Ha-Hah. Brits are just as stupid as we are!

Then I read that 73% of American teenagers "engaged in at least one type of psychic or witchcraft-related activity", and I just want to throw up my hands and give up.

Awww, I wouldn't get too distressed over that finding. We used to freak out our friends' parents and play with Ouija boards and stuff, or cast spells on little brothers. :) And that was even *before* Harry Potter.

Et tu, Tara?

Did you never try to test your ESP by guessing a card a friend was holding when you were a teenager? It's fine for teenagers to explore such things -- it's a good way for them to figure out that the "psychics" on TV are cheating.

this is what happens when our youth read harry potter, you know!

I'm somewhat surprised that 44% of a country of 59m (?) believe in creationism, when only about 1m of us go to church!

I suspect that this survey was targeted accidentally or on purpose at people with an axe to grind, or that these people think creationism should be taught in a comparative religion sort of sense.

I am as convinced as I can be that the way to advance science and promote rational, humane public policies is to expose and oppose religion and other forms of toxic superstition at every available turn. And I mean mercilessly. That headline about the miracle of the miners being saved...the miners who were actually dead? I can't think of a better poster for the impotence of prayer. Just as an example. No more accommodation, no more compromise--no more NOMA. I like S.J. Gould, but appeasement doesn't work with these greedy brainwashers. I think Taner Edis is a terrific science writer, but his last book ("Science and Unbelief") came in on little cat's feet, when I know damn well what incredible nonsense he finds religion to be. Samuel Harris's "The End of Faith" is must reading, a wonderful, shrill, exhilarating screed--but even he finds some common cause with questionable mysticism. Not that science is all there is. Not that there isn't room for mysterY if not mystiCISM. And not that our only prophets can be Darwin's Kennel Club--the bulldog, the rottweiler, the border collar, and PZ might be the malamute. That's great, but if the goal is science literacy, rational living, and humane policies, I contend that it will come from FIRST introducing religious doubt. "There is a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in."

Here's a little something about the author of the 'witchcraft' study:
http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=AboutDavid
They're just upset that teenagers are checking out someone else's supernatural mumbo-jumbo.

" because pointing out their fallacies would be rude"

You say fallacies, they say belief and for those who do believe it is a very important part of their lives. Which is why they call us "Darwinists", that's how their mindset works. My sister in law (the one I like) recently proclaimed her house was haunted (as a conversational gambit) and I just stood there and looked at her, unwilling to play the game. It really pissed her off but less than if I started in on her about her God bothering.
That said, I am tired of being put between the Rock of Ages and the hard spot of rationalism.

Well there's a program on BBC2 tonight about ID. That sterling publication the Radio Times assures us that it gives the ID lot a good hearing before letting the aforementioned Attenborough and Dawkins trounce them. Might help re. stupidity.

Further info here.

I read that this morning. I was wondering if that was going to show up here or at Panda's Thumb...

My solace is that the long-term religious trends in US population demographics indicate religion *is* contracting. But, it's probably going to be a long time before we catch-up to Europe.

Well, Greg, I gotta admit, you almost had me with the Leonard Cohen quote, but...

That's great, but if the goal is science literacy, rational living, and humane policies, I contend that it will come from FIRST introducing religious doubt.

Between your proposal and the evidence, I have to go with the evidence, and what I am encountering in teaching research literacy to massage practitioners is that if I stick strictly to the domain of science--methodological naturalism--people with this background are actually curious enough about it to start to apply critical thinking to other things, such as consumerism, politics, religion. Given an environment where they are not belittled for being unscientific, but simply given the opportunity and the tools to explore "the other side"--and treated as if "of course, I expect you to be able to handle the concepts, once they've been properly explained; I never had any doubt on that score", a lot of people are more willing to explore rationality than you might expect from the stereotype. So they leave the class a little more prepared to apply rationality incrementally in other situations than they arrived, and (from my point of view, since I share your goals if not your approach), this is a net plus.

On the other hand, if I started out first by trying to introduce doubt about their mystical beliefs, the defensive pushback would kill off the gains in rationality we make by my remaining strictly neutral on the metaphysical questions. So I'd have to say that NOMA serves me very well in building bridges with this particular population (admittedly, a self-selected, but non-trivial, one).

It doesn't help that we have got two millionaire used-car dealers sponsoring "faith" academies, in which the deliberate lies of creationism and young-Earth nonsense are taught, and our wonderful PM Tony B. liar says - "Oh that's just a matter of opinion".

For myself, I don't beleive the figures - I would REALLY like to see both the sample-size, where the sample was collected, and most importantly, how the questions were phrased.

The only way to deal with tese people is to say, immediately anyone mentions creationism, or young-Earth, or ID: "Liar" - and keep on saying liar, until someone is stupid and arrogant enough to sue ......

Um, I hate to break this to you and further injure your already-sensitive concern for the minds of your fellow man... but about 49% of Americans believe that voting for the Democratic candidate makes a difference. Despite the evidence of the last two elections. Combine them with the creationists, and even if you assume significant overlap, that still gives you about 70% of Americans who are functionally illiterate mouth-breathers one zoning ordinance away from burning witches.

By your standards, at least.

I'm not in favor of molly-coddling lunacy, as you put it. But if you're using a definition of "lunacy" that includes the more than five billion humans who have any kind of belief that could be described as superstitious, and if you're actually hoping to change things rather than just entertain, then you'd better start using a different definition because yours is so broad it's completely useless.

The way I read that teen-occult article, even playing D&D counts. I suspect most teens experiment with the "occult" to the extent of playing with a Ouija board or a Tarot deck, or trying primitive telepathy experiments (I remember I did, and I was *not* religious at the time). I expect that most of them get over it, rather than go on to a full-blown case of New-Age idiocy. So contrary to the impression that this represents a wave of new irrationality, it's probably mostly harmless -- and it does seem to get the fundies' knickers in a knot (keep in mind the audience that Barna serves).

Re: teenagers and psychic stuff.

As a teenager I tried all kind of "voodoo" out. I prayed, tried selling my soul to both God and the Devil, read books on magic and tried some of the "spells" therein, attempted to detach my astral self through meditation, and so on.

Unsurprisingly in light of what I know now, all those experiments failed. So I ended up abandoning all those beliefs.

I guess what I'm wanting to say is that it's not trying the stuff out that's the problem. It's the continued belief in false things after they've been shown to be baseless that's the problem. I wouldn't get too exasperated with teenagers that experiment in that junk.

Yeah, the occult teenager article is more to restore my sense of perspective: any pollster seems to be able to find ways to find wide support for any lunacy.

According to the article the question involved the origin and development of life. Lumping the two quite different questions together could cause confusion. I think that with all the evidence available answering both questions at once with one answeris tough though.
Also I think that the Brits can take some solace from the statement that "Participants over 55 were less likely to choose evolution over other groups." Maybe modern British education is making the difference and assumptions based on "dick all" (aka blind faith) are on the way out. In the US it appears that the problems are as bad in the young as well as the adult forms of the species.

You have a particular spin on the results. Actually:
- 48% of us chose "evolution without god";
- 22% chose "creationism"
- 17% chose "creative design"
- 13% chose "don't know"

Presumably the religious nuts fall into only two of the above categories, which comprise 39%. However the 22% figure presumably include people who believe in some form of "evolution with God". For example most of the established church here believe in evolution, but don't find that incompatible with believing in a god.

In fact we can only be sure that 17% have chosen an unscientific option.

I was stunned when I first saw the poll results, but over the last 24 hours I've become more skeptical. Especially since I haven't been able to find the actual question anywhere, even on MORI's site. I have a suspicion that the BBC is trying to drum up controversy - they've also been plugging a big documentary on science and alternative medicine in a very sensationalist manner for the last week.
As someone said on Chris's blog, it's very unlikely that 17% of the population have any coherent idea what ID is (nor do the IDists, but we'll leave that for the moment). It's just not an issue here. Scientific types have been following the situation in the US with horror and fascination, but it's not been getting a whole lot of play in the broadsheets, let alone the tabloids. The only thing remotely close here is the two terrible Vardy academies, which aren't subject to the same curriculum rules as other schools. Certainly Blair has been bad on that front - I'll claim no British superiority there. But in the country as a whole, there's just no movement for ID or creationism at all. Evangelism has been on the increase for the last 10 years or so, but only in the context of the utter collapse of Anglicanism. So I wouldn't be surprised if 22% of self-declared Christians called themselves creationists, but when only 60% of the country believes in God at all, a 44% figure for teaching creationism is impossible to take seriously. I don't personally know a single person who believes in a literal Genesis, and I had a born again Christian for a housemate at university.

I don't really belive these polls. I think a lot of people hold a loose interpretation of God and creationism. Many who don't go to church still profess a belief in some kind of creator, and will say so when asked, but will go wishy-washy when pressed or confronted with other ideas. Most people could be re-educated to hold a more rational view.

I am with Dawkins. Religion is a virus and needs to be confronted, discredited, and replaced with a rational view.

Point taken, RavenT, and not to detract from your excellent post, but at first when you said "evidence," I thought you had evidence. What you had instead was a good anecdote. Not a bad thing at all...but not evidence, either. I also have the "evidence" of my experience that people were not even willing to give scientific explanations an honest hearing until, for example, it was pointed out to them that the two versions of creation in Genesis are incompatable. But it could be that we are both correct, but for different demographics. I now move in skeptical/atheist circles, which has perhaps made me a little crusty. Prior to that I moved primarily in fundamentalist circles (I have a degree in Bible from the Bible college in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Billy Graham was one-time president). I haven't had that much contact with "normal," mainline believers, and that might account for some of the difference between our experiences. But I also base my idea a little bit on history: According to E.O. Wilson, in an essay included in a collection of Darwin's books, it wasn't until after Darwin became skeptical of Christianity on metaphysical grounds that he began to seriously consider naturalistic explanations. But the truth is, there are probably lots of ways the light gets in. Which reminds me...no matter our trivial disagreement, the really important thing is, ain't Cohen cool?

but at first when you said "evidence," I thought you had evidence. What you had instead was a good anecdote.

well, actually I am using "evidence" in the epidemiological sense, in which a series of case reports (aka "anecdotes") is considered evidence for decision-making in clinical practice, although a much weaker level of evidence than is a randomized controlled trial. but your point is well-taken that bench scientists and clinicians mean different things by the word, so I should be clear on how I am using it in a particular context.

Which reminds me...no matter our trivial disagreement, the really important thing is, ain't Cohen cool?

Yes, we are in agreement on the truly important things, after all.

oh, and also, Greg, you are quite right about the difference between our populations--mine is highly self-selected, and very small, so my external validity (generalizability of conclusions) may well be total crap as a result.

Your principal point is undeniably correct; you are indeed going to need something stronger than beer. I know.

Be careful, however. While potato vodka (kept in the freezer, of course) has proven effective, over time it takes more and more of it to shut down the offending neurons.

"Then I read that 73% of American teenagers "engaged in at least one type of psychic or witchcraft-related activity", and I just want to throw up my hands and give up."

In my teens I too explored many different forms of trying to understand what it was all about. I checked out religions astrology, Carlos Castenada, you name it. As a result of that I learned that there is a marvelous way to understand the world and the universe and that it is called science. I also realized that what's it all about was the wrong queston and instead decided that the purpose in my life was whatever I chose to make it. Give the kids a chance PZ, with people like you and all the folks at Panda's Thumb and other great anti-asshat blogs they might come through the WTF phase into the clear light of reason and human morality. (at least I hope so)

PS PZ, is your dalliance with the Squid Overlords any different:)

"anti-asshat blogs"

that's freakin hilarious!

Seriously, I think we should point out to all the "rational Christians" (those who believe the world is very, very old and that evolution did happen, but somehow god is in there) that once you think part of the Bible is untrue, why would you believe anything else in it? I personally feel that those are the people who might be on the way to atheism..... well, maybe not, but they're the ones to work on first.

Speaking as a Brit, I find this result very hard to credit.

I mean, if this were valid, you would expect to see at least a few letters of protest following any David Attenborough series, since he certainly does not shy away from mentioning evolution. Yet - nothing. In fact, Sir David is possibly one of the most respected people in the country.

Those figures simply do not correlate with my experience of living here for the last 50 years.

I'm kind of on the fence about which is the better tactic: a full-on bayonet charge or a more subtle pincer movement. However, two things I'm pretty certain about:
1] pointing out logical inconsistencies and empirical flaws in peoples' irrational beliefs will have little or no effect in the majority of cases (i.e. 'you can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't first reason themselves into'), and
2] mainstream religion must be treated like any other unfounded belief - not fenced off from criticism, merely because many people believe it and it hurts their feelings to have their beliefs challenged. There should be no more respect for Christianity or Islam than there is for astrology or homeopathy or Scientology or alien abductees, etc. So, whether we are going to be more or less aggressive, we still need to make sure that all irrational beliefs are treated equally.

We do need to concentrate on the genuinely dangerous dogma, like fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, rather than the relatively harmless ones, though, as these are a genuine threat to the future of the world. Pet psychics aren't.

Apologies if it's been said here already, but I'm a rush to get to a talk by Dr. Liu about Avian Flu.

What are you basing your "not working" hypothesis on? If something like 73% of some population are still gripped by religious delusions, what proportion were in that state in the past? What, besides the current tactics of persuasion, patience and practice of reason has led to this proportion?

If the past population was 100% religious, then 73% now repressents progress, no? Rejoice, the rationalists have gone from near-zero to 1/4 in only 250 years!

Ian maybe some of the problem lies in statements like this:

"We do need to concentrate on the genuinely dangerous dogma, like fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, rather than the relatively harmless ones, though, as these are a genuine threat to the future of the world. Pet psychics aren't."

There is no such thing as fundamentalist christianity/ islam/ judaism. The term has been invented by those that don't want to follow their religion in its totality. They only want the cherry picked version of the doctrine, not the whole thing. If they were true believers they would be "fundamentalists". As cherry pickers they want their cake and eat it and such people give their ridiculous, totalitarian and absurd dogmas a veneer of respectability. This level of respectability allows nice people to forget about the nastiness of the real believers and we cut them slack because of it.
Rational folk have got to stop doing this because the result is pogroms, burnings at the stake and inquisitions. Besides if one bit of the book in case is wrong, then why should any of it be right? It all relies on the same "proof", namely blind, unquestioning faith.

There is more information about the survey at the BBC Press Office, which is appropriate as the survey seems to have been conducted purely for promotional purposes - it wasn't mentioned in the programme itself.

It seems to me that the survey will under-report evolutionary belief. In particular, the wording of the three questions asked excludes the common belief that evolution occured as it appears, and that this is in accord with God's plans for the world - which is certainly orthodox thought among the Christians I know.

From the press release --

The statements were:

the 'evolution theory' says that human kind has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process;

the 'creationism theory' says that God created human kind pretty much in his/her present form at one time within the last 10,000 years;

and the 'intelligent design' theory says that certain features of living things are best explained by the intervention of a supernatural being, eg God.

Of those surveyed, 48 per cent said evolution theory most closely describes their view; 22% chose creationism; and 17% chose intelligent design.

I'd think that most thoughtful Christians who'd describe themselves otherwise as subscribing to mainstream evolutionary theory would have problems with that first question. Evolution does not exclude supernatural influence on natural processes, it says that it is undetectable - and that's very different to the implications of the first question.

So, Britain, rest easy. Our evolutionary credentials are unbesmirched, even if our pollsters are a bit clueless.

R

The MORI website presently has no information about the survey methodology or the exact questions asked. I'd like to see it. Something strange is going on - I agree with those who question whether 17% of the population here know what Intelligent Design is. (I'd never even heard of it before I started reading American blogs in 2004.) In fact, tonight's Horizon programme (which was very good) was clearly operating from the assumption that very few viewers would know much if anything about it, and this is something intended for a relatively well educated audience. There just isn't any significant opposition to teaching evolution in schools out there.

The BBC messed up on reporting that survey anyway. For example, the first time round (while the US was probably mostly asleep) they had it that the over-55's were more likely to opt for evolution. Then a little later they changed the main body of text to say the over-55's were less likely to do so (and also removing some other stuff which other people had started to comment on). But they left the text under the Darwin picture saying "Over 55s were more likely to opt for teaching evolution in science lessons" when I quoted it elsewhere. Now it has changed again.

Meanwhile, as someone else already mentioned, we did have an evolution vs ID creationism Horizon programme - though the BBC messed up a bit there too (as usual). However, in the pieces to camera, Richard Dawkins did well - and better than David Attenborough did this time. Also better than he did in much of his C4 pair of programmes (which fits with an idea I had about that).

Graham has a good point. Attenborough is a national institution, in a way that I can't really think of a good US comparison, and his big nature programmes are national events. Certainly (pre-TANG memo) the old guard of US anchors got more respect than in the UK, where newsreaders are liked but not particularly respected. But even they are/were tainted with the "liberal bias" perception.

If Attenborough says ID is crap, then most Brits without the means or inclination to judge the evidence for themselves will believe him. Obviously that's not the way we'd like the issue to be settled, but there you go.

Anonymous said:

Ian maybe some of the problem lies in statements like this:
"We do need to concentrate on the genuinely dangerous dogma, like fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, rather than the relatively harmless ones, though, as these are a genuine threat to the future of the world. Pet psychics aren't."
There is no such thing as fundamentalist christianity/ islam/ judaism. The term has been invented by those that don't want to follow their religion in its totality. They only want the cherry picked version of the doctrine, not the whole thing. If they were true believers they would be "fundamentalists". As cherry pickers they want their cake and eat it and such people give their ridiculous, totalitarian and absurd dogmas a veneer of respectability. This level of respectability allows nice people to forget about the nastiness of the real believers and we cut them slack because of it.
Rational folk have got to stop doing this because the result is pogroms, burnings at the stake and inquisitions. Besides if one bit of the book in case is wrong, then why should any of it be right? It all relies on the same "proof", namely blind, unquestioning faith.

Anonymous - I said in my comment that we shouldn't give mainstream religions any more respect than any other 'faiths'. So, you're saying that we should give the same attention to Miss Cleo as to Pat Robertson? I have to disagree with you. The 'Cherry Pickers' are less dangerous. I know it's all part of the same mindset, but the totalitarian strains are clearly more of an immediate threat to peace, freedom and the stability of the globe. As we have limited resources, we should apply them to areas where they have the most value.

Greg and Leonard notwithstanding, religion isn't going away. Maybe theistic, otherworldly crap will die out (though I really doubt it), but if anyone expects science to take its place, they are seriously deluded. Some new irrationality will flow from the human tendency to see agency and pattern everywhere, and to try to become or influence the locus of control without actually having to understand anything. Like the teenies with the Ouija board, (which is pretty innocent; lighten up- curmudgeondom becomes you, but only so far). We're born pretty credulous, and it's hard work to become and remain skeptical. The Ouija board experiment could teach kids something that watching "Psychic Detectives" on Court TV would not. Experimentation is good, even against established science.

Boyer's Religion Explained depressed the hell out of me, but also made me see the futility of any sort of rationalist gospel spreading. I'll work on things I might have a chance of affecting, and the pervasiveness of religion isn't one of them. Feel free to try- the world would be better, but if we have to lay money on it, I'm betting on religion.

Being an outspoken doubter is the high road, and let's do that. But let's not kid ourselves.

I may not be able to keep up with the discussion, I can't always get Pharyngula to load.

As I've said before, I'm an agnostic. I am NOT a Christian. There may be god(s); there may not. Certain experiences in my own life have made me consider that there may be some supernatural something or other, but there may not be, maybe it is all some freakish brain chemistry or temporal lobe damage. Shrug. That is just so you know where my bias is.

However, none of the current screed against religion is inclined to make me come scurrying into the non-religious camp. The attitudes and tactics of the non-religious seem to me to be about the same as the rabidly religious, and I don't relish being called an ignorant lunatic any more than I relish being called a vile sinner.

How is it different to jeer 'where's your magic sky fairy now?' to grieving people than it is to pompously bellow that 'God sent the tsumani/hurricane/tornado to punish you for your evil ways' to other grieving people.

In addition, not all religious people believe in the magic sky fairy brand god. The non-religious seem to ignore any facts that don't fit their view of the religious any more than vice versa. Religion and its role in societies is very complex, much more complex than the current crop of Bible beaters would be comfortable with either.

Non-belief does not seem to be the default human position, as every society that I have read about has had some form of religious belief. Nor are atheists a product of the Enlightenment. Every society has had a few people who do not believe in the 'gods', sometimes while acting as one of the religious leaders of that society. (I'm thinking of some of the soap opera of Egyptian dynastic history and some of the Roman pragmatism.)

But ok, all religion is bullshit hokum and we will replace it with scientific rationality. How will that make the world a better place? And will it last? The non-religious end of the world scenarios aren't any more fun than the religious ones, in fact, they call upon the same methods of destruction as most religious ones. Take your pick: Fire, Famine, Pestilience, Ice, War, whichever. So ok, global warming, end of oil, massive climate change, worldwide pandemic, one or all of them is coming down the pike, and 99.999 percent of life on earth dies or whatever. But a few chosen/random survivors of humanity and enough non-human life for the humans to eat make it through. Do you think they will be passionate followers of scientific rationality? Or will they (or any descendants they might have) create new gods to try to make sense out the world?

I congratulate all here on seeing the wisdom of reacting to a radical opponent by becoming more radical oneself.

Isn't it about time to admit that the strategies of the past, such as being deferential to the nonsense of religion or letting the kooks who dominate discourse off the hook because pointing out their fallacies would be rude, aren't working? I predict that there will be much finger-pointing at Dawkins and tut-tutting about all those militant members of the high church of evolutionism being to blame, and that there will be further insistence on molly-coddling lunacy to make those willing believers in creationism more comfortable.

This may be a point on which we will have to agree to disagree. I must admit, I run into a good many atheists who I otherwise respect, but who seem to have an uncanny inability to tell who their allies are who are the enemies.

Liberal christians who have oppose creationism and intelligent design, support gay rights and women's rights, who take an allegorical interpretation of the garden of Eden and the Noachian flood, support the Separation of State and Church, and find support for all of this in their understanding of their religious belief in a transcendental God are not the religious fundamentalists who seek to send us back to the dark ages, impose a strict form of fundamentalism upon the rest of us, or set up a theocracy and bring an end to modern, secular society. Such liberal christians (and there are many of them) are not the enemy. They are on your side. But look at how atheists on your side are prepared to treat them (I quote from above):

I am as convinced as I can be that the way to advance science and promote rational, humane public policies is to expose and oppose religion and other forms of toxic superstition at every available turn. And I mean mercilessly.

(emphasis added)

Those who look up to you and Dawkins as individuals to emulate see no distinction between their religious allies and the religious fundamentalists. They are willing to take all of their pent-up fury out on those who share nearly all of their values -- as if this somehow would bring an end to fundamentalism by proxy.

I have a great deal of respect for you. I have a great deal of respect for Richard Dawkins. But the hostility which people like yourself are showing towards your religious allies plays right into the hands of the fundamentalists, and it will no doubt play an important part in their success if and when they succeed.

You might wish that such religious allies didn't exist -- that things were more simple -- with rational atheists on one side and religious fundamentalists on the other (heck, I might prefer it as well), but things just aren't this simple:

An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science
(We've reached our goal of gathering 10,000 clergy signatures. The
next step in our campaign is outlined here.)
http://www.uwosh.edu/colleges/cols/religion_science_collaboration.htm

In any case, both you and Dawkins have and will continue to have my admiration, but on this point I must disagree.

I too saw Horizon last night. A bit of a curate's egg I think. Dawkins and Attenborough were good, the Dover teacher and parents who blew the whistle were impressive and Phillip Johnston hanged himself with his own rope. But the programme really messed up where it was most important because they made a lousy job of explaining why ID is fatuous. Firstly there was only a rather half-hearted attempt to refute irreducible complexity and (worse), they let Dembski get away with bamboozling us with his fancy maths. Never did they challenge his absurd and straight dishonest claim that natural selection is random.

Then I read that 73% of American teenagers "engaged in at least one type of psychic or witchcraft-related activity", and I just want to throw up my hands and give up. I'm going to need something stronger than beer.

PZ, put down that bottle of Beefeater's and step away from the bar. If you go to the Banta site, you read:

The most common types of witchcraft behaviors were using a Ouija board and reading a book about witchcraft or Wicca, each of which had been done by more than one-third of teenagers. More than one-quarter of teens have played a game featuring sorcery or witchcraft elements. One-tenth of teens had participated in a seance and 1 out of 12 had tried to cast a spell or mix a magic potion.

Kids read one of the Harry Potter novels "a book about witchcraft"-- then pick up one of the more popular books on witchery...or fantasize and act out being able to cast the kind of spells that get Harry and his pals out of trouble.

Ouija boards are pretty popular among the 11-14 year olds (related to the phenomenon of telling scary stories around the campfire)

Remember, the rational capacity of a 13-year-old is different than the adult brain. "Magical thinking" is a developmental process.

I would agree with an earlier commenter that these results just do not reflect my experience of being British. That said, I am hard pressed to remember being taught evolution at school in the 80's. The subject of the origin of life just wasn't mentioned (although we did have compulsory religious education - this in a state school). I learnt about evolution from "Life On Earth" - may his spaghettiness bless Sir David Attenborough - and latterly from Richard Dawkins (Wot no knighthood?).

I agree with Tony Jackson about the Horizon programme being a bit of a curate's egg. Although the general tenor was that ID was a load of puff, they still let the DI'ers get away with a number of lies and misrepresentations unchallenged - for example, the "list of 450 scientists", (as mentioned) the "evolution is random" canard and some others. There was a refutation of Dembski's probability calculation from Ken Miller, but I'm not sure that the average punter would have fully grasped the significance of calling him on a post-hoc calculation. I would have liked to see the programme makers challenge the DI'ers on their research output, since Meyer, Dembski, Behe and Johnson were so keen to keep calling ID "scientific".

The BBC (narrator) started with the first big lie* (right at the start of the programme) - that of calling ID (creationism) new. That's like suggesting the ridiculous rebranding of the Post Office as Consignia somehow made delivering letters into a new idea.

* Note that it was a lie and not a mistake, because the last little bit of the programme indicated they should already have known it to be false by the time they put the thing together.

I could forgive them that had they later exposed it as Paleyism warmed over. In that way, the statement could be said to have some "dramatic" purpose. That Paley wasn't even raised says it all, really.

The deterioration of Horizon saddens me, especially since I remember wonderful programmes such as the one where they did a complete demolition job on Von Daniken, leaving only the metaphorical pair of smoking boots at the end.

Nowadays, it's all puff: too much arty-farty camerawork and no substance. Or, as we put it, "all fur coat and no knickers".

I don't see this poll as a major surprise. Ask 200 common people whether they prefer J.S. Bach or this Crazy Frog ringtone... Guess what the answer will be?

The problem is that lots of people never come into contact with evolution theory. Have you ever noticed that even people in other science departments than biology and biomedical sciences have a minute knowledge of evolution. (I had to recsue a lost physicist lately)
Second problem is, and this is far worse, that people who do get into contact with it, very often learn about evolution from dubious sources.
Worst of all: genuine researchers who fail to explain and implement Darwin's simple idea.
In a simple twist of stochastics (refuse to say fate) I recently found a great example of this on the BBC news website... real baloney

>Until that happens, what conclusions would Corey Bradshaw draw from his overview? >Are there any traits which place species in greater or less danger?
>"If you think about it, nothing really evolves to go extinct," he comments, "it's anti->life, anti-Darwinian, it makes no sense.
>"What does make sense is if suddenly, a novel mortality source comes along, acting on >a scale which is much less than the lifetime of an individual; then you're getting into a >problem."
>And here may be a clue; because in the animal kingdom, the lifetime of an individual >tends to parallel body size.
>"If your body size is large, chances are you're not going to be able to adapt to novel >mortality sources.
>"If I were going to predict whether an elephant or a mouse would go extinct, I would >say an elephant most likely, because it's not going to be able to adapt to the changes >we're making to the planet."

First of all: The author gives the impression that evolution is an orchestrated event leading to ever-better adapted creatures that should not be prone to extinction anymore. As you, the informed reader all know this is nonsense: there is no sense in evolution. You're not adapted -> you die. You are adapted -> you thrive. That's it. Species mutate and evolve all the time, still they could be extinct in let's say a day or two. (take this with a pinch of salt please). Moreover, extinction is the rule, survival is the exception, as Dawkins would say.
And what the **** is this gibberish about body size?
Say there is a sudden new mortality source as the author suggests. If you happen to have somewhere in a species genepool a combination that makes some individuals resistant against this mortality source, these will thrive. The others will perish. This has nothing to do with lifespan. High reproduction rates and a very high genetic variability might help. Of course reproduction rates and number of offspring are often larger in small animals. But this is not mentioned by the author plus it is no guarantee for being adapted. In this interview he gives the impression that individual animals have to start adapting after the arrival of the mortality source.
The animal is not constantly adapting its genepool to an everchanging environment; the everchanging genepool is constantly tested for its aptness by the environment.

I hope this is bad communication (in these ID-days this is also a crime against humanity)
Alternatively: if there's anything anti-Darwinian, it is the author, clearly confused by our buddy: Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck

I congratulate all here on seeing the wisdom of reacting to a radical opponent by becoming more radical oneself.

Yes, lets just 'turn the other cheek' while they take all our rights and freedoms away, and maybe nuke themselves and us, too! Maybe if we close our eyes, they'll be gone when we open them again..

I think Horizon messed up the explanation of why Dembski's probability calculations are crap, possibly due to sloppy editing. Ditto the flagellum story. Attenborough suffered from being edited down to soundbites, but Dawkins came over quite well, I thought.

What I found a bit unfortunate was the way the narration and background music in the first half of the programme made the IDists seem like brave pioneers, rather than the charlatans they are. Everything that popped out of their mouths needed challenging, there and then. "Literally outboard motors", pah! "These are machines," pah! "[Scientists] won't debate us on the science," pah! The programme would have been twice as long, but ten times as worthwhile.

I also don't see the cause for drinking in the teenager/magic poll results - although there are enough other good reasons for a stiff drink that you shouldn't deny yourself one if you feel you need it. The "transgression" of playing with magic, I would guess, would help to allow people to feel comfortable being in violation of the religious rules of their childhoods - and possible prepare them for the more mature transgression of actually thinking critically.

this is what happens when our youth read harry potter, you know!

I disagree - I think that when people read Harry Potter, the response that should be expected of them is revulsion with the series's (lack of) literary merit.

"I disagree - I think that when people read Harry Potter, the response that should be expected of them is revulsion with the series's (lack of) literary merit."

I'd agree, but look at what happened to A.S. Byatt when she pointed this out a couple of years ago.

Timothy Chase,
Extremely well said! Thank you for being a voice of reason!

We've still got Darwin on our money.

"[TDP] I congratulate all here on seeing the wisdom of reacting to a radical opponent by becoming more radical oneself."

"Yes, lets just 'turn the other cheek', while they take all our rights and freedoms away, and maybe nuke themselves and us, too! Maybe if we close our eyes, they'll be gone when we open them again."

You think I'm being sarcastic? If you you're at war with 30 or 40% of the population and not succeeding as well as you'd like, then the best course is to declare war on another 40+% of the population. No question about it. You can't have too many enemies! If a fundy takes a shot at you, take a shot at a non-fundy religious believer. That way you've now got twice as many enemies and your efforts are more dispersed. Hey, OBL downs the WTC towers, so Bush goes after Iraq. You and Bush are subtle dudes, eschewing the embarassingly obvious strategy of isolating those who have struck you.

I mean, all here admire the cunning of those religious folk who, viewing atheism as antithetical to their beliefs, instead of simply doing battle with the atheists, choose to take aim at science and evolution, right?

If you're not with us on every issue, you're against us on every issue! Makes a great battle cry.

Do you notice what you are doing?

Nobody is talking about "declaring war" on anyone, or taking shots at anyone. The problem isn't with the atheists, but all those people who take plainspoken disagreement with an idea as a mortal attack.

When Christians say, "I believe in God" or "I'm born again," do you see atheists taking that as a declaration of war? Of course not. Why then should people react to atheists stating that they disbelieve and that the god-business is a load of hooey as if they've pulled out a gun and are threatening to butcher a church congregation?

I am not interested in the slightest in "going after" little old ladies going to church on Sundays. I don't go to funerals and tell the grieving folk that their loved one is simply nonexistent. I don't advocate closing churches or having people who profess a religion fired from their jobs. But for some reason, criticizing religion provokes an absolutely hysterical reaction in people, like you're planning to burn people at the stake (and yeah, I've recently been accused by one idiot here of wanting to do that.)

These numbers sound about right, actually. Their sample size was 2000, and assuming that they chose (as much as is possible) a random cross-population sample, we might expect to see very close values on politicized issues like this.

Remember, if it was just about who was correct, evolution and science would never be challenged. However, this issue has become a political football (choose the type of football you like). Also, in my opinion, we've done a terrible job teaching basic scientic notions to people who are not already into it. The few years of "science" taught at the high school level is highly variable from region to region, and the so-called "science" shows on TV are destroying what critical thinking is left in those brains.

What is more interesting (to me) is what happens if you compare within a population. In the US, anyway, the more post-secondary education one has, the more likely they are to express a doubt in an all-seeing god who created the universe.

I don't mean to suggest that one is unable to think critically without spending a little time, well, learning how to think critically. Furthermore, it's not like a few years of university automatically makes one a reasonable, sensible person.

But it helps.

No one in UK or elsewhere seem to know/remember Eurobarometer 224 (published June 2005)results. It is poll of science questions. One of question was:

"Human Beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals".

73% of British answered TRUE and only 13% answered FALSE.

Btw. 36% of British said "scientific" about astrology and
only 19% considered history "scientific".

Correction: I wrote "73% of British answered TRUE" when it should be "79% of British answered TRUE".
So belief on human evolution was quite strong on Jan-Feb 2005 in UK. Huge EU-poll 2005 of science can be found here:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_224_report_en…

Human evolution belief in different countries can be found on page 220. (Question QA10.12).

Any other outcome would have indicated that "Brits are genetically less predisposed towards ID" (wink).

Seriously though, polls: it depends on the questions asked. Apparently one of the questions was something like this "Which do you believe is reponsible for the origin AND [my capitals] development of life?" (A, B, C or "dunno, mister"). Split theat question into its components and you get two different sets of answers...

"Land of David Attenborough" - LOL! Nice to see the proportions are in evolution's favour though. Why aren't the %age's closer to unamimous ascent for evolution? Ironically, it could be a result of evolution itself - the instictive, evolved sense of fairness that humas have. In this case, manifested here in teaching 'both sides'

i am so  irritated with this dissolution of education. from another context, a Yahoo discussion group, and without attribution to protect the privacy of the poster, i just read the following on a discussion board:

I can't believe how long I've stayed out of this discussion, considering it's actually the basis of my every day life - I homeschool my kids. And I actually "unschool" them, which means no textbooks, no preset curriculum - they learn from life, just like you and I (as adults) do. They learn about history by visiting
battle reenactments and reading autobiographies and watching the History channel and going to the Hall of Presidents. They learn about science by doing experiments at the Science center or at home or going to the Universe of Energy. They learn about animals by keeping a menagerie of pets and visiting Animal Kingdom. They learn about geography by playing navigator as we travel around the country (and the world when we can).

it shows you what educators are up against.now, i understand homeschooling can, in principle, be well done. but, really, is it good policy to allow if not encourage the teaching of curricula without pattern or review, letting standardized tests be the only determinant of acceptibility? isn't this just setting colleges and universities up to waste two years on remedial work?

now, i understand homeschooling can, in principle, be well done. but, really, is it good policy to allow if not encourage the teaching of curricula without pattern or review, letting standardized tests be the only determinant of acceptibility? isn't this just setting colleges and universities up to waste two years on remedial work?

it may be bad form to quote yourself, but apparently it's this blog mechanism's way of editing.
i understand homeschooling is allowed in places like Norway and Germany, although in Germany it's socially discouraged. anyway, parents need to register with schools in those countries, and review curricula with them. that would be far more acceptible to me than the freeform thing which is practiced in the States, without review as far as i can tell. there's some overt discouragement from some public school systems in California.

Ian maybe some of the problem lies in statements like this:

"We do need to concentrate on the genuinely dangerous dogma, like fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, rather than the relatively harmless ones, though, as these are a genuine threat to the future of the world. Pet psychics aren't."

There is no such thing as fundamentalist christianity/ islam/ judaism. The term has been invented by those that don't want to follow their religion in its totality. They only want the cherry picked version of the doctrine, not the whole thing. If they were true believers they would be "fundamentalists". As cherry pickers they want their cake and eat it and such people give their ridiculous, totalitarian and absurd dogmas a veneer of respectability. This level of respectability allows nice people to forget about the nastiness of the real believers and we cut them slack because of it.
Rational folk have got to stop doing this because the result is pogroms, burnings at the stake and inquisitions. Besides if one bit of the book in case is wrong, then why should any of it be right? It all relies on the same "proof", namely blind, unquestioning faith.

I'm not convinced that it's altogether fair to criticise the fundamentalists on the grounds that they put too much faith in the Bible, and then criticise the liberals on the grounds that they don't have enough faith in the Bible.

Hi Ian and Ben
It was actually me who wrote the piece about fundamentalism being true belief but I sent it off without putting my name on it logged off and went home.. Sorry.
I wasn't criticising the fundamentalists for putting too much faith in their musty manuscript, I was saying that a believer would believe 100%. The people who cloud the issue and allow acceptance of irrational beliefs amongst the rational are the moderates who pick and chose what they like from their dogma and ignore the bad bits.
The moderates sweeten the bitter pill just enough that rational people appear intransigent and petty when they argue that it is all fruit of the same poisonous vine. Hence some of the replies here. This allows fanatical dogma to always be there waiting in the wings to claim more converts until suddenly it's the way of life.
How many moderate muslim men in afghanistan, suddenly at the threat of being called an apostate turned overnight into a model Talliban supporter?
How many Germans went from being ordinary working folk with slightly improper ideas to badge wearing NAZIs denouncing neighbours and friends when the brownshirts came to town demanding loyalty?
Dogmatic extremists are dangerous, but what is more dangerous are their cherry picking apologists that allow them to hide under the radar until the "tomorrow that belongs to them" comes. These moderates if history has taught us anything will then become "born again" extremists who will prove their worth to the faith.

Well, it doesn't really matter to me who 'wins' any battles. The outcome, should it happen in my lifetime, will mean my marginalization or execution, depending on which faction of which belief system wins. ;) Unless the wheels fall off entirely, in which case we are all dead, and it doesn't matter anyhow.

I may be stupid, but I'm not uninformed, and to me, the atheists and fundamentalists are mirror images. Over and over I'm told that if I 'only understood how science works' or if 'only I knew Jesus' I would change my mind and be an atheist or be a Christian. Well, I do understand how science works and I've heard about Jesus my whole fricking life. Neither has changed my mind.

So it's not the attack on religion that riled me up, it's the use of the same old tactics of the religious brainwashers by the atheists. If you (rhetorical) are going to be intellectually superior, be intellectually superior, don't use the same old crap that I reject from religious people.

Telling me there is no god because you say there is no god isn't proof. There is nothing in science that proves there is no god. Atheism is a belief system, the belief that there is no god. This doesn't make it any better or any worse than any other belief system. They all have good points and bad points--some people use a belief system to improve their own lives and the lives of others and some do not. But any belief system that refuses to acknowledge that it is a belief system, isn't likely to address all the causes of human misery.

If you dump the deities, trash the Tarot cards, use your non-religious magical thinking to convert everyone to scientific rationality, the world will still be full of problems that science, so far, has not been able to address. I know plenty of people who consider themselves atheists whose lives are out of control because they make irrational choices. I don't think you will eliminate war--only one cause of war. War over resources, territory, and national pride will only lose the little prayer sessions before and after the battles. Many of the environmental problems that look like they will sink the world were not caused by religion--people making business decisions are more often motivated by immediate profit rather than any religious convictions they might have, and have no more use for listening to a priest than they do for listening to a scientist.

Personally, I would prefer that atheism as a belief system win out over any theist belief, because it is more likely that they will only sneer at non-atheists rather than put them to the stake. But that's by no means certain.

As I told a friend during one of our periodic discussions of this topic, belief in god makes the leap of faith that there is a god and most people go on to the leap that god gives a shit for good or bad about the universe, a belief that may or may not be justified. Belief that there is no god makes the leap of faith that the human intellect is up to the task of fully understanding the universe and fixing any problems that arise, a belief that may or may not be justified.

Telling me there is no god because you say there is no god isn't proof.

Most atheists aren't saying what you claim of them though. The more normal(?) atheistic position is that: given the absence of any decent evidence for any gods, why make any up at all - let alone ascribe particular properties to them or pick one over others. That's the position which is also particularly compatible with science, in a way that religion never is.