That Darwin poll (hat-tip to miss_s_b)...

[djm4_lj]

You know the poll, the poll conducted by Theos which suggested that over half the population of Britain believed that the theory of evolution cannot explain the full complexity of life on Earth, and of which Paul Woolley, director of Theos said: "Darwin is being used by certain atheists today to promote their cause. The result is that, given the false choice of evolution or God, people are rejecting evolution."

Hold that quote by Paul Woolley in your head, and now read what the poll questions, presumably set by Theos, actually were.

I couldn't have said 'yes' to any of those. I don't believe in God, so options 1, 2 & 4 are out, but I also don't think evolution makes belief in God either unnecessary or absurd. Dennett, in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, argues that the theory of evolution, by successfully explaining one of the great mysteries that was previously only explicable by reference to a god/gods (or else left unexplained), knocked away one of the main pillars used to support belief in God. I think Dennett is probably correct when he identifies this as the source of much of the church's hostility to Darwin, but it evolution in-and-of-itself doesn't render God either unnecessary or absurd, and it's something of an abuse of the power of the theory to use it in that way, IMO.

Additionally, if 34% of people believe "Atheistic evolution - the idea that evolution makes belief in God unnecessary and absurd" is definitely or probably true, and 44% of people believe "Theistic evolution - the idea that evolution is the means that God used for the creation of all living things on earth" is definitely or probably true, I make that 78% support for evolution even before you cout the people like me who think: "Evolution is probably true, and there is overwhelming evidence for the theory. This is independent of my belief or otherwise in God."

Theos report here. Theos survey data here.

Comments

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Ugh. At a first glance it's a badly designed poll, although I get the impression from the introduction to the report that it was designed to highlight exactly the problem you describe - it's the Telegraph's shoddy reporting that's the problem, rather than Theos.

[djm4]

The Telegraph reporting is pretty awful, but so is the poll IMO. Plenty of blame to go around, and plenty of it pointing to Theos.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

The only real problem I can see with the poll is the third choice - it should be something like "the idea that evolution is the mechanism by which the current diversity of life came about, and that God had nothing to do with it". Other than that it seems reasonable, and the point that the report is trying to make - that theism and belief in natural selection aren't as contradictory as their made out by people on both sides of the debate - is one I wholeheartedly endorse.

[djm4]

Well, yes, aside from the badly-worded question with absolutely no null hypothesis and upon which the whole purpose of the poll hinges, it's an OK poll. With question three worded the way it is, it's totally useless, in other words.

I can see why they worded it the way they did. They wanted to blame the atheists. So they gave believers a nice 'God and evolution are compatible' option (number 2), but didn't give atheists one. Conclusion: it's those obsessive atheists who insist on bringing God into evolution - we Christians are the sane, balanced ones. And if evolution is being rejected, it's because those same atheists insist that it's not compatible with God.

As a weak atheist/strong agnostic who calls Dawkins on this every time the annoying smug git pulls the same stunt, I'm not going to let Theos get away with it just because I agree with their (blatantly rigged) conclusions.

*and breathe...*

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

I can see why they worded it the way they did. They wanted to blame the atheists.

Possibly, or possibly they wanted to convince Christians. I'm not much of a fan of "the end justifies the means", but if they get Christians who are uncertain about evolution (and already think they're they sane balanced ones, and are more likely to listen to people who appear to agree with them on that) to be more favourable towards it then that is at least a good end.

[djm4]

If they do that by misrepresenting atheists and presenting us as the 'bad guys' - and their director certainly seems to be doing that - then I don't even accept that as a good end.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Atheists get a bad enough press with people parroting received wisdom such as 'if you don't believe in God, you can't have any real morals' and 'there's no atheists in foxholes'. Being called an evil hypocrite gets kinda wearing after a while, without being told that by championing the scientific method I'm putting people off.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Wow, yes, those are terrible options.

I think Dennett's position is stronger than that; he's saying I think (and I agree) that to believe in theistic evolution is to completely miss the point of what evolution is all about.

[djm4]

I agree Dennett says that - I regard that as a separate point, though. I'm also not sure he's correct, but that's largely because I think theistic evolution covers a broad spectrum of options from 'God and evolution can coexist and I believe in them both' through to 'evolution only works because God is constantly intervening to make sure that it does'. It's only the latter end of the spectrum that (to me) necessarily misses the point of what evolution is all about, but to be fair to Dennett IIRC it's that end that he attacks.

I may need to go and re-read the book before discussing this further, though, as it is a while since I read it.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by theistic evolution? The stance that I used to take (and still find moderately plausible) is that God created a world in which the laws of physics apply and eventually lead to life in which mutations occur, knowing that natural selection would take care of the rest. How is that missing the point?

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

As I said below, that is IME a pretty typical Christian position. Admittedly, some take a less mechanistic worldview and hold with the ability or even tendency of God to intervene in worldly events in ways which don't mesh with the laws of physics, but that doesn't necessarily undermine the belief in evolution.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

The poll is awful, and leading, but then Theos have a tendency to abuse statistics. Every once in a while they trot out one of these 'surveys' and they're almost always deeply flawed.

Does our understanding of the process of evolution make belief in God absurd? Well, it rather depends on what you mean by God. It certainly makes the notion of God The Benevolent Designer (craft in every leaf, watches every sparrow fall) pretty damn untenable, which was of course why when Darwin first put the theory forward it was attacked so vehemently by some senior churchmen. And it puts to bed the notion of a single moment of creation as described in the Bible.

But if you're talking about the sort of abstract, deist God who just sort of pulled the Universe's starter motor, breathed the breath of life and since then has just sort of hanging undetectably around outside of everything, it's a rather different proposition because by its very nature it's untestable. And the theory of evolution has nothing whatsoever so say about he start of the universe or even abiogenesis.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

"evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages"

What key stages? How was it done? It's not science unless they explain how it works.

[djm4]

It's not science unless they explain how it works.

I sort of see what you mean, and 'Intelligent Design' does fail at this hugely, but I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that. Darwin himself did some moderately well regarded science without explaining how most of it worked; that understanding came bit-by-bit over the next century. It didn't stop his systematic compiling of observations, and hypotheses about their interpretations, from being science in the truest and best sense.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's true that Darwin didn't have all the evidence to prove his theory - and he admits that throughout the Origin. He didn't (couldn't!) know about tectonic plates, or DNA, or the pre-Cambrian microfossils, for example. But I think it's disingenous to suggest that the status of his theory in the 19th century is the same as that of intelligent design today. Darwin was describing a process, a natural mechanism by which diversity could occur, which required nothing beyond the already well known fact that characteristics could be inherited, and that the process by which this happened could be described in terms of rules. ID is describing a mechanism which requires supernatural intervention in an arbitrary way.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Status of Darwin's work aside, Intelligent Design needs to be judged on the merits of it's own claims. And there's no real scientific proof being generated by it's proponents, just criticism of Evolutionary Biology. The problem is, Evolutionary Biology criticizes its self with provable criticism. Intelligent Design proponents are using "God" as something that can't ever be found with science.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Indeed. And without usefully defining what they mean by 'God', which makes it a pretty vague term which can be twisted to mean anything they feel like. I'm beginning to see this as the root of the problem of debating the subject with (most) religious people, actually - they can define God any way you choose, and cite half a dozen theologians to back you up, and then if they're still not winning you over, play the good old 'ineffable' card. "Oh well, you can't possibly understand what God is/does/wants/means, because it's all so big and numinous and Ineffably Other!"

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

without usefully defining what they mean by 'God', which makes it a pretty vague term which can be twisted to mean anything they feel like

I see you've read Spinoza, then?

[djm4]

But I think it's disingenous to suggest that the status of his theory in the 19th century is the same as that of intelligent design today.

For the record, I wasn't trying to say that. I suspect I was being too subtle; I basically think 'It's not science unless they explain how it works' is a complete misrepresentation of what science 'is'. Explaining how it works isn't the point - providing evidence for your theories and (ideally) testable hypotheses is.

I agree that ID doesn't do that either. I was defending science against what I saw as sinboy's misrepresentation of it. I'm particularly sensitive to that because Darwin often gets attacked for not saying how it worked, when (as you point out) he acknowledged that he didn't know this, and didn't need to.

[djm4]

Actually, scratch that; I think I'm misreading him. I suspect he means 'explain how it works' to the same degree that, say, Darwin did, rather than '...down to the last detail'. I also think that should have been obvious from context.

Apologies to both of you for going off on one.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

That's OK - I had a feeling I'd misunderstood you because I was pretty sure you weren't actually defending Intelligent Design on grounds that further study might corroborate it.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Of course it's more complicated than that on the side of evolutionary biology. But with Intelligent Design, it's exactly as simple as I put it - there's not attempt to answer the when or how.

They have to at least try to explain what these "key stages" are, or how "God" did anything. As far as I can tell, ID just stops at some nonspecific time, where some nonspecific alien intelligence did some nonspecific thing.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Considering that what they call "theistic evolution" is the current Anglican position, and that the Catholic position isn't far off (IIRC, slightly more ID-influenced), I'm convinced that if the figures are properly accurate, then something skewed the sample selection method much more than we might expect.

I dunno, heretics everywhere!