in teaching about the origins of life?
 
Posted by Patrick the less saintly (# 14355) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:

I think the point in the article about creationism being taught as an alternative worldview is a good one. If indeed over half the population do believe that 'a creator' had some influence in the emergence and diversity of life on this planet, surely it is better to run that theory alongside evolutionary theory so that from the outset people can make informed choices?

Yes, that's obviously the solution. The world is everything that is the case, except when it isn't. 2+2 equals 4, except when Big Brother (or the hierarchy of the Holy Church according to Ignatius of Loyola) says otherwise.

I though the PoMo explanation was a bit far-fetched, but it makes total sense now. Although I think egalitarianism has something to do with it as well, a mentality of 'to hell with peer-reviewed publications, truth or falsehood of an idea is determined by the number of people who agree with it.' But, as all Shipmates know, sanity is not statistical.

Curiously enough, though, I do support the removal of laws against Holocaust denial because I A. believe that the dangers of a Nazi renaissance are past and B. believe that historical truth or falsehood is a subject for historians, not governments.
 
Posted by Waterchaser (# 11005) on :
 
The percentages quoted sound about right for an evangelical church. I'm amazed they are accurate for the country as a whole!
 
Posted by Qlib (# 43) on :
 
I think that it just demonstrates that asking people simplistic questions results in simplistic answers. I believe (sometimes) that the phenomenon generally known as G-d may have "had a hand" (appalling anthropomorphism) in creation, but we need science to understand the mechanism. The evidence science presents is that it was evolution. So evolution is the theory that should be taught in science lessons unless and until science finds us another one - but I'm guessing that any future theory would still incorporate evolution, rather than replace it.
 
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
I am neither pig ignorant nor uninteligent[sic]. Many people, including me, have had plenty of opportunity to think about evolution given its pervasive presence in education, on the TV, in the press.

Yet your preceding argument boils down to "It sounds crazy to me, therefore it must have been God", which is an argument from ignorance. It provides a very useful insight into how so many people can hold YEC-related views, though - they don't understand the theory of evolution, so it sounds ridiculous, therefore God is the simplest and most appealing explanation.
quote:
Just because something is taught as a given does not mean it is accepted as such by the recipients of the teaching and in some ways I am reassured by that. At least individuals continue to have minds of their own!
Exactly. I'm delighted that so many kids taking Maths GCSEs refuse to accept the heavily-promoted propaganda of the rules of arithmetic at face value, and are prepared to bravely stand up and proclaim that 4x5=23. And what about Intelligent Falling? Teach the controversy!
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We've discussed this sort of survey several times down in Dead Horses. Usually, the wording of the questions leaves a lot to be desired. At the moment, I don't know exactly what questions were asked. But, in previous polls it's not unusual for there to be no option between a 'God of the Gaps' design or a totally atheistic evolution only position. Traditional Christian theism would mean that you can't say yes to a statement like "Evolution, without any divine action, fully accounts for life on earth", nor the next statement up the "creationist scale" which says that God actively intervened at points in history to work outwith the pattern of evolution. That would tend to seriously skew the number of 'creationist' responders from what you'd get with a better worded questionairre.

It doesn't explain the high proportion of young earth creationist responders. Of course, YEC is also going to be the view of some Jews and Muslims (although, in both cases, I'd not expect all adherents of those faiths to be Young Earth, or even Intelligent Design, Creationists).

Alan, I think the initial survey question was framed in terms of "Do you believe that solely evolution, with no outside agency, accounts for the origins of life and how we got here?" etc, to which 51% said 'no'; as I said in my OP, that would include theistic evolutionists in the 'no' camp. Only subsequently did they ask the 6-day YEC question, to which one third responded 'yes'. Perhaps this third should concern us less than the 49% who agreed that evolution alone accounts for our origins...
 
Posted by The Revolutionist (# 4578) on :
 
The full report, Rescuing Darwin, can be found on the Theos website. The survey is one part of a broader look at the current relationship between Christianity and evolution, and only contains the preliminary results, with a full research report to be published in March.

It gives a bit more detail on the survey and the options given, and the summary says:
quote:
Overall, the results from the Theos/ComRes study underline how difficult it is to say with absolute precision and confidence that the population divides into x, y and z% of evolutionists, IDers or creationists. Many people are too unclear about the options and uncertain of their own beliefs to come out definitively as one or another.

What the data do reveal is that in the UK around one in ten people are convinced Young Earth Creationists, about one in seven hold to some form of ID, and one in four are confident evolutionists. The remaining half of the population is rather less certain, generally favouring evolution over other theories, but insufficiently confident of its merits, and therefore inclined to temper their conviction with other explanations.


 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
The full report, Rescuing Darwin, can be found on the Theos website.

Thanks for the link. I was looking for the sort of info there earlier on the ComRes site (who actually carried out the poll according to the article linked to in the OP).

The four options and percentage responses are given here (pdf). It's certainly better than some polls which seem to forget the 'theistic evolution' option all together. It does still leave a distinct grey area where I suspect a large number of people with well thought out opinions (as opposed to those who just don't really know) would have difficulties.

For example, 'theistic evolution' as defined in the poll is very broad. It ranges from the 'light blue touch paper' position where God set up the laws of the universe and then sat back and watched them produce life, through what I would consider to be the traditional theist position that God created directly through evolution by being active in sustaining all creation but without actually doing anything that wouldn't be 100% consistent with scientific understanding, to the position that's technically called 'theistic evolution' where the action of God is even more direct in (say) causing specific mutations to happen which may not be visible to scientific investigation but has nonetheless loaded the dice.

Given those choices I'd have been hard pressed to choose between 'theistic evolution' and 'atheistic evolution'. Take out the bit about belief in God 'being unnecessary and absurd' (even leave in the 'unnecessary' if it's clearly limited to the scientific description) and I'll probably go with the 'atheistic evolution' option. I'd want a clarification that 'theistic evolution' is still 100% consistent with the scientific view, without God 'loading the dice' or otherwise tinkering (even without leaving fingerprints), to be entirely comfortable with that option.
 
Posted by davelarge (# 186) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Waterchaser:
The percentages quoted sound about right for an evangelical church. I'm amazed they are accurate for the country as a whole!

I don't know. The last evangelical church that I attended in the UK, I'd guess it was 80% or so that believed in YEC. One of the former Pastors was a regular attender of the church, and most of his sermons included asides which amounted to completely uneducated science-bashing.

It was rather sad, really.
 
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
It gives a bit more detail on the survey and the options given, and the summary says:
quote:
What the data do reveal is that in the UK around one in ten people are convinced Young Earth Creationists, about one in seven hold to some form of ID, and one in four are confident evolutionists.

I'm somewhat sceptical that 1 in 10 people in the UK is a Young Earth Creationist. Twenty years ago the evangelical churches I went to hardly had any YEC types - what's happened since then?
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
A lot more mistrust of science?

[ 02. February 2009, 15:03: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
 
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
A lot more mistrust of science?

There might be mistrust of science, but there's generally even more mistrust of religion. Why should distrusting science lead to fundamentalist views of creation?

Have most churches really gone all Yeccie? [Ultra confused]
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
The (evo) ones I've attended always have been, by and large.
 
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
The (evo) ones I've attended always have been, by and large.

Maybe it's because I attended churches popular with university students and staff, but the Young Earth crowd seemed negligible. Lots of people were uncomfortable with evolution but they accepted that the Earth was very old.
 
Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
This topic is much more appropriate to Dead Horses and should continue its life in there. Please do not hesitate to keep discussing in your new location.

Trudy, Scrumptious Purgatory Host

[ 02. February 2009, 16:44: Message edited by: Trudy Scrumptious ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I'd want a clarification that 'theistic evolution' is still 100% consistent with the scientific view, without God 'loading the dice' or otherwise tinkering (even without leaving fingerprints), to be entirely comfortable with that option.

I think the implied contrast with their characterisation of Intelligent Design would mean that theistic evolution doesn't have God tinkering. I don't know how much die-loading it implies.

Part of the problem is that the atheistic option and the ID option are both cast in terms of whether God is required to get the process to work, and the theistic evolution option doesn't say where it lies in regards to that question.
(It would be interesting to know how Simon Conway Morris would have answered.)
 
Posted by The Revolutionist (# 4578) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
The (evo) ones I've attended always have been, by and large.

My parents are Young Earth Creationists and that's what I was brought up believing, but I changed my mind when I looked into it for myself at university.

The small, rural evangelical church I grew up in is very conservative, and I reckon that the majority would be YECers.

From my experience of evangelical churches more generally, I'd hazard a guess that those who hold to some form of creationism are overall in the majority, but that's just a very subjective impression.

Dedicated Young Earthers are a minority, albeit a vocal one, and there's a good number of people who would accept the scientific account of evolution without reservation, but a very broad spectrum of opinion in the middle, often not particularly thought-through or firmly held.

It tends to be the ones who are dominantly creationist that are the most vocal on the subject, which can give a skewed impression.

When I was in CU, it wasn't a subject I felt comfortable discussing, since I felt I'd be branded "unsound". Looking back, this might have reflected more on my insecurities than on how people would actually have reacted: the discussions I actually did have with friends from CU, though heated, were usually amiable.

At my evangelical church, there are people with strong opinions on both sides of the debate. There isn't an official church "line" on the subject - preachers tend to skate around the issue. When we had a sermon series on Genesis, we had a discussion time after one of the evening services for those who were interested in discussing the "how" of creation.

Since there are quite a few students and academics in my current church, there are perhaps fewer Creationists than there would be in somewhere not so close to a university - I don't know, perhaps that's not entirely fair, but it wouldn't surprise me.

It's very much a live debate among evangelicals - there have been a number of articles giving both sides of the argument in Evangelicals Now, a monthly conservative evangelical newspaper (though not as conservative as Evangelical Times, which comes down firmly in the Creationist camp).

As I see it, evangelicals are attracted to Creationism because it appears to take the Bible more seriously than those who accept evolution. I think that the theological engagement of those who hold to a theistic evolutionist viewpoint has sometimes been weak, which puts off many evangelicals. However, people like Denis Alexander have been working hard to plug that gap.

Creationism benefits from general scientific ignorance, but not as much as some people might argue. I think that some Christians reject for theological reasons scientific arguments even if they are scientifically sound. This is due to an emphasis in some evangelical streams of theology on presuppositionalism and on the corrupting effects of sin on knowledge. Basically, some people have an epistemology that says we can only have knowledge of the truth through faith in Christ, and so all forms of knowledge outside of direct revelation from God are inherently unreliable.

I think this neglects the truths of God's common grace and general revelation, and ignores the way in which science arose from the Christian worldview and is entirely compatible with it. But it is one of the ways in which very intelligent people can be convinced of Creationism. It's not because they are necessarily ignorant of the evidence or arguments for evolution, but that they approach it with radically different presuppositions.

The challenge here, I believe, is to demonstrate that the Christian worldview gives us good reason to believe that we can do science and that it will tell us about how the world works, while rejecting the idea that science gives the whole picture.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think the implied contrast with their characterisation of Intelligent Design would mean that theistic evolution doesn't have God tinkering. I don't know how much die-loading it implies.

The problem I have is that 'theistic evolution' predates Intelligent Design by a long time. In fact, ID is closer to original descriptions of Theistic Evolution than it is to YEC. TE, like ID, is a form of Old Earth Creationism. Some forms of TE have some form of 'punctuated creation' in which specific organism (or parts thereof) are specifically created by God, exactly as in ID. But, all of them have God's hand directly in the creative process actively directing the course of evolution.

Whereas, I'd be much more comfortable with the God's hand being directly in the creative process (he's Creator, afterall). But in a manner that doesn't direct evolution, and lets the process work out without tinkering or dice loading.
 
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
I'd tend to agree with The Revolutionist's observations and conclusions above.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
As I see it, evangelicals are attracted to Creationism because it appears to take the Bible more seriously than those who accept evolution.

...

Creationism benefits from general scientific ignorance, but not as much as some people might argue. I think that some Christians reject for theological reasons

That would certainly be my experience too. The evangelical emphasis on Scripture (often encapsulated with a phrase in a statement on the churches doctrine position with something like 'authority on matters of faith and conduct') very often places an understanding from Scripture above knowledge gained from other sources. If, in reading Scripture, someone with such a high regard for what Scripture says can only see a Creationist position (be that Young Earth, Theistic Evolution or Intelligent Design) then no amount of scientific literacy is likely to change that view - at least, not without abandoning (evangelical) Christianity.

quote:
The challenge here, I believe, is to demonstrate that the Christian worldview gives us good reason to believe that we can do science and that it will tell us about how the world works, while rejecting the idea that science gives the whole picture.
Agreed wholeheartedly. But, it is a challenge.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
I was moving about in/on the fringes of evangelical student culture about fifteen years ago. My impression then was that while there were a few YECs about, they were a bit eccentric.

It seems to me from remarks made on this thread that there's been a growth in popularity. The most likely explanation would be the influence of US evangelical religion.
 
Posted by tristram (# 14229) on :
 
I have been following creationism for decades

In the early 70s YEC hardly exists, but has grown since .

Today within the Church of Engalnd I reckon up to 5% of clergy are 6/24 creationists and many more following intelligent design. And it's growing

We also have 2 bs books on creationism by Anglican clergy - Kevin Logan and Martin Dowe.

There are more creationist clergy in the Cof E now than there were in 1859!!!
 
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I was moving about in/on the fringes of evangelical student culture about fifteen years ago. My impression then was that while there were a few YECs about, they were a bit eccentric.

I think there are always eccentrics, but my experience in similar circles (more like 10 years ago) is that there are a lot of YECs or YEC-leaning types who don't necessarily get noticed or pigeon-holed as such because they don't go on about it all the time, or devote more time and energy to other GLE shibboleths.

Even in our relatively sane UCCF group, I often found when this came up in discussion that there was a lot of unnoticed YECery about, not least among Biology students, to the extent that I often found it necessary to cede ground on macro-evolution in order to have a chance to argue the case for micro-evolution. (Ugh, I hate those phrases!) Based on my anecdotal experience, I'd put the proportion of YECs in that group at more like 50%, and wouldn't be greatly surprised if it was higher.
 
Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :
 
Worldwide statistics about belief in creationism from the Economist
 
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :
 
Uh? I'd like to see the full details of this survey. The text says that 14% of Americans believe that "man evolved over millions of years" in 2008, but the graph shows about 40% acceptance of evolution (and another 20% unsure) in 2006.

It looks like that graph is taken from this report, but the accompanying text says the opposite of the Economist, reporting that American acceptance of evolution has declined from 45% in 1985 to 40% in 2005. So the survey's years old, they've quoted it as 2006, instead of 2005, and they've apparently tacked a different unspecified survey from 2008 onto the existing data. I wouldn't like to draw any conclusions from this until we have more information, because at the moment it looks like a total mess.
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
quote:
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
It gives a bit more detail on the survey and the options given, and the summary says:
quote:
What the data do reveal is that in the UK around one in ten people are convinced Young Earth Creationists, about one in seven hold to some form of ID, and one in four are confident evolutionists.

I'm somewhat sceptical that 1 in 10 people in the UK is a Young Earth Creationist. Twenty years ago the evangelical churches I went to hardly had any YEC types - what's happened since then?
My suspicion is that it's a backlash against the posturing of the militant atheists. There are a lot of people saying ``Evolution means your religion is shit''. It doesn't surprise me that attitudes like this tend to polarise opinion, and I believe that many people who would otherwise be pretty neutral are being forced to dig themselves in behind the YEC trenches.

I think it also has to be said that, although the basic ideas of evolution have been known for decades, it's taken a long time for the full implications of evolution to settle into the popular consciousness.

Fifty years ago we could have said, honestly enough, that evolution was merely about the mechanics of creation. It didn't matter that much about the details of how God brought about the world and everything in it -- He just did. But increasingly it seems that evolution, and more particularly natural selection and all that implies, are a challenge to some pretty fundamental aspects of the Christian world-view.

It that's correct, then I don't find it surprising that more Christians want to put themselves on the anti-evolution side.
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by tristram:
...Today within the Church of Engalnd I reckon up to 5% of clergy are 6/24 creationists ...

How on earth do people like that get ordained in the first place*? Apart from anything else, for the reason so cogently explained by The Revolutionist, this kind of creationism is just such bad theology.

* I suppose maybe some change their views after ordiantion, in which case there's not a lot that can be done about it.
 
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
It that's correct, then I don't find it surprising that more Christians want to put themselves on the anti-evolution side.

Nor do I, but I don't see why Young Earth Creationism has such apparent appeal. The idea of a 6000-year old Earth (and the Flood) forces you to disregard not only evolution, but also 99% of geology, most astronomy and a fair bit of archeology. It's not been even vaguely defensible for several hundred years.

Old Earth Creationism doesn't have a fraction of these problems, and it still gets to reject most of the implications of human evolution. That was easily the dominant view amongst most evangelicals I knew twenty years ago, and the YEC-ists were regarded as oddities.
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
[qb]It that's correct, then I don't find it surprising that more Christians want to put themselves on the anti-evolution side.

Nor do I, but I don't see why Young Earth Creationism has such apparent appeal. The idea of a 6000-year old Earth (and the Flood) forces you to disregard not only evolution, but also 99% of geology, most astronomy and a fair bit of archeology. It's not been even vaguely defensible for several hundred years.

The overwhelming majority of people, including myself, are unable to assess competing claims for the age of the Earth. The only thing that I, personally, know is that it is older than my oldest living ancestor. That would be my dad, I guess. So I'm pretty sure the Earth was created before 1932.

Beyond that, I rely on other people whom I trust to tell me these things. I am quite capable of reading, and to some extent, understanding, books written by paleontologists and evolutionary biologists. To the extent that I understand them, they seem to be reasonable and internally consistent.

But the idea that God made the universe entire starting at 4am on Tuesday May 4rd 4004 BV (or whenever the heck it was) also seems reasonable to me. I can't find any obvious holes in that theory on the basis of my own, personal observation and intellect.

So someone is selling me a big lie. The kind of person I am, how I was brought up, and the culture I live in, will determine whom I think the liar is. Because I am an experimental scientist, I am inclined to believe (on faith, if you like) that it isn't my fellow scientists who are selling me a lie.

In short, I doubt that better knowledge of the scientific issues would draw many people away from the young-earth position -- it is entirely possible to believe that the old-earthers are either catastrophically mistaken, self-deluded, or liars.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
Old Earth Creationism doesn't have a fraction of these problems, and it still gets to reject most of the implications of human evolution. That was easily the dominant view amongst most evangelicals I knew twenty years ago, and the YEC-ists were regarded as oddities.

Interestingly, 20-30 years ago the evangelicals I knew were mostly Theistic Evolutionists - the "Day-Age" or "gap" Creationists were a small minority, and the YECs practically a joke. I'd guess many of the same sort of people would now probably identify with ID Creationism, since it's a well publicised version of Theistic Evolutionism.
 


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