Religious belief interferes with people's understanding of evolution (NPR)

[BrendaBrick]

92. On those *creepy feelings*

From an article via Science Daily I rec'd today:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120119133926.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

When It Comes to Accepting Evolution, Gut Feelings Trump Facts

ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2012) — For students to accept the theory of evolution, an intuitive "gut feeling" may be just as important as understanding the facts, according to a new study.

In an analysis of the beliefs of biology teachers, researchers found that a quick intuitive notion of how right an idea feels was a powerful driver of whether or not students accepted evolution -- often trumping factors such as knowledge level or religion.

"The whole idea behind acceptance of evolution has been the assumption that if people understood it -- if they really knew it -- they would see the logic and accept it," said David Haury, co-author of the new study and associate professor of education at Ohio State University.

"But among all the scientific studies on the matter, the most consistent finding was inconsistency. One study would find a strong relationship between knowledge level and acceptance, and others would find no relationship. Some would find a strong relationship between religious identity and acceptance, and others would find less of a relationship."

"So our notion was, there is clearly some factor that we're not looking at," he continued. "We're assuming that people accept something or don't accept it on a completely rational basis. Or, they're part of a belief community that as a group accept or don't accept. But the findings just made those simple answers untenable."...(more at the link)

What I found most interesting is this: "In particular, the research shows that it may not be accurate to portray religion and science education as competing factors in determining beliefs about evolution. For the subjects of this study, belonging to a religion had almost no additional impact on beliefs about evolution, beyond subjects' feelings of certainty."

Hmmmm...interesting to ponder ~