Polly said:
I'd love to believe that this would solve all problems, but to think, over 1/2 of the population of the technologically most advanced hyperpower believe in creationism, it is just unthinkable (yes I see Mercator's point of comparison with Russia and China now, sorry Merc
). It's not like they have been living on an island excluded from modern popular scientific understanding. It does say something about the mental capacity IMO.
Have you ever
been to some of these places? They aren't isolated from technology, but they are most certainly isolated from any reasonable semblance of a scientifically thinking culture. The way people are raised - indoctrinated from birth - certainly makes a difference. Why do you think you're so intent on finding evidence for Buddhism in quantum theory? It's the same reason that people look for evidence of the Great Flood in the geological record and come up with nonsense like hydroplate theory. And it isn't because of low IQ. I'd imagine you're a smart girl, and many of the people pushing creationism and ID are also incredibly intelligent.
With the actual high-profile advocates, I'd posit that the problem is stepping outside of one's sphere of expertise. All of the well-credentialed, intelligent people advocating ID and hydroplate theory seem to be engineers, chemists, and physicists, who really are
not qualified to make an evaluation of evolutionary biology any more than a biologist is qualified to critique the Copenhagen interpretation. The problem is that evolution is like politics. For whatever reason, everybody thinks they're experts. People that have probably never seen the Hardy-Weinberg equation, who probably cannot even pronounce 'endosymbiosis,' think they're as qualified to critique evolutionary theory. We would never see someone with no knowledge of the geometry of nth-dimensional space of variable curvature come in and try to critique general relativity (of course, because special relativity started with simple thought experiments,
everyone will try to critique that).
With the common people, it seems to be more a problem of indoctrination. All they're ever told about from the beginning are all of the 'holes' in evolutionary theory. It's not a matter of them being stupid; it's a matter of inadequate education. And let's face it: we're not going to solve this problem by forcing everyone to take a course in evolutionary biology. Evolutionary theory is a complex and difficult subject to grasp; it's no more fit to be a GE requirement than is a course in advanced physics. People simply accept the theories of advanced physics that they don't understand because those theories don't offend their culturally created sensibilities. 95% of the people in the world that
do accept evolutionary theory do so simply based on the fact that they trust scientific authority; it's not that they actually understand the nuances of the theory and are qualified to make an informed judgement about it. These people are no smarter and no less ignorant than those who reject evolution but aren't in a proper position of expertise to evaluate it critically. It's simply a difference of culture, in which some people believe that materialist science is at odds with a faith that they must hold to be saved, and others do not.
This reminds me of a program I recently watched called
The Journey of Man. A geneticist is going around the world tracing the journey of the original humans to leave Africa and figuring out where they branched off to and when. When he comes to Australia, he's speaking to a man of aboriginal descent, asking him if they have any narratives about coming into Australia from southeast Asia and how they might have done so. The man insists that they came from Australia and that the rest of the world was descended from Australians. The genetictist shows him the evidence that that is not the case. Archaeological findings of human activity in Africa are way older than those in Australia, and Australians carry genetic markers from Africa, but not the other way around, proving that transmission of genetic material could only have been one way - Australians are descended from Africans, but not vice versa. No matter what he said, the man would not accept it and continued to insist that all human are descended from Australians. He didn't do this because he was a low-IQ, ignorant fool, but because it conflicted with his long-established and deeply felt identity, something that no man is going to easily give up.
). Changing someones beliefs is far too difficult to be done in a lifetime- let alone changing their religion. This is why, I believe, that the IDers are trying to change schooling. They hold a belief, their children challenge that belief or maybe even hold the opposite belief. Why- school must have done it. What to do? Well change the school- try to make everyone believe what I believe. 