You Can't Educate People Into Believing in Evolution - The Atlantic

If, as a great philosopher once said, "life's a bitch and then you die," what's the point of debating about the existence of evolution?

According to a new report by Calvin College assistant professor Jonathan Hill, many Americans do not think it's that important to have the "correct beliefs" on the origins of human life. His research was funded by the BioLogos Foundation, a pro-evolution, Christian organization founded by National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins.

"It’s important to know that a large portion of the population is unsure about their beliefs, and there is a large portion of the population that doesn’t care," Hill said in an interview.

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This leaves 39 percent who are unsure, or whose views don't fit into the categories typically used to frame this issue.

And that matters,,, "The difference between Gallup and [this survey] is almost certainly due to Gallup respondents being forced to choose from limited options, even when many are unsure of what they believe or maintain beliefs that do not fit into the options available," he wrote.

Plus, a lot of people just don't care that much. Hill found that 58 percent of respondents said this topic is only "somewhat, not very, or not at all important" to them,,,

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“The psychological need to see purpose, that is really interesting," said Jeffrey Hardin, a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin, at the Faith Angle Forum in Miami on Tuesday. “Many Christians consider Neo-Darwinian theory to be dysteleological, or lacking in purpose." Hardin is himself an evangelical Christian; he often speaks with church communities about evolution in his work with the BioLogos Foundation. In these conversations, he said, many evangelicals point to statements like that of paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, who wrote in his 1967 book, The Meaning of Evolution, "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned." When this is echoed by outspoken atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, Hardin said, "Evangelicals look at it and go, ‘I can’t accept that, and therefore I cannot accept thinking at all about evolutionary biology.'"

You Can't Educate People Into Believing in Evolution - The Atlantic