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Hi Dustin,
I don't have any research data to share with you, but I just wanted
to voice my enthusiasm for your project. I personally feel that most
people in the US fully accept descent with modification (e.g., dogs
from wolves), natural selection (antibiotic resistance), and even a
natural origin of life...but when asked evolution-related survey
questions, people _respond_ with answers that favor a religious myth.
The Gallup poll is a perfect example, where most questions are worded
as "choose between natural and supernatural explanations for X..."
In essence, responders send a _message_, "Yes, evolution conflicts
with major parts of my religion's foundations, and I WISH evolution
hadn't been discovered". Few surveys actually probe people's
_understanding_ of evolutionary concepts. For example, "Antibiotic
resistance evolves because: (1) bacteria _want_ to live, (2) the
antibiotic was made in Canada, (3) rare, mutant bacteria are unharmed
by the antibiotic, etc." If the available questions didn't include
the supernatural (e.g., "God decided to make the bacteria resistant,
just to test your immune system"), the poll data might give a clearer
sense of the true beliefs (not surface Beliefs) of the individuals
polled. Can't wait to see your results.
-Colin Purrington
- - - - -
Department of Biology, Swarthmore College
500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081
tel. (610) 328-8621; fax (610) 328-8663
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/index.html
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