BELIEF IN EVOLUTION AND UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE ARE NOT THE
SAME,
according to an article on the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School, 24
May 2014. Dan Kahan, a Professor of Law and Psychology at Yale Law School, has
written an article entitled “You’d have to be science illiterate to think
“belief in evolution” measures science literacy”, where he strongly criticises
those who claim that people who don’t believe in evolution are ignorant of
science and do not know what the theory of evolution actually says. He makes the
following three assertions, and gives references to back them
up:
“First,
there
is zero correlation between saying one ‘believes’ in evolution &
understanding the rudiments of modern evolutionary science.” (emphasis in
original)
“Second,
‘disbelief’ in evolution poses absolutely no barrier to comprehension of basic
evolutionary science.”
“Third –
and here we are getting to the point where the new data came in! -- profession
of ‘belief’ in evolution is simply not a valid measure of science
comprehension.” (emphasis in original)
To
back up his third point Kahan compares two surveys of science literacy that
included questions about the origin of human beings. One survey presented the
statement: “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species
of animals”. The other presented the same statement with the introductory
clause: “According to the theory of evolution, ...”. For the first survey 55%
said the statement was true. In the second 81% said true. Kahan commented: “Wow!
Who would have thought it would be so easy to improve the ‘science literacy’ of
benighted Americans”. Overall, Kahan’s research on surveys of “scientific
literacy” has led him to conclude “that ‘belief’ in evolution is a measure of
who people are and not what they know”. (emphasis in original)
Link:
Cultural
Cognition
