A recent report shows a high correlation between disbelief in evolution and prejudice against minorities, immigrants, and LGBT+.
So would this correlation be usable in jury selection? Could they (the defense) put a question on the questionaire about what the potential jurors thought about evolution and reject those who say they don’t believe in it? Or, if there’s no questionaire, ask about it during voir dire? Assuming that the defendant belongs to one of those groups, of course.
So really what you’re asking is - does asking about a person’s acceptance of evolution imply they are being asked about their religious beliefs? (Which I assume is a no-no in jury selection?)
It would be risky to conclude that this one set of surveys by authors predisposed to believe in the outcome has resulted in a “scientifically established correlation”. It’s unclear from the link how they supposedly accounted for overall religiosity and established disbelief in evolution as an independent indicator of prejudice. We now can say with certainty that devout Muslims and Christians who accept evolution are not going to be biased against minorities? Really?
I don’t think stealth questioning to eliminate jurors with strong religious beliefs is going to fly, even in this modified form. And one can imagine prosecutors making use of evolution questioning to knock out potential jurors that they don’t like.
Since you have access to the full study and the rest of us only have the abstract, I’d be grateful if you could quote where the author’s claim that they were “predisposed to believe in the outcome”
Also where they claim, “We now can say with certainty that devout Muslims and Christians who accept evolution are not going to be biased against minorities”
Read the linked article.
“The findings supported the hypothesis of lead author Stylianos Syropoulos, a Ph.D. candidate in the War and Peace Lab of senior author Bernhard Leidner, associate professor of social psychology…The researchers theorized that belief in evolution would tend to increase people’s identification with all humanity, due to the common ancestry, and would lead to less prejudicial attitudes.”
You’re quoting me, not the authors of the study, who nonetheless concluded that acceptance of evolution independent of depth of religious fervor is a decisive factor in determining who is prejudiced.
Hope that helps.
Ok. I thought it was pretty standard to state and test a hypothesis when doing a scientific study. I’ve never taken that to mean that the authors were predisposed to believe in the outcome. If I did, I would have to say the same thing about every other study ever.
So they didn’t say that? I didn’t find the words you highlighted anywhere in the link or the links from there. I also didn’t find the word “decisive”. All you have to do is give a literal quote from the link or the study that supports your assertion.
I have to wonder how much that applies only because “disbelief in evolution” is a selector for (white) American fundamentalist protestant sects that take the Bible literally and are to some extent associated with xenophobia against “different-looking” types - if I’m putting this politely. One tenet is the literal truth of the Bible, which does not obviously endorse evolution.
It’s not necessarily a selector for more strongly held religious beliefs by people in general. I’m not aware of any strong hostility to evolution in the Catholic church, where orders like the Jesuits are known for the number of scientists in their fold.
Nor do we hear of hostility to evolution in Moslem or Hindu countries. I do recall an article about the religious police in Saudi Arabia several years ago shutting down an exhibit about dinosaurs, but they were roundly ridiculed in the local social media. (I.e. “Maybe they can’t take the competition…?”)
The report says they conducted multiple studies in three regions: the US, Eastern Europe, and Muslim countries plus Israel. So it’s not just American fundamentalists.