“Selling Evolution” is Getting Harder Each Day

There is an interesting article in Nature, the leading international journal of science, entitled “Selling Evolution,” which is a book review of Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives by David Sloan Wilson, Delacorte Press: 2007. 400 pp. The author of the Nature review notes …

Evolutionary biologists — those enthusiastic foot-soldiers of Darwin’s grand notion that life evolves by a process of descent with modification — cannot understand why so many people reject the great man’s theory, and often in favour of some form of creationist account of the existence and diversity of life on Earth. In the opening pages of David Sloan Wilson’s new popular-science book, hopefully entitled Evolution for Everyone, we discover that 54% of adults in the United States prefer to believe that humans did not evolve from some earlier species. What makes this figure surprising is that it is up from 46% in 1994.

Where have the evolutionists gone wrong?

Mark Pagel, “Selling evolution,” Nature 447, 533 (31 May 2007) | doi:10.1038/447533a; Published online 30 May 2007

Where have the evolutionists gone wrong? I have an answer for them. Their theory is wrong. Period. It’s unsupported by the scientific evidence.

I got into a discussion yesterday with some skeptics at IIDB and there was a new thread by someone named “Johnny Skeptic” entitled … “Maybe YEC’s [Young Earth Creationists] are good for skepticism.” Comparing the above survey with the history of Answers in Genesis International (they are the leading YEC organization in America), I found something fascinating. Look what I found … the Nature survey covered the last 13 years and recorded +8% for the creationist side. How long has Answers in Genesis has been in existence promoting the YEC view? 13 years exactly.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/about/history.asp
Hmmm …. So I would say, “No, Johnny Skeptic, YECs are NOT good for skepticism.” They are fighting a much needed war to restore the Book of Genesis and the entire Bible to its rightful position of respect in our culture.

One Response to ““Selling Evolution” is Getting Harder Each Day”

  1. lordkalvan says:

    Science is not a popularity contest. That a majority of people believe something to be so does not make it so, as evidenced by geocentric views of the Solar System in the Middle Ages, for example. The figures you quote also require some analysis before drawing conclusions from them in support of a narrow, literalist interpretation of the Bible. A study reported in some detail at

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html

    includes this observation:

    “…..adults with some understanding of genetics are more likely to have a positive attitude toward evolution.

    “But, the authors say, studies in the U.S. suggest substantial numbers of American adults are confused about some core ideas related to 20th- and 21st-century biology.

    “The researchers cite a 2005 study finding that 78 percent of adults agreed that plants and animals had evolved from other organisms. In the same study, 62 percent also believed that God created humans without any evolutionary development.

    “Fewer than half of American adults can provide a minimal definition of DNA, the authors add.”

    Given the confusion and apparent lack of knowledge demonstrated amongst those polled, the clearest message sent by the figures you cite may be that basic science education in the US is failing. You should be asking yourself what lies behind the raw figures and bewailing the level of ignorance implied rather than parading them as some sort of creationist triumph.