Official: We can no longer laugh at Americans

[webofevil]

Future chroniclers of the British will mark today as the moment we had to revise downwards, with some urgency, all estimates of average intelligence in the UK. Just under half of Britons accept the theory of evolution as the best description for the development of life, according to an opinion poll, while "more than 40% of those questioned believe that creationism or intelligent design (ID) should be taught in school science lessons".

Elbow-deep in the entrails of this revelation, trying desperately to dig out some good news, Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society, said: "It is surprising that many should still be sceptical of Darwinian evolution... We are, however, fortunate compared to the US in that no major segment of UK religious or cultural life opposes the inclusion of evolution in the school science curriculum."

Or, looked at another way, we are at the stage where slightly more than half the population doesn't reckon much to the theory of evolution without having been encouraged in this by any major lobbying organisations. (I'm not counting the Church, Judaism or Islam as "major lobbying organisations" here. The numbers still say we're not, in the main, a god-fearing country.) So just think of the fun that will ensue when the religious right over here takes its cue from the religious right over there and starts agitating for evolution to be reclassified as "intriguing but heretical theory". Thankfully the UK's RR is still only at the toddling stage, so none of this will start happening until Blair's out of power, which is a blessing, as, basic curriculum aside, he's very relaxed about faith schools teaching whatever comes into their little heads.

Comments

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

Any recourse to a designer is just an excuse to stop thinking, isn't it?

Not necessarily. There may simply be areas of cosmology, especially if one goes back to the beginning of time, that are simply too boggling for our three-dimensional minds to grasp. That doesn't mean that there is a designer of course, but it doesn't mean that having one is a substitute for thinking, either. I mean, we may simply be talking about something - I dunno - ultra-dimensional that's conscious in a way we can't really comprehend. It's really not something that can impinge on scientific ideas like evolution, however, as science deals with the concretely knowable.

I personally only have a problem with theology when it's used to actively deny what is plainly true and in front of my very eyes, so to speak, like when creationists claim that the dinosaurs are some kind of trick, or that the Earth was formed in 6,000 BC.

[internetsdairy.livejournal.com]

I don't know, to say the origin of the universe is unknowable, but then to decide there is some kind of designer... if it's not stopping thinking, it does seem kind of arbitrary.

I'd say the ultimate problem is: "how come there is stuff?" which probably is something we can't solve. At some point it probably has to boil down to something popping out of nowhere. If something has to pop out of nowhere, I'd rather it was some extremely simple basic stuff (plus, um, physical laws) with some tiny variation which, with time and heat, coagulates into gas, stars etc. and thence riboflavin, germs, hens etc. - all stuff bar the initial appearance that humans can have a stab at explaining and comprehending, without invoking anything else. To add another layer - Odin or a giant Star Trek baby or a cloud of pure thought or whatever - just seems unnecessary, and gives you an extra, equally hard problem to explain.

I guess the difference between the two positions might be:

(1) The origin of stuff is probably unknowable to humans, but that origin is quite complicated

(2) The origin of stuff is probably unknowable to humans, but that origin is very simple

BTW, in a similar ballpark - where are all the blasphemy protestors today? I saw one guy with red gaffa tape over his mouth, but he could have just been following the man with the sign which said 'GIMP SALE THIS WAY'.