We still have a long way to go

March 9, 2006

One of the few parts of the president’s recent State of the Union address that I liked was his emphasis on the importance of science education.

“[T]o keep America competitive, one commitment is necessary above all: We must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity. Our greatest advantage in the world has always been our educated, hardworking, ambitious people — and we’re going to keep that edge. Tonight I announce an American Competitiveness Initiative, to encourage innovation throughout our economy, and to give our nation’s children a firm grounding in math and science.”

Putting aside the irony of President “Global Warming is a Myth” praising the role of science, and ignoring for a moment the merit of Bush’s competitiveness initiative, I think the sentiment is exactly right. The United States will suffer in the long run if Americans fall behind international competitors in the sciences.

It’s exactly why results like these aren’t just embarrassing, they’re almost dangerous.

A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, “God created man exactly how Bible describes it.”

Another 31% says that man did evolve, but “God guided.” Only 12% back evolution and say “God had no part.”

Gallup summarized it this way: “Surveys repeatedly show that a substantial portion of Americans do not believe that the theory of evolution best explains where life came from.” They are “not so quick to agree with the preponderance of scientific evidence.”

There was a bit of a partisan edge, but not much. Gallup found that 57% of Republicans believe “God created human beings in present form,” while 44% of Dems believe it.

Politics aside, I can’t help but wonder about how this might ultimately affect the country. The president’s speech was largely right about this — technological and economic innovation is dependent on Americans getting a firm grounding in science. Based on the Gallup poll, and others like it, this isn’t happening.

Rumor has it, for example, that the U.S. wants to compete in fields like biotech in the coming decades. If most Americans reject even basic lessons of modern biology, who’s going to make the scientific strides? At what point will Americans’ scientific misunderstandings actually undermine our national progress?

How does one exactly prove intelligent design is viable? Can it even be called a theory?

  • I’m still dumbfounded by people – otherwise seemingly intelligent people – who reject evolution out of hand. I just came from Mass where the priest said anybody who thinks the accounting of creation in the Bible is a scientifically accurate description is simply not thinking.

    I’m of the school of thought that God works according to physical rules, but He’s the one who makes the rules. Water freezes at 0C because that’s one of the characteristics God gave the H2O molecule.

    And man evolved from lower, less complex beings because that’s how God wanted the rules of evolution/natural selection to work.

  • Jesus Christ! 12%!!!!!

    Ever wonder how societies like the Roman, Greek, and Brittish Empires all went from world leaders to history book highlights? This will be the downfall of the US Empire. This arrogant, narrow minded and frankly childish attitude will bring us down. Not just in the area of technology / biotech and global market competition but as a world power. We will be reduced to a marketplace with a nuclear backed millitary.

    Bush is not Nero, he is much worse. Nero let Rome burn but Bush and his buddies who sell this theocratic B.S. are lighting fires and handing people gasoline.

  • We only need a few percent of people to be scientists and engineers, so it is not obvious that this is a problem (except for the discomfort of being surrounded with thoughtless people), absent some added assumptions (e.g. some diminishment of the pool of people who might become scientists, which in fact has for many years been filled by immigration… though that source may have now, given Bush’s actions, dried up).

    But I wonder about the poll itself. What could it possibly mean to believe that “God created man exactly how Bible describes it?” In chapter 1 of Genesis, God created man after the animals; in chapter 2, God created man before the animals. So how does one go about creating man exactly how the Bible describes? Maybe this is my inner scientist speaking.

  • Evangelicals are pushing Creationism because they are too lazy to promote Christianity the way they should, through pastoral endevors such as running hospices and feeding the hungry.

    They would rather sit in TV studios, issuing fatwas and gouging money out of susceptible fools.

  • I suspect 12% isn’t too bad. Unfortunately I don’t have any statistics to back up my belief, but I expect that the scientific advancement in this country comes from the most educated, most intelligent, most scientific few. 12% of the country’s population is over 30 million people, so we have a nice large pool of people to draw from for scientific expertise.

    Additionally I notice in that same article that younger generations are less likely to accept the Bible view of creation (43% of those aged 18 to 29, 59% of those aged 65 and older) so it seems that progress is being made in this area of science.

  • The nation that “don’t believe in evolution” is working tirelessly with ignorant environmental and international policies to bring about its own extinction. There must be something suicidal in those who believe so strongly in eternal paradise, that earthly survival is not that important when there is a fairytale bliss waiting just a heart beat away. Not that much different from the 9-11 hijackers.

  • Again, I don’t think we have to worry about these types of issues too much. I don’t think the American people (other than the Evangelicals) have black and white definitions of the ‘creation of man’. People in this country, for the most part, believe in God. I would also say that most people believe that science is an essential part of who we are as a nation. Just because ONLY 12% say God had no part and that 31% say evolution was “God guided” does not mean that ONLY 12% believe in evolution. I would say that 44% believe in evolution. 31% have a hard time reconciling evolution with their belief in God. I would probably be in that 31% myself. That does NOT mean that I believe in “intelligent design” over evolution. I would agree with Jim above, that God sets the ‘rules’ of the universe and evolution is the ‘rule’ that governs biological development.

    Science and God do not have to live exclusive from one another. In fact, most scientists, from Newton on, have had a belief in a higher being.

    Einstein said, “God does not play dice” and “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”

    Physicist Stephen Hawking claimed that when physicists find the theory he and his colleagues are looking for – a so-called “theory of everything” – then they will have seen into “the mind of God”.

    Granted, to Newton, Einstein, Hawking and other scientists, “God” may be something of an abstract principle of order and harmony vs. a personality interested in the fate of humans. But I think to many people, Science is not only a way to understand the physical world around us but also serves as proof of the old axiom, “God works in mysterious ways”.

  • It is posts like that make me glad I will likely die before this chicken comes home to roost for good.

    We will paper over our disdain for education and disdain for science education for a few more decades, but unless this country get’s it act together the results will be unavoidable. The influx of foreigners into sciences here in the US is declining and cannot be counted on to prop us up forever.

  • At risk of sounding like a “terrible elitist,” it doesn’t really matter what the morons think. Looking back at history, the first human ancestors didn’t jump out of the trees – they were pushed. It’s always the “creative minority” – about 5% of the population – that achieves anything. If most people were left to their own devices, they’d still be sniffing each other’s butts and snarfing bananas. The reason why I believe in democracy is because you never know where the next 5% are going to come from and they need a chance to get spotted.

    But really, I doubt this “news” has changed significantly in the past 100 years (at least), or that it would be significantly different if the poll was taken somewhere else.

  • It may be that 12% (or the more optimistic 44%) is sufficient to keep us advancing in the sciences and technology, so perhaps that aspect of this survey in isolation is not threatening.

    My concern, however, is that I see this issue as but one small piece in a large and very disturbing movement: the villification of intelligence. We are intentionally dumbing down America.

    The campaign against evolution, a core biological principle, and the encouragement of disbelief (without any valid intellectual argument) in the evidence for evolution is a big piece, but there are many, many more from the relatively subtle and under-most-people’s-radars replacement of scientists on various federal panels with politicians to the really glaring like Dumbya bragging about being a “C-student.”

    After the last election, the meme was that liberal elitists looked down their noses at the Red States, but part and parcel of that message was that the well educated were not to be trusted, that it is ok to not aspire to knowledge — it is enough to aspire to power, salvation, to being on teh right side of the divide in the country. Better to be someone to have a beer with than to be a (gasp!) “policy wonk.”

    After years of using the Big Lie propoganda techniques to demonise the term “liberal,” they now have turned on “intellectual.” Academia is under attack as a “liberal training ground,” you don’t want to be a “pointy headed intellectual” or an “East Cost Ivy Leaguer.” We’re all for the “common man” — as in we want them all reduced to the lowest common IQ denominator.

    Prior to the printing press, the combined heads of state and church in Europe used their monopoly on knowledge to suppress and oppress. Hmmm. Guess those complaints about the “soft bigotry of low expectations” were true of the speaker more than anyone.

  • I recommend Jane Jacobs’ The Dark Age Ahead for a lucid bird’s-eye view of our nation following the downward slope of history.

    She makes the compelling case that a failure of scientific exploration and educational development has been fundamental to the decline of great civilizations throughout human history. One of the many telling historical lessons comes from China, where an emperor decided that, despite being one of the most advanced nations in sea navigation, exploration did not fit in with his ideology of a self-contained nation. So the maps were rounded up and centuries of technology were destroyed and China faded away for the next two hundred years, falling far behind European counterparts who were running around in animal skins when the Chinese were building the great wall.

    The point is that when a nation becomes controlled by ideology, it’s destiny is set. If there is one element to science that makes it a far superior basis for a national education, it’s that science has no earthly master. A preacher or shaman or emperor can make any number of decisions for a nation, and declare them to be “right” because he made them. But a theory in science is no more defensible or logical because of the person who proposed it. The answers are “right” because they are, actually, correct, at least until we know better. This nation was founded by religious men who understood that only through laws (just another form of logic) can we temper our reliance on personalities, a reliance which had inevitably led to tyranny. A theocracy must fail over time, not because the religious is “wrong” per se, but because rule by men must fail.

  • I heard interviews on NPR with conservative “values voters”, about 11% of American per Pew. These people were saying that even though Bush has made some mistakes, the fact that he was being advised by God and praying meant that they would continue to support him. “Blind fairth, indeed”.

  • I agree with Zeitgeist. Society can get along fine resting on the scientfic & technological accomplishments of less than 10% of the population. However, the more the remainder of the populace shifts from the position of “science is important, but I don’t know beans about it, so I’ll just shut up and support it” to being actively hostile to science, rationalism, and the well-educated, then the more we have a problem.

    “I don’t know a thing about science, and let me tell you why it’s wrong” is not a formula for long-term success.

  • Most of the scientific advances claimed by America during last century were made by foreigners who came to America. I’m thinking primarily of of the German physicists and the Asian biochemists, but there are many others.

    Studies of American-born Nobel prize-winners show that the vast majority came from tiny rural schools, lacking what any school district today would call adequate technology for teaching science. What they acquired in those “deficient” was the ability to think logically, to calculate carefully, to read widely, to write clearly … that was the foundation of whatever we can claim as American-born science.

    What is at danger in America, far broader than mere science, is our trashing of education generally (liberal arts, music, art) while maintaining and expanding the full panoply of sports (though there are proveably few pro “jobs” available there). ESPN summarizes, for me, in many ways, exactly what’s going wrong with this country.

  • You’re being way too pessimistic.

    First, as a percentage, few Americans have ever believed in “pure” evolution, i.e., random mutations have created the present world. That hasn’t stopped us from becoming the greatest technological nation in the world. (I mean, stop to think: the state that hosted the Scopes trial also hosts many of the great accomplishments in atomic research.)

    Second, even creationists admit that evolution exists on a “microevolutionary” scale; that is, mutations do cause changes in bacteria, dogs, cats and other creatures. No one argues that the process doesn’t exist today; creationists or IDers just argue that the current process was created and directed by G-d. This is how 400 scientists can support ID.

    Most scientists disagree with this position because it calls for a supernatural intervenor, and science is the study of natural phenomena. I myself support this position. Still, one can teach modern biology without totally supporting the position of evolutionists.

    One other point: biblical strict constructionists have had their world torn apart by scientific revelation. The “truth” that we know and will further discover, will likely bear little resemblance to the passages of Genesis. Let’s not mock our religious brethren; instead, let’s just keep finding the truth, secure in the knowledge that, one day, they will see it for themselves.

  • Good article in the New Yorker this week on the administration’s general approach to science. Can be summed up as, “facts, we dont need no stinking facts.”

  • Interestingly, Gingrich mentions “Math and Science as a National Security Crisis” in the document I mention in the next post.

    “The 14 bipartisan commissioners of the Hart-Rudman Commission agreed that the failure of math and science education is a greater threat than any conceivable conventional war in the next 25 years.”

    Gee…maybe if the GOP stopped pushing “prayer in the classroom” and focused on educating the masses in math and science, we wouldn’t be in this position.

  • Most people have the uncanny ability to hold inconsistent ideas. That’s why some of the very intelligent engineers I work with are also some of the biggest Bushmen I’ve encountered. I also recall that there have been scientists/technocrats who placed their intellects and imaginations at the service of evil (some of whom later became “foreigners who came to America”) and simply refused to acknowledge what was obvious to the world. And finally there are the scientific “idiot savants” like William Shockley, credited with inventing the semiconductor, whose crackpot racist theories will forever besmirch his memory.

    The polls don’t surprise me a bit; the results are probably about the same as they would have been 100 years ago, and they’re probably less friendly to religion than would be a similar poll in many parts of the world.

  • Wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut
    http://peaceandjustice.org/article.php?story=20060306090609596

    Things have gotten so bad, he says, “people are in revolt again life itself.”

    Our economy has been making money, but “all the money that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive compensation. If people insist on living as if there’s no tomorrow, there really won’t be one.
    ++++++++++++++++++
    It’s not just in science .. its a comprehensive greed-based pervasive short sightedness

  • “One of the many telling historical lessons comes from China, where an emperor decided that, despite being one of the most advanced nations in sea navigation, exploration did not fit in with his ideology of a self-contained nation. So the maps were rounded up and centuries of technology were destroyed and China faded away for the next two hundred years, falling far behind European counterparts who were running around in animal skins when the Chinese were building the great wall.” — eadie

    I’m reading 1421, the story of the last great fleet of Chinese explorers. According to the author, there was a lightning strike that burned down most of the Imperial Palace in Beijing, which the Emperor had just finished building. This apparantly convinced the Mandarins (Bureaucrats) that the Emperor had lost the Mandate of Heaven and damn if they weren’t going to reverse all his expensive policies, including exploring (and forcing into tributary submission) all the countries of the world. Which I suppose was good for Europe and most of our ancestors who did not end up as colonies of China.

    Now, the policies of the Emperor were expensive hubris, but their reversal has sent China into effective decline ever since. We definately want to steer a moderate path between these two extremes. But to do it we have to have an educated populace, and I’m not sure we are going to get one when a majority of Americans reject evolution.

    And really, I don’t think they disbelieve evolution. They reject it because they don’t think it should be taught, as it seems to promote secularism. A fascinatingly absurd notion, considering that we are the most religious of all developed countries in the world.

  • Something nobody has mentioned: with the growth of anti-intellectualism, who is going to keep funding science and basic research? When are the Know-Nothings going to just stop public funding because it has no political support?

    As someone who has moved to the US from Europe, the most incomprehensible American quirk is the way creationists and religious nuts are respectfully listened to, not laughed out of the room.

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