Why do Creationists deny Evolution in face of tons of evidence supporting it?
Would someone kindly explain it to me? I’m really baffled… Are they blind or something?
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While there is overwhelming evidence for evolution to be an ongoing process in nature, that evidence requires a certain level of education simply to understand the process. The concept of random mutations being selected by environmental pressures is not complex, but an understanding that such “accidents” could accumulate in ways that lead to all the wondrous organisms in the world is not intuitive. So many people who look at eyes, the spining flagella of certain bacteria, the ways in which certain animals are symbiotic, and dozens (hundreds?) of other phenomena simply cannot understand how any of them could have evolved. At that point, the education is no longer relevant, because they feel that there is no way that evolution could have occurred. It simply feels wrong to them.
Beyond that, particularly in North America, the fact that evolution contradicts the scenario of Creation described in Genesis gives a very large number of people the impetus to ignore the science, even if they did take the time to understand it.
Meh.
There is certainly a strong element of (religious) indoctrination in opposition to the teaching of evolutionary science, but I suspect that the difficulty of simply comprehending the ability of natural selection to create enormously complex entities has more to do with it. I have known lots of agnostics, (and a few atheists), who are not willing to grant a “god” any power to create complex life, but who still feel that there is something else that has to have been responsible for the complexity of life because “evolution” just could not do it.
Why did so many people believe in Paul Erlich’s even more ridiculous Population Bomb theory? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb Erlich still believes despite everything happening to the exact opposite for the last fifty years!
I haven’t attended any atheist mixers but I’ve never talked to one who didn’t believe in evolution. On the other hand, I’ve spoken to some very smart, educated religious folk who don’t believe in evolution- including a friend who only recently came out to me as atheist. These people aren’t too stupid to understand evolution and I don’t think that they have any more difficulty comprehending it than I do. What they can’t comprehend is that this belief system that has been pounded into them might not be entirely correct, the evidence be damned. Like conspiracy theorists, they just ignore anything that conflicts with their theories.
Besides heavy religious indoctrination, there’s the fact that it is downplayed or ignored in what passes for American science education, for fear of offending the lunatics.
That doesn’t explain why creationism is so common here in hyper-religious America, and much less common in more secular places, unless you want to claim that people in other countries are literally just more intelligent. Besides which, there is no non-religious opposition to the reality of evolution. Scientifically, it’s as confirmed as you can get and has been longer than any of us have been alive.
They are stupid
Well, not all. Quite a few are irrational rather than merely stupid.
I don’t really think that’s the big problem. Geology is a subject that requires a certain level of education to understand and process but very few people doubt that erosion can carve a valley over a long period of time or that a diamond can be created by exerted a great amount of pressure on a piece of carbon. Of course there are young earthers who choose to interpret that evidence in such a way to fit into their paradigm of a 6,000 year old Earth.
In my biology class I saw several intelligent well educated people simply shut down when we reached the section on evolution. These were people making excellent grades who had no difficulty demonstrating a mastery of knowledge when it came to the life cycle of a cell, the different types of single cell organisms or the intricacies of the mammalian reproductive system. (In so much as anyone can “master” the subject in a 101 class.) When we reached the section on evolution these students literally shut down and refused to learn the material and it was truly an amazing sight to see. When we took the test that contained the evolution material these students who had been making 85% or more on previous and subsequent tests made 70-85% for that unit. We were in the same study group and I tried helping them as they had helped me on other units in the class. I kept hearing from one student “It just doesn’t make sense to me” and after attempting to explain natural selection and sexual selection she would just repeat “it just doesn’t make sense to me.” Exasperated I said to them “You don’t have to believe it just know how it works for the test.”
This is pretty much it. Never underestimate the ability of the human mind to ignore evidence it doesn’t want to see.
Odesio
Quite true. In fact, it’s very dangerous to assume that they are stupid. They’re certainly not too stupid to organize and attempt to add baloney like “Intelligent” design into high school biology textbooks or to their their people elected to school boards.
A lot of religious people genuinely think there’s lots of good evidence against evolution, because they get their information on evolution from people who are actively fighting against it.
I’ve had religious people tell me there were obvious, well-known flaws in evolution. These flaws are generally either very outdated, not actually related to evolution, and simply complete fabrications.
They’re tragically underinformed, but they don’t realize this because they’re being told they ARE informed.
Actually, I think that there’s a huge degree of overlap between CT’s and Creationism. They share multiple points of similarity.
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The worldview is offered as a way to make sense of the massive complexity inherent in our reality. Governments, politics, economics aren’t convoluted, chaotic, and somewhat random with many competing factors. There’s one, unified, conspiracy that controls everything. Nature isn’t convoluted, chaotic, and somewhat random with many competing factors. There’s one, unified, intelligence that controls everything.
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The worldview helps to explain or rationalize lack of personal power in the believer. You’re not poor/disenfranchised because of chance, or life choices, or what have you. It’s because The Conspiracy is keeping you down and enriching their own members. You’re not aging and going to die because of evolution, random mutations and reproductive fitness being selected for before longevity. It’s because God made you, with a plan, and your life has meaning and you aren’t actually going to die either.
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The worldview helps grant a fictitious sense of personal power to the believer. No matter what you’ve accomplished, or failed to accomplish, being one of those in the know about the Conspiracy puts you on a higher level than all the sheep. You don’t even have to do anything, you’re better than normal people because you know The Truth. No matter what degrees you do or do not hold, no matter what courses of study you have or haven’t engaged in, being one of those in the know about the ultimate nature of reality gives you power. You’re don’t even have to publish anything in a peer-reviewed journal, you’re better than normal seekers of knowledge because you know The Truth. No matter what processes you do or do not understand, being one of those who understands the reality of God’s actions means that you have superior understanding when compared to the materialists with their equations and their data-collection.
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Incidental to the emotional/logical competent, they also share a Conspiracy/God that is a Genius Fool.
The Conspiracy controls nations and men with ease, can rig complex, multi-tiered plans and move in virtual secrecy without any whistleblowers ever. But they make blatantly obvious mistakes that allow their entire conspiracy to be unraveled by a child.
God created all of the world, its laws and its physical processes. He controls the nature of everything in toto, and created life itself in its established forms (or created it at its beginning and decided how it would progress). And yet, He created creatures with obvious biological failings and numerous sub-optimal processes. What’s more, He demands belief and worship from all of humanity, but purposefully used ink on dead trees (or on parchment made from animal skin) in order to spread His message, instead of having it repeatedly beamed onto every radio, TV set, human mind and written in the stars themselves and on the sky in giant flaming neon.
I think they fall into three categories:
Stupid
Uninformed
Liars
I believe that the vast majority are simply uninformed, and that an awful lot of the resistance, in my experience, revolves around some misunderstandings of what evolution actually is.
For ir instance, a large number of creationists seem to believe that evolution is necessarily atheistic, which it definitely is not. They also frequently conflate it with abiogenesis and the orgin of the universe, neither of which has anything to do with evolution.
I have found that you can defuse a lot of tension and get anti-evolutionists to listen a little bit if you make it clear that evolutionis not atheory about the existence f God, is not atheory about the origin of the universe and is not even a theory about the origin of life. It only describes what happened after life got started on earth.
People are resistant to evolution because they have a great emotional investment intheir religious beliefs and because they perceive evolution (incorrectly) as a denial of the existence of God.
Excellent points. Is this a socio-cultural thing? In the U.S. , the way politicians (esp. the conservative ones) intervene in Public school system in teaching science, is quite sickening (I.D., anyone?) …
I wonder if the decline of American educational system (compared to the rest of Europe, Japan, South Korea) can be attributed to this phenomenon…
Could perhaps, then, evolution be seen as an attack on the inerrancy of the Bible? I think among many of the Young Earth Creationists that is a major concern.
I am a Evolutionary Creationist. While I believe G-d created the universe and it’s contents, (The Bible is silent on the many worlds theory so I shan’t address that conundrum) the way G-d did the biology part of it sure looks a lot like evolution). My theory is: just because it looks like evolution doesn’t mean G-d didn’t have a hand in it. This does not mean I disbelieve evolution theory. Evolution makes sense, takes into account that our world is older than 6,000 years, etc. I don’t think the Creation story in the bible is a minute-by-minute account of the entire creation process.
Some folks have a different opinion. They believe that the Word of G-d is not only infallible, but that their interpretation of the Word of G-d is also infallible (or that there is only one possible interpretation, which amounts to the same thing). Where this belief system conflicts with scientific fact, scientific fact is lying, because the Bible is always correct and True Believers will always “understand the Word perfectly”. Of course, I doubt their infallibility, but they don’t. Challenging this sense of rightness is unproductive because they cannot be unseated from their position, so don’t start quoting facts at them, they’ll only start implying your facts are fiction.
Keep in mind that there are also people who believe that the government watches you through the television, and that if you wear a tinfoil hat it will protect you from their mind control rays. Ever even think about trying to talk one of them out of their belief system?
I thought so.
Relax and realize that if you can let the tinfoil hat brigade get on with their lives without your intervention, perhaps those crazy old creationists won’t bother you so much. After all, the world is full of people who know they are right and everybody else is wrong. You and I might be included in that group, at least when it comes to certain topics.
In American schools, in particular, that would be a very dangerous assumption. We’ve generally had to be quite vigilant to make sure that the Discover Institute’s “Wedge Strategy” doesn’t get “Intelligent Design” put into the curriculum as just another alternative, or “teaching the controversy” as valid a part of the curriculum as teaching the facts.
I suppose that you guys just need an evil agent out there to thwart the natural belief in evolution that you are sure would occur without the agency of the malicious belief systems.
I agree that religious doctrines provide a very strong impetus to disregard science when it appears to be in conflict with belief. I even noted the connection with my reference to North American religious fervor. However, I also recognize that evolution is not intuitive and I have met a number of non-believers who simply could not accept the scientific explanation of the diversity of life.
That depends on how you define “inerrancy.” It’s not synonomous with “literal.” Jesus taught in parables. Was Jesus “in error” if the Good Samaritan story wasn’t literally true?