Education by itself is no paranormal prophylactic. Although belief in ESP decreased from 65 percent among high school graduates to 60 percent among college graduates, and belief in magnetic therapy dropped from 71 percent among high school graduates to 55 percent among college graduates, that still leaves over half fully endorsing such claims! And for embracing alternative medicine, the percentages actually increase, from 89 percent for high school grads to 92 percent for college grads.
On a positive note the survey revealed that “for the first time, a majority (53 percent) of NSF survey respondents answered ‘true’ to the statement ‘human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals,’ bringing the United States more in line with other industrialized countries in response to this question.” The report also noted, however, that the teaching of creationism still finds majority support, in that “although a majority (60 percent) of people surveyed in a Gallup poll were opposed to the Kansas State Board of Education’s decision to delete evolution from the state’s science standards (a decision that was later reversed), more than two-thirds favored teaching both evolution and creationism in U.S. public school classrooms.”
We can glean a deeper cause of this contradiction in another statistic: 70 percent of Americans still do not understand the scientific process, defined in the study as grasping three concepts: probability, the experimental method, and hypothesis testing. One solution is more and better science education, as indicated by the fact that 53 percent of Americans with a high level of science education (nine or more high school and college science/math courses) understand the scientific process, compared to 38 percent with a middle level (six to eight such courses) science education, and 17 percent with a low level (less than five such courses). The NSF report concluded:
Although more than 50 percent of NSF survey respondents in 2001 had some understanding of probability, and more than 40 percent were familiar with how an experiment is conducted, only one-third could adequately explain what it means to study something scientifically. Understanding how ideas are investigated and analyzed is a sure sign of scientific literacy. Such critical thinking skills can also prove advantageous in making well-informed choices at the ballot box and in other daily living activities.
GOD AND EVOLUTION
The key here is teaching how science works, not just what science has discovered. An article published in Skeptic, Volume 9, Number 3, presents the results of a study that found no correlation between science knowledge (facts about the world) and paranormal beliefs. The authors, W. Richard Walker, Steven J. Hoekstra, and Rodney J. Vogl, concluded: “Students that scored well on these [science knowledge] tests were no more or less skeptical of pseudoscientific claims than students that scored very poorly. Apparently, the students were not able to apply their scientific knowledge to evaluate these pseudoscientific claims. We suggest that this inability stems in part from the way that science is traditionally presented to students: Students are taught what to think but not how to think.”
In no area of human knowledge is this observation more true, and critical thinking in such desperate demand, than when scientific claims appear to conflict with religious tenets. Here I am thinking of the creation-evolution controversy, which continues to inflame many religious Americans as they try to come to grips with the findings of modern science. (Indeed, the day I finished writing this chapter, the Cobb County, Georgia, board of education voted to include a sticker in all public high school biology textbooks indicating that evolution is just one theory among many to explain the development of life, and that creationism and Intelligent Design Theory should also be included in the curriculum of biology classes.) In March of 2001 the Gallup News Service reported the results of a survey that found 45 percent of Americans agree with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so,” while 37 percent preferred a blended belief that “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process,” and a paltry 12 percent accepted the standard scientific theory that “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.”
In a forced choice between the “theory of creationism” and the “theory of evolution,” 57 percent chose creationism against only 33 percent for evolution (10 percent said they were “unsure”). Only 33 percent of Americans think that the theory of evolution is “well supported by evidence,” while slightly more (39 percent) believe that it is not well supported, and that it is “just one of many theories.” One reason for these disturbing results can be seen in the additional finding that only 34 percent of Americans consider themselves to be “very informed” about evolution. Clearly the 66 percent who do not consider themselves well informed have not withheld their judgment on the theory’s veracity.
This fact was brought to light for me in the overwhelming response to my February 2002 Scientific American column on evolution and Intelligent Design creationism. Where I typically receive a couple of dozen letters a month, for this one no less than 134 were submitted (117 men, 4 women, 13 unknowns—a ratio equivalent to the magazine’s gender split).
When I first started writing for Scientific American I found reading critical letters mildly disconcerting, until I hit upon the idea that these are a form of data to be mined for additional information on what people believe and why—an informal vox populi. Conducting a content analysis of all 134 letters, I discovered a pattern within the cacophonous chaos that gave me additional insight into why people reject the theory of evolution. Initially I read through them all quickly, coding them into about two dozen one-line categories that summed up the reader’s point. I then coalesced these into six taxonomic classes, and reread all the letters carefully, placing each into one or more of the six (many readers made more than one point), giving a total of 163 ratings from which the following percentages were derived:
Excerpts from the letters illuminate each taxon. (Although most were friendly and reasonable, one fellow opined that my column “could have been written in 1939 by a Nazi,” while another said that “Michael Shermer must not only be a sceptic but also stupid in the 3rd degree the way he talks about ‘Intelligent Design.”’) I was initially surprised to discover that only 7 percent agreed with me about the veracity of evolution (and the emptiness of creationism), with one reader going so far as to claim, “The defenders of science behave too well. No amount of evolution education will counter the deliberate, sly, selective ignorance of creation ‘science.’” Nearly double that number argued that evolution is God’s method of creating life, such as one correspondent who agreed “that evolution is right—but still I see GOD in the will and cunning intention in the genetic system of all living organisms and in the system and order present in the laws of nature. Seeing all the diversity in the methods of camoflage in animals and plants for an example, I know that there is a will behind it.” Another reader sees creation and evolution “as complementary to each other. Put simply, since all parts of the universe follow intelligible law as educed through human intelligence, and such a law is a principle or cause, it follows that the universe as a whole must be the effect of the operation of a singular all-encompassing Principle.”
Figure 3. Why people do not accept evolution.
Critics of evolution in the third taxon hauled out an old canard every evolutionary biologist has heard: “I want to point out that evolution is only a theory.” And: “To my knowledge evolution is just a theory that has never been put to the test successfully and is far from being conclusive.” That evolution requires faith to believe (the fourth category) found many adherents among readers, such as these: “There are so many vast chasms that evolutionists paint over with broad strokes, they act as if their faith is fact as often as a creationist.” Or: “On my view, a key part of being a rational skeptic is consistent dedication to the standards and methods of critical thinking and logic. In his zeal to defend hi
s faith in evolutionary theory, Dr. Shermer violates those standards.” My favorite letter in this class echoed a standard refrain we hear often at Skeptic magazine about inadequate or misplaced skepticism (with a cc list that included “Pres. George W. Bush, V.P. Dick Cheney, and The Members of The US Congress, American Academy of Science; Dr. Dean Edell, America’s Doctor; Dr. Laura, America’s Jewish Mother”!): “I applaud your SKEPTICISM when it comes to Creationism and Astrology and ‘Psychic Phenomena’; but how can you be so THICK HEADED when it comes to the GLARING WEAKNESSES of Darwinian Evolution??? Honestly, you come across as both a ‘brain-washed apologist’ and a ‘High School Cheerleader’ for Darwinian Evolution.” Charles Darwin, he’s our man. If he can’t do it no one can.
The penultimate taxon was that Intelligent Design creationism must be true because life is simply too complex to be explained by evolution. For example: “ID theorists also see a variety of factors, constants, and relationships in the construction of the universe which are so keenly well-adjusted to the existence of matter and life that they find it impossible to deny the implication of intelligent purpose in those factors. Materialists see the same thing and wave their hands vaguely and mutter mystical phrases about ‘Anthropic Principles.’ What the materialist calls the anthropic principle, the IDer calls the Designer.”
Intriguingly, the greatest number of responses fell into a noncommittal position where readers expounded on the relationship of science and religion, often presenting their own theories of evolution and creation as alternatives to the models under discussion. For example: “Evolution is not a theory. It is an analytic approach. There are three elements of science: operation, observation, and model. An observation is the result of applying an operation, and a model is chosen for its utility in explaining, predicting, and controlling observations, balanced against the cost of using it.” And: “There is nothing that scientists have ever discovered, or could ever discover, that can prove or disprove the existence of God. The Bible is a tool for the illumination of the heart, not the revelation of observable facts. Thus there is no conflict between the Bible and science—there is even an amazing synergy between the two—when each is kept in its proper place.”
It has been my experience that correspondents in this final classification, like questioners in the Q & A sessions of lectures I present at colleges and universities, are less interested in my opinion and more intent on launching their own ideas into the cultural ether. With no subject is this more apparent than for evolution; it is here we face the ultimate question of genesis and exodus: where did we come from and where are we going?
FAITH, RELIGION, AND THE SOUL: WHY RELIGION MATTERS
Since the initial publication of How We Believe, books on religion, particularly on the relationship of science and religion and on the origin and purpose of religion, have tumbled off the presses in droves. There is money to be made in the religion publishing business, not the least of which is due to the fact that there are so many believers. Oxford University Press’s newly released second edition of its World Christian Encyclopedia reports that of the earth’s 6.1 billion humans fully 5.1 billion of them, or 84 percent, declare themselves believers who belong to some form of organized religion. Christians dominate at just a shade under two billion adherents (Catholics count for half of those), with Muslims at 1.1 billion, Hindus at 811 million. Buddhists at 359 million, and ethnoreligionists (animists and others in Asia and Africa primarily) accounting for most of the remaining 265 million. But as the editors note, such overall numbers tell us little. There are, in fact, 10,000 distinct religions of ten general varieties (in decreasing size and inclusiveness of cosmoreligion, macroreligion, megareligion, and so forth), each one of which can be further subdivided and classified. For example, Christians (classified as members of a cosmoreligion because it is open to all) may be found among 33,820 different denominations.
The variety of non-Christian religions is also stunning, with worldwide distribution outstripping Christian religions despite the tireless efforts of evangelists to convert as many souls to Christ as possible. (One irritation with this encyclopedia is its Christian bias—its senior editor is Reverend David B. Barrett, who heads the Global Evangelization Movement, making one wonder if all this data is being collected to calibrate how long it will take to reduce this rich diversity to one cosmo-macro-mega Christian religion.) One table, for example, tracks the number of Christians (69,000) and non-Christians (147,000) by which the world will increase over the next 24 hours. A diagram reveals the global convert/defector ratio, adjusted for births and deaths, indicating that the sphere of evangelism continues to expand into non-Christian belief space.
A visual companion to the encyclopedia is Oxford’s New Historical Atlas of Religion in America, which is packed with 260 color maps and charts printed on thick glossy paper to enhance the fine detail and shades of geographical differences between and among the various religious sects that inhabit the landscape. This new edition of religious historian Edwin Gaustad’s 1962 classic includes the arrival of religious colonialists to the New World over the past four decades, including Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, and especially Muslims, who have enjoyed a fourfold increase in America. Likewise, the number of Baha’is has risen nearly proportional to the membership drop in many mainstream religions, such as Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presbyterians. By contrast, “Southern Baptists” might better be labeled “All Over America Baptists,” as their ranks have swollen well into the northern territories. Likewise, the “Bible Belt” is now wider than a weightlifter’s leather girdle. Their ranks have even penetrated the formerly impenetrable Mormon-dominated Utah; but, in turn, in three-quarters of the counties west of the Rockies, the Mormon church ranks in the top three religious denominations. Most revealing are the historical maps and charts that track the changing demographics of American religion. Conservative pundits who proclaim that we need to return to the good old days when America was a Christian nation better look closely at Figure 4.16, showing that church membership as a percentage of the U.S. population over the past century and a half has increased from 25 percent to 65 percent. If America is going to hell in an immoral handbasket, it is happening when church membership is at an all-time high, and a greater percentage of Americans (90–95 percent) proclaim belief in a God than ever before.
Why do so many people believe and belong? One answer is that it is good for us. Studies show that religious people live longer and healthier lives, recover from illness and disease faster, and report higher levels of happiness. While most of these effects are probably due to lifestyle, diet, and exercise (e.g., religious people drink and smoke less), there is something about having family, friends, and a community that enhances life and longevity. An interesting book entitled Aging with Grace explores this thesis through a remarkable study of 678 nuns ranging in age from 75 to 104, lovingly told by Dr. David Snowdon, once a Catholic altar boy and now a distinguished epidemiologist and the director of the Nun Study at the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky. As the book of Proverbs proclaims, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” It turns out that a powerful predictor of which nuns would live the longest was the positive emotional content contained in their youthful writings, even when the analysis was controlled for age, education, and linguistic ability. The lowest emotional group averaged 86.6 years old at death, the highest emotional group averaged 93.5 years old at death. Snowdon also argues that profound faith, along with prayer and contemplation, “have a positive influence on long-term health and may even speed the healing process,” but then oddly concludes: “We do not need a study to affirm their importance to the quality of life.” Oh yes we do, if we want to make this a scientific claim. In fact, prayer and healing is now a hot field of study in medicine, but to date the studies have been severely flawed, failing to control for intervening variables and lacking consistent findings across comparative studies. I have no doubt that Snowdon is right about
the importance of community and close relationships, but you don’t need God or religion for that. All humans benefit from any type of social commitment because we are a social primate species.
There is another side to this story that recent research is illuminating, and that is that religious beliefs are not always a source of comfort during illness. In fact, in some cases, they may actually increase the risk of dying. A study conducted at Duke University Medical Center and Bowling Green State University, whose results were published in the August 13, 2002, issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, found that of the nearly 600 older hospital patients (95 percent of whom were Christian) negative feelings evoked by religious beliefs sometimes predicted mortality. Some of the key variables that increased the risk of death were feelings of being “abandoned or punished” by God, “believing the devil caused the illness,” or “feeling abandoned by one’s faith community.” “The study reminds us that religion … can, at times, be a source of problems in itself,” the lead author, Kenneth Pargament, concluded. Additional findings included: patients who reported feeling alienated from God or who blamed the devil had a 19 to 28 percent increased risk of dying during the following two years, although (and surprisingly) there was no association of gender, race, diagnosis, brain function, independence, depression, or quality of life with mortality. Duke University’s Dr. Harold Koenig noted that anger and frustration were normal grief responses when people discovered health problems. Those who were religious and were able to reconnect with God and their spiritual feelings could use those resources for support. But those who continued to experience conflict could be making their health worse. “Those people are in trouble and doctors need to know about it. Doctors need to be assessing their patients for these kinds of feelings.”
How We Believe, 2nd Ed. Page 34