Religious Belief, Scientific Expertise, and Folk Ecology

Abstract

In the United States, lay-adults with a range of educational backgrounds often conceptualize species change within a non-Darwinian adaptationist framework, or reject such ideas altogether, opting instead for creationist accounts in which species are viewed as immutable. In this study, such findings were investigated further by examining the relationship between religious belief, scientific expertise, and ecological reasoning in 132 college-educated adults from 6 religious backgrounds in a Midwestern city. Fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist religious beliefs were differentially related to concepts of evolution, adaptation, and extinction. Biological expertise (r = .28) and creationism (r = −.46) were significantly and differentially related to the endorsement of the Darwinian concept of common descent. Yet, creationists were more likely to reject macroevolutionary than microevolutionary concepts. Overall, the greater the taxonomic distance between species, the less likely were participants to agree that species-pairs had common ancestors. It is argued that lay adults from contemporary industrialized societies adopt a view of evolution in which species adapt to novel environments, but remain the same "kind" despite changes. Therefore, extinction is considered unlikely and the relations between micro-and macroevolution misconstrued. Lay-adults' species concepts appear to be an amalgam of a common-sense understanding of species and of evolutionary ideas, modified but not transformed by religious and scientific beliefs. Finally, it is argued that the development of scientific expertise does not involve the radical transformation of ingrained worldviews. Rather, scientists select specializations that are compatible with their existing philosophies, then consciously apply the constructs of their disciplines in order to transcend their common-sense folk beliefs.

A conceptual guide to natural history museum visitors' understanding of evolution

“…One resolution is theistic evolution, which can be construed as a causal chain with God as first cause, initiating the process of evolution. In the lay public's reasoning, however, mixed models are more typical (Poling & Evans, 2004a). Typically, creationist explanations are more likely to be applied to humans than to other species (Evans, 2000(Evans, , 2001Sinatra et al, 2003), with (pre-Darwinian) need-based evolutionary explanations more likely to be applied to species that are taxonomically distant from humans (Evans, 2008).…”

“…Biomedical researchers appear to avoid the ''E-Word,'' when describing antibiotic resistance (Antonovics et al, 2007). Similarly, while school curricula typically include discussion of within-species change, they rarely address macroevolutionary processes or speciation in the biology classroom (Catley 2006;Poling & Evans, 2004a). One exception may be an introduction to dinosaurs in elementary school; yet, while young elementary school children may be skilled at classifying dinosaurs, this does not mean they understand their role in an evolutionary framework (Evans, 2000;Poling & Evans, 2004b).…”

Freshman Undergraduate Biology Students’ Difficulties with the Concept of Common Ancestry

“…We assess freshman biology students' understanding of common ancestry using a survey that is based on that developed by Poling and Evans (2004). Our results show that these students display some of the difficulties with this concept that Darwin (1859) discussed and Poling and Evans (2004) found in college-educated adults.…”

“…In a study where undergraduate students were surveyed about core evolutionary concepts, Nadelson and Southerland (2010) found fewer than 50% of freshman-level students were able to correctly answer questions addressing common descent. Poling and Evans (2004) surveyed a sample of 132 college-educated adults about their understanding of core evolutionary concepts. Among their questions were eight sets of two or three organisms.…”

“…These studies suggest that difficulties with this concept persist in spite of explicit coverage in K-12 education. Poling and Evans' (2004) study explored the understandings of college-educated adults, both science and nonscience majors; in many cases, many years after college. Our study expands on their work and explores a targeted student population, freshman undergraduate biology students.…”