…and this is a 
There have been some recent surveys of attitudes towards evolution and the state of science education in the US, and I've mainly used tables in presentations — so it's nice to see some eye-catching graphical representations of the data. Use these!
One thing surprised me — usually, this datum is presented in a positive light, but it's always bugged me. 28% of science teachers accept that evolution occurred, and god had nothing to do with it; 47% of science teachers accept evolution, but believe that god guided it. That 47% is typically presented as no problem, these are the teachers on our side. Not in this graph!
Those are teachers who believe in Intelligent Design.
Yes, they are. And complaining that they aren't those Discovery Institute frauds because they believe it is their god that does the designing doesn't get them off the hook, it just makes them plain old creationists.
The only difference is that usually the teachers in that 47% aren't actively trying to undermine the science they present in the classroom, so the situation isn't quite as dire as the chart implies — but they're still afflicted with a superstition that is grossly unscientific and an obstacle to embracing the concepts of science. And it's probably a factor in the graph on the page just above this image, which shows how little time is spent on classroom teaching of evolution: in all of high school, half of the students get less than an hour or two of exposure to the ideas of human evolution.
I can testify to that. Most of my freshman students are remarkably naive about evolution, and from personal experience…I'm one of the percentage of students that had absolutely no instruction in evolution in high school. It wasn't even mentioned, and I was one of those kids who was largely self-taught in grade-school biology, and was looking for it.
Comments
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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July 17, 2010 8:08 AM
But did they have to call it "Darwinism" at the top of the graphic? Argh.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/C.QHgywX0ei9UCUOTBkEnGUrASs3PSc-#a8e2c
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July 17, 2010 8:21 AM
There are undoubtedly plenty of decent teachers who teach evolution and biology in a way that would satisfy Dr. Myers, but may believe (though never mention in class) that God employed the process of evolution in his creation, or something like that. As long as they teach it properly, what's the problem? I don't care what they believe, I only care what they teach the children.
Posted by: samilobster
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July 17, 2010 8:23 AM
Good to finally see someone calling out 'theistic evolution' for the sham it is. It's Goddidit. It's just as unscientific as regular old creationism. It's still taking the evolutionary theory, the one that works perfectly fine without needing a deus ex machina, throwing that out and replacing it with a 'theory' that God is responsible for every form of life on Earth and constantly guides them with an invisible hand. Which is different from creationism how?
Posted by: Great Waves
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July 17, 2010 8:37 AM
Growing up in Australia (and finishing high school about five years ago) evolution permeated the science curriculum through any biology-related modules. It was taught as fact, there was no mention of any kind of religion and there was never any indication that it was in any way controversial.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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July 17, 2010 8:40 AM
Good to finally see someone calling out 'theistic evolution' for the sham it is. It's Goddidit.
oh, people HAVE been doing that for years, it's just that the media tend to ignore those that actually make sense.
First time I saw an dismantling of TE on the web was by Larry Moran:
http://bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/Theistic_Evolution.html
...but the refutation of the underlying fallacies behind it goes way, way back. probably even trace it back to before Darwin himself.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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July 17, 2010 8:42 AM
As long as they teach it properly, what's the problem?
If they teach it properly, then there is no problem... with the teaching part.
the problem comes with the underlying logic.
If you put your ideas forward as part of any public discourse, why should they NOT be critiqued, especially if they represent as poor a reasoning as theistic evolution does?
Posted by: richardpenner
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July 17, 2010 9:27 AM
Wouldn't be better, instead of using figures whose subject weight is proportional to the cube of their length, to use counters (heads, stock figures) in rough proportion with the percentages?
Scientists: 3 teachers (understate by 0.7%)
Undecided: 1 teacher (overstate by 0.1%)
Intelligent Design: 5 teachers (understate by 1.5%)
Creationists: 2 teachers (overstate by 2.2%)
Posted by: jay.sweet
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July 17, 2010 9:32 AM
I'll probably get ripped apart for saying this, but I disagree that theistic evolution and intelligent design are equivalent (and equivalently bad). Both involve sloppy thinking and are unscientific, but the latter is also anti-scientific.
Theistic evolution contradicts the philosophy of science, and that's what makes it unscientifc. Furthermore, I agree that for many people a belief in theistic evolution can undermine their understanding of natural selection, and in that sense in damages science. But intelligent design is specifically anti-scientific in that it is "designed" (heh) for the purpose of doing violence to scientific understanding. It is a full frontal attack on science.
Now, if you want to argue that this makes theistic evolution more dangerous, because it's sneakier, you might have a point. On the other hand, given the ridiculous percentage of Americans who swallow the Creationist program hook-line-and-sinker, it will be a tough sell the convince me that the blatancy of intelligent design is all that much of a handicap...
Theistic evolution is worse than many people think, but it's still not as bad as intelligent design, IMO. You can have a proper understanding of natural selection and still believe in theistic evolution (I would point to clown shoes fetishist Francis Collins as a perfect example), while it's impossible to simultaneously believe in ID and have any grasp of the modern synthesis.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 17, 2010 9:33 AM
Argh! Deceptive graph alert!
Anyone who has read How to lie with statistics knows this particular trick; if you depict an object twice the height of another, it has four times the area and eight times the volume.
Posted by: hyperdeath
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July 17, 2010 9:36 AM
I'd rather use graphical representations produced by people who understand the difference between linear scaling and area scaling. The left hand figure has approximately 25 times the area of the right hand figure, despite the corresponding quantity being only 5 times larger.
Posted by: Richard
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July 17, 2010 9:40 AM
In the Wikipedia entry for Huff's How To Lie With Statistics it summarizes one of his messages as:
It's a great book. This is about the best example I've seen where such a distortion appears deliberate, rather than just incompetent.
Posted by: hyperdeath
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July 17, 2010 9:55 AM
I agree. Theistic evolution is essentially intelligent design for people who have pragmatic sense to keep their statements sufficiently fuzzy and nebulous, and thus immune to direct criticism.
ID advocates fall into the trap of making direct scientific claims, at which point they can be eviscerated. Theistic evolutionists, however, speak in a babble of vapidities (where about one word out of three is "transcendent"), which provides nothing to engage with.
Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake
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July 17, 2010 9:57 AM
Andrew G.:
Thanks for the recommendation; I've never heard about this book before. Looks promising.
Posted by: RHBourdeau
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July 17, 2010 10:13 AM
I am forever thankful to my highschool biology teacher Mr. Norcross who spent much much more than an hour on the subject of evolution. At that time I was serious christian and was being taught in my myriad church study courses all the silly, flawed, contradictory ideas of evolution. Mr. Norcross was so patient with me as I foisted upon him the brilliant objections to evolution offered by my church youth leader and pastor. I would ferry an argument from church to biology class, be firmly and rationally rebutted and given a question/argument to ferry back to my church. He was patient to give me answers, and the church teachers would snort and say how silly that was an offer another question. This lasted a month, as evolution was not taught just as a topic but more as an integral part of the course. Eventually I started actually internalizing the dialog and actually thinking. And I do have to honestly say that this was the beginning of my atheism. I was confronted with the difference in to kinds of thinking: faith vs reason. When the church lost the argument on evolution (in my mind) I realized that the church teachers weren't who I thought they were. It set me on my way to freedom.
I fear that this kind of conversation would not even take place nowadays. Either the subject of evolution is compartmentalized or ignored.
Posted by: blockhead
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July 17, 2010 10:18 AM
I have to agree with Jay. Theistic design is not the same as today's intelligent design, which in turn is not the same as Paley's design.
Equating non-equivalent terms is confusing and hinders thought.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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July 17, 2010 10:20 AM
Theistic evolution is essentially intelligent design for people who have pragmatic sense to keep their statements sufficiently fuzzy and nebulous, and thus immune to direct criticism.
disagree.
it's easy enough to get any TE to clarify their positions, and they inevitably do indeed make their positions open to criticism.
case in point:
Ken Miller
who, after being pushed to really explain his ideology, put god into the quantum gap.
there is no reason to accept nebulous and fuzzy as an explanation, either.
It's well past time we started growing up.
now I'm specifically talking in the world of ideas here. Tactically speaking, playing the "NOMA" card and encouraging the TE concept has indeed headed off some potentially nasty creationist undertakings over the last decade or so.
but, like minefields, these concepts might be useful tactically, but they leave a bad taste in one's mouth, and inevitably should be discarded also.
Posted by: blockhead
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July 17, 2010 10:22 AM
I agree with hyperdeath too. Intelligent design as taught by Behe and others is susceptible to probabilistic (scientific) aguments. Theistic evolution is not, its just an endless regression.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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July 17, 2010 10:23 AM
but, like minefields, these concepts might be useful tactically, but
they leave a bad taste in one's mouth, andinevitably should be discarded also.um, that was a fucking HORRIBLE mixed metaphor.
sorry, it's late here.
Posted by: Kyle N
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July 17, 2010 10:32 AM
Agreement from personal experience here. Although, admittedly, in high school my emphasis and focus was on arts, not science. I didn't get near enough exposure to science. When I hit college and had to start delving into biology and life sciences, it was totally new stuff for me, for the most part. Luckily I was living with a molecular biologist at the time, so he was able to give me a little help. Yet I was woefully unprepared. And this was some 12 years after high school (yeek!)
Posted by: Les Lane
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July 17, 2010 10:42 AM
Note that the survey conspicuously overlooks the agnostic position with respect to god(s).
Posted by: iiandyiiii#0fab0
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July 17, 2010 10:44 AM
I posted at #2, by the way (I'm new to OpenID, so far the ID through Yahoo is annoying).
I agree that "theistic evolution" is crap, so is ID, etc. But all the poll from the graph asked is about teachers' personal beliefs, and not what they teach. While for some their personal beliefs might spill over into what they teach, for others it doesn't.
So why get upset about what the teachers believe, when what's really important is what they teach?
Posted by: blockhead
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July 17, 2010 10:47 AM
I guess in a loose sense, intelligent design, TE (old earth C of one stripe or another) and young earth C are all just sub-types of creationism. So they can be conflated at the "higher" level. And, I guess its also correct to conflate ID and TE since goddidit in both cases. But the best arguments against would take a different form. The graph is sloppy, imo, but it just tells us the same as other polls. Over 60% are god based compared to about 30% not.
Posted by: jay.sweet
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July 17, 2010 10:58 AM
"Upset" is maybe not the right word, but I think "concern" is justified. Teaching is not just delivering content -- you also need to be able to answer questions, etc. There is some concern that a teacher who believes in theistic evolution might not have the intuitive understanding of natural selection that would enable her to do so.
Probably many of these teachers do a bang up job. But it's worrisome nonetheless.
Posted by: oihorse
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July 17, 2010 11:33 AM
I went to a Catholic High School and we learned a truckload about evolution. I remember clearly the opening speech the teacher gave that basically went along the lines of: "Your beliefs may not match what we are going to teach, but here is what you need to learn."
Perhaps the fact that it was a Jesuit based institution... still shocked to see I got a better science education out of it than some of those public high school videos about teaching evolution.
Posted by: mmelliott01
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July 17, 2010 11:42 AM
It's disheartening to consider that the 28% who "Believe in Evolution" includes both atheists AND those who believe in a god who simply chose not to interfere with the process of evolution.
Posted by: MinnieTheFinn, kaamea ateistifeministinarttu
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July 17, 2010 12:00 PM
At high school, there was a guy in our evolutionary biology course who declared himself to be a creationist. We practically laughed him out of the class. Us kids AND our teacher.
Oh how I love being a heathen European. Creationists are pleasantly scarce in our 'hood.
Posted by: Mattir-ritated
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July 17, 2010 12:18 PM
I've always wondered why god has to be "guiding" the process of evolution, given that most religions have a conception of god who exists outside of our (real world) linear conception of time. So poof, random mutations and natural selection and no weird god fingerprints in the mechanism - all perfectly logical and totally indistinguishable from atheism and a purely scientific understanding of evolution.
Insisting that god has to leave fingerprints on the evolution mechanism actually struck me as heretical, as if god had to operate within the real world's linear time. I actually put this question to an evangelical science teacher friend once, who basically agreed that there's absolutely no need or evidence for god fingerprints anywhere.
The more one investigates theism, the more muddled and irrelevant god seems to be...
Posted by: CanadianChick
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July 17, 2010 12:29 PM
I guess I'd have to say "define guided"
My best friend is a theistic evolutionist, and I guess I was once upon a time. Although it would be more accurate to call us both theistic cosmologists. He believes, as do a lot of so-called TEs that god simply created the laws of physics and let everything unfold starting with the Big Bang.
More deistic than theistic, but it's a fine point. If, however, you asked him that survey question he would have answered the same way as the 47%. It's an inadequate question...far too simplistic.
I have no idea what the religious leanings of my highschool science teachers were, but I did learn a good deal about evolution from them.
Posted by: mck9
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July 17, 2010 12:32 PM
It is neither surprising nor particularly alarming that so many teachers believe in theistic evolution. For those who are conventionally religious, but who don't insist on a literal belief in some creation myth, theistic evolution is pretty much the only option.
By "conventionally religious" I mean that they believe two things: (1) that a divine creator exists, and that (2) the creator actively engages with its creation out of a deep and abiding interest in human beings. Most people in the US -- including teachers -- believe both of those things.
Given those beliefs, it's hard to imagine why the creator would care so much about us if it didn't arrange for us to be here. If you don't accept the notion of special creation, such as the one described in Genesis, then evolution is the obvious way for the creator to have carried it off.
To assert that a theistic god exists but played no role in evolution is to assert that we arose only as a chance unintended by-product -- and that, upon noticing, the creator started caring intensely about us. "Oh, what are those little critters down there? That's interesting. I think I'll reach down and start messin' with 'em." In the Christian version: "In fact I'll subject all these little guys to eternal agony if they don't do what I say. And I'll build a Heaven for the ones who obey. And I'll send Junior down to get himself killed. This is going to be fun."
A god like that may be possible, but few people will find it plausible.
The problem with theistic evolution is not that it is incoherent or implausible, but that the theism is completely superfluous. However, as long as they keep the god-talk out of the classroom, I can't really get very concerned about it.
Posted by: Alice Bluegown
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July 17, 2010 12:55 PM
Here in the UK, I attended a Grammar (ie, pretentious public) school - did Biology for 5 years to O-level standard, and evolution was never mentioned. Not once. I have absolutely no idea why not.
Admittedly, that was a long time ago (longer than I care to calculate), and things have changed since then, but it still galls me that I had to effectively self-educate myself on the most important scientific theory of them all.
Posted by: csreid
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July 17, 2010 12:56 PM
Less than an hour or two? When I was in high school in rural Indiana, we spent several weeks on evolution.
I'm really surprised about that "less than an hour or two"
Posted by: Zeno
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July 17, 2010 1:59 PM
The statistically perspicacious (#9 and #10) have already attacked the scaling factor in the figure PZ chose to illustrate his post. I add my voice to theirs and provide an improved version of the graph in Believing your lying eyes.
[Wagging an admonitory finger:] You should have noticed this yourself, PZ!
Posted by: Thunderbird 5
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July 17, 2010 2:28 PM
Alice @30
Perhaps because it was taken for granted that evolution was the underlying fact behind it? To my mind (one that had a UK comprehensive school education, late-70 to early 80s) the very fact that a biology teacher needs to specifically mention/ emphasise that evolutionary theory underpins everything biological is only necessary in today''s (paradoxicallly) post-neocon, mentally-retrograde societies.
Posted by: Alex P.
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July 17, 2010 3:01 PM
I have a massive problem with the questions being asked. If a teacher believes in a god but doesn't inject it into his or her classes, why care? It's not the same thing as actively teaching ID in a secular class.
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
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July 17, 2010 3:31 PM
The problem is not so much with the difference between theistic evolution and ID, as with the wording of this survey. By having those three as the only choices, it ensures that old-earth creationists (i.e. IDists like Behe and Dembski) will fall into the "god-guided" category along with TE people like Ken Miller whose ideas of God's role is essentially limited to loading the dice.
While I agree with the above posters who note that they're both scientifically indefensible, there's a fundamental difference in how they view the empirical outcomes of evolution - TEers recognize that evolution actually occurred the same way that other biologists do. IDists think that at least molecular structures, and usually whole organisms, poofed into existence.
Posted by: rni.boh
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July 17, 2010 3:55 PM
Aside from the scaling problem, it's clear that whoever put up that graphic doesn't have a clue about intelligent design - the creationist view would fit into ID too. Plus some TEs will be in the 47% but will reject ID: they don't believe the Hand of God can be seen in evolution.
I can understand why PZed likes the graphic: it frames the issue so that he can bash some evolutionary biologists for being Christians. But to me it looks dishonest, both in the way it labels the 47% answer, and in the presentation of the data.
Posted by: abb3w
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July 17, 2010 8:00 PM
PZ Myers: Those are teachers who believe in Intelligent Design.
Errr... I would say, no; it includes but is not limited to the Cdesign Proponentsists.
I base this opinion on the 2002 Cleveland Plain Dealer poll about Creationism, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. While the poll was limited to Ohio residents, the income, ethnicity, and religiosity of Ohio are median American. The core "closest to your view about the development of life on Earth" question breaks gives five major responses, which seem to correspond well to Atheistic Evolution, Intelligent Design, Theistic Evolution, Old Earth Creationism, and Young Earth Creationism. The breakdown is approximately AE/ID/TE/OEC/YEC of 15/15/25/15/30. Note that recombining into AE/ID+TE/OEC+YEC gives the usual 15/40/45 breakdown that Gallup and GSS-CREATION return -- which, incidentally, seems to be the same form used by whatever poll that the graphic is based on.
This suggests that the 47% includes both the Intelligent Design advocates AND the "Theistic Evolutionists" of the rigged demo and magisterial separatist varieties. Since the TE flavored outnumber specifically ID flavored even among the unwashed masses, I would expect ID types to be less than half, and probably about the same as the YEC+OEC combined crowd.
I'll also chime in as generally agreeing as to jay.sweet's argument. The philosophical differences between TE and ID aren't that big, but anthropologically they're significant. TE have a vague idea it could be that way; ID think they have evidence to support the idea.
Midnight Rambler: By having those three as the only choices, it ensures that old-earth creationists (i.e. IDists like Behe and Dembski) will fall into the "god-guided" category along with TE people like Ken Miller whose ideas of God's role is essentially limited to loading the dice.
Err... actually, I think the OEC tend to end in the "god created" category, not the "god-guided", based on the Ohio numbers. This is understandable if you accept as likely that most OEC feel the importance of God's "hands-on" involvement (as opposed to vague "guidance") remains more essential to their worldview (and thus a more important "truth") than the exact timescale.
Alternately, the circumstances of the Ohio poll might have been significantly altered by the issue being politically topical at the time,
Ohio factions might be deeply non-representative of the US. However, both those seem less likely to me.
Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook
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July 17, 2010 8:49 PM
How to lie with statistics! Yes! Good to see the love.
That little book is an absolute classic. If you haven't read it, then do so. Also, rush out and buy copies for all your high school and college student friends & family. This is one of the best resources ever for combatting journalistic misinformation by assumed audience innumeracy.
Also recommended: How to lie with maps, by Mark Monmonier.
Posted by: jcmartz.myopenid.com
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July 18, 2010 12:49 AM
"Darwinism"? That would imply that it is an ideology. However, evolution is not an ideology. It is a scientific fact.
---
Oh, check out The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM
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July 18, 2010 7:11 AM
If I might, it seems to me that the above data is only useful if we know what bearing it has, if any, on the curriculum.
I cheerfully admit, for example, that as a personal matter I am a theist, a pretty conventional (boring even) Methodist.
Yet, as a high school teacher I probably spend more time affirming and exploring Darwin's vision of life than the majority of my colleagues. Shoot, I even made a video about that a while back, as some might recall. Somebody on this site was apparently amused by it.
Would I then be with the 47, the 28 or the 16? The answer is neither. All of these views lack sophistication. Speaking as a scientist, one should not say that one 'believes' in any of these propositions. Why? Let me count the ways:
1) Because 'theistic evolution' is just another version of creationism, and hence not science
2) Because evolution itself is a fact, not unlike gravity, and facts do not need to be certified by personal statements of belief
3) Because 'intelligent design' is simply a cat's paw for an intellectually-dishonest approach to science
Now, I know, I know, it says 'personal beliefs' as opposed to science, but think about the absurdity of that category: can you imagine a 'belief' that isn't personal? I lack the philosophical subtlety to entertain such notions, frankly. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
If, however, nothing is added to the word 'belief' by the preamble 'personal', then clearly what we might personally wish to be true is (ahem) effing irrelevant, and has no business in a science class. This includes a variety of beliefs, for example:
* Methodism :)
* Muddled briefs for a faith-friendly science (No one ever explains how this could work in practice)
* The unsupported claim that the New Atheists are doing great harm to science (Sorry, Josh, just don't see the evidence)
* The notion that all who profess a belief in the possibility of a God active in creation can be accurately characterized as accepting 'intelligent design' (Sorry, PZ, but not every epistemological problem can be treated as a nail)
Anyway, none of the above or any other proposition that requires personal assent in the absence of evidence has any business in any science lesson, at any level.
Oh, and a tip of the hat to Zeno for pointing out a deficiency in the original graph, everyone should visit his blog.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM
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July 18, 2010 7:18 AM
Oops, sorry, forgot to put the self-serving link in play:
http://discovermagazine.com/contests/evolution-in-two-minutes-or-less/
Tooting my own horn, I know, but I am rather proud of this bauble of minor celebrity....given the source, and all.
Posted by: latsot
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July 18, 2010 9:58 AM
The UK primary school curriculum doesn't include evolution. This isn't for religious reasons (as far as I know) but because it doesn't have high priority. Teaching children important things about how life works is not a priority of our former government. I don't know whether our new government will fix this.
Posted by: Alice Bluegown
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July 18, 2010 1:11 PM
Thunderbird 5 @ #33 - you might be right, but it still strikes me as bizarre that biology could be taught without even a mention of its underlying theory: what exactly were we supposed to be learning? On the other hand, the curriculum was pretty messed up - 'biology' also covered sex education, and you really don't want to know what that involved...
latsot @ #42 - that is the most depressing thing I've read in a while. I genuinely believed things had changed in state schools, and kids today got at least a grounding in evolution. Very, very sad.
Posted by: ObSciGuy
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July 18, 2010 2:49 PM
I'm going to have to disagree somewhat with PZ on this one - details are here.
Posted by: woozy
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July 19, 2010 4:53 PM
Okay, forgive if I haven't read all the comments or researched the statistics but....
Two comments: First, the condition for "Believe in evolution" has "and God had no part in the process" which is so explicit that I can't imagine any theist willing to accept it, as I imagine most theists would refuse to admit God had "no part" in anything. (If you ask a theist "who built your house" he'd answer "a construction crew" but if you then asked "and God had no part in it" he'd probably answer "Of course, God had everything to do with it just as he had everything to do with everything".) This, I think, artificially forces people to think they must choose between religion or evolution and that the two are incompatible. (Yes, I know PZ does believe they are incompatible; but he means in a non-trivial and methodological sense-- I feel this false choice presents them as incompatible in the trivial and most casual sense.)
Second: Intellegent Design is presented as any sense of evolution where God isn't specifically tossed out on His ear. Intelligent Design isn't "evolution that is compatible with a belief in God" but a specific untrue hypothesis that some organisms are demonstrably "irreduciably complex" and inexplicable solely through natural selection on random mutations.
I think "Intelligent Design" should be broken in the following categories:
Intelligent Design,
God used or influenced Evolution beyond mere natural/scientific law,
God "approved" evolution but not beyond natural/scientific law.
And the "believe in evolution" should have the "God had no part in it" should be reworded as something like "one's God's role, if any, is irrelevent or not a nescessary matter of speculation for evolution's occurance".
Posted by: lastyear
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July 20, 2010 1:01 AM
Hmm...
If you accept evolution, and also believe in God, then you believe in Theistic Evolution. So it sounds like you're saying that all science teachers should be atheists.
Posted by: Fatboy
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July 21, 2010 7:09 PM
I know I'm late to the party (I was on vacation), but I'll have to agree with the posters who've said that theistic evolution is not nearly the same thing as intelligent design. I know ID advocates are usually pretty vague on what ID actually entails, and it's a big tent, but here are a couple quotes from Of Pandas and People, the ID textbook that was going to be used in Dover (this is recycled from another comment thread).
First, in discussing tetrapod evolution on page 22, the book said:
In discussing the incompleteness of the fossil record on page 25, the book said:
That's quite a bit different from theistic evolution, where people believe that evolution occurs just like it really does, but that God's nudged the process somehow.
As others have pointed out, it's hard for a theist to accept evolution and not believe in theistic evolution. It's like the old joke of the guy caught in a flood on his roof. Most theists see God being involved in everything, so it's no surprise that they think he was involved in evolution, as well, even if they don't have an explanation for the exact mechanism. As long as theistic teachers stick to the secular explanations of topics in school, I don't see it as a huge problem.
Posted by: SteveM
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July 21, 2010 7:55 PM
re 47:
It is the "nudged the process" that makes it design. I don't agree that if you believe in God then you must believe either in "theistic evolution" or creationism. There is the deistic alternative of a God that created the universe and then just "lets it run" (by itself). That is, does not directly influence the outcomes of the natural processes it created. If God "nudges" the process to direct the outcome, then that is intelligent design or "theistic" evolution.
Posted by: JacobCH
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July 21, 2010 8:04 PM
I'm with Steve. Our universe, as far as we can tell, is identical to one without an interfering god. Barring evidence to the contrary, any worldview that posits an interfering god is making unsubstantiated claims and is therefore functionally equivalent to id.
Posted by: Fatboy
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July 22, 2010 4:58 PM
SteveM,
You're right. There is a possibility that somebody could be a deist. But honestly, how many deists are there in this country? Most people who have been indoctrinated into Christianity believe in an active god who intervenes in the universe.
JacobCH,
Theistic evolution is not functionally the same thing as ID. As I pointed out with the quotes above, and as most people already know, ID is little more than creationism that refuses to unambiguously state that God is the creator. It's a tactic to get creationism taught in schools. Theistic evolution is for people who have been indoctrinated into believing in an interventionist god, but who are rational enough to recognize that evolution must have happened.
Look at it this way, to an ID advocate, if you take away the 'designer', evolution is impossible. The designer has to be there to poof irreducibly complex systems into existence, or add specified complexity, or whatever other gobbledygook they come up with. To someone who accepts theistic evolution, if you take away the god, evolution continues to happen. It's just that without the god's guidance, evolution may not have resulted in the organisms we have now, particularly humans. Yes, the god is superfluous in that case, but that's what theistic evolution is. Whereas ID tries to force the evidence to fit God, theistic evolution tries to force God to fit the evidence.
I agree that if you just drop God it makes the whole thing easier, but that indoctrination can be really hard to get past.