Belief in evolution tied to gut feelings

(Livescience.com) 

Gut feelings may trump good old-fashioned facts, and even religious beliefs, when it comes to accepting the theory of evolution, new research suggests.

"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," study co-author David Haury, an associate professor of education at Ohio State University, said in a statement.

But, he noted, research on the matter has been inconsistent. While one study would find a strong relationship between knowledge level and acceptance, another would not. Likewise, studies have contradicted each other on the relationship between religious identity and acceptance of evolution, he said.

Haury and his colleagues figured that another unexplored factor must be at work. Previous research has shown that the human brain doesn't judge the merits of an idea solely on logic, but also on how intrinsically true the idea feels: Could this process of intuitive reasoning help explain why some people are more accepting of evolution than others?

To find out, the researchers recruited 124 pre-service biology teachers at different stages in a standard teacher preparation program at two Korean universities. They chose to look at students in Korea because teacher preparation programs in the country are quite standardized. "In Korea, people all take the same classes over the same time period and are all about the same age, so it takes out a lot of extraneous factors," Haury explained.

Moreover, about half of Koreans don't identify themselves as belonging to any particular religion, he said. In the U.S., only about 16 percent of people are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center. (Religion can be a reason for not accepting evolution, as some think it goes against a god as a creator.)

The researchers first asked the students a series of questions to measure their overall acceptance of evolution, teasing out whether they generally believed the main concept sand scientific findings that define the theory of evolution. Next, they tested the students on their knowledge of evolutionary science with questions about various processes, such as natural selection. For each question, the students wrote down how certain they felt about the correctness of their answers — an indicator of their gut feelings.

They found that intuition had a significant impact on what the students accepted, no matter how much they knew and regardless of their religious beliefs. Even students with a greater knowledge of evolutionary facts weren't more likely to accept the theory unless they also had a strong gut feeling about the facts, the results showed.

The study has important implications for the teaching of evolution, the researchers said. Informing students about this conflict between intuition and logic may help them judge ideas on their merits.

"Educationally, we think that's a place to start," Haury said. "It's a concrete way to show them, 'Look, you can be fooled and make a bad decision, because you just can't deny your gut.'"

The study was published in the January 2012 issue of Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

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[Scimajor]

"Belief in evolution "

Well there's your problem. Religion requires blind acceptance of something even if it flies in the face of mountains of supporting evidence (i.e. belief).

Science doesn't require that we have a belief in something. It does, however, require us not to ignore the world around us.

Evolution is like the chair you're currently sitting in. You can choose not to believe in the chair yet your butt is nevertheless firmly planted in it.

[Sloughfoot]

Ignorance is bliss. Bliss is pastoral. Pastoral is submissive. Submissive is the goal of religious zealots.

[theot58]

Excellent article which supports what I have been saying for a long time. The scientific evidence supporting Darwinian/Macro evolution is pathetic.
"Evolution" is a vague word.
Micro evolution is minor changes within a species, this is real and observable and uncontested. The conflict pertains to Darwinian/Macro evolution which asserts that:
1) All living things had a common ancestor. This implies that your great..... great grandfather was a self replicating molecule.
2) The observable world has come into existence by totally natural, unguided processes and specifically WITHOUT the involvement of an intelligent designer.

Do a YouTube search on "kansas evolution hearings" to hear real, credible scientists, present powerful arguments which debunk Darwinian/Macro evolution.
Dr John Sanford (Geneticists and inventor of the GeneGun) said .
"The bottom line is that the primary axiom [of Darwinian/Macro evolution] is categorically false, you can't create information with misspellings, not even if you use natural selection."
Malcom Muggeridge, Pascal Lectures, Ontario Canada, University of Waterloo said:"I, myself, am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the credulity that it has."

[nic1234567-2009]

Kansas evolution hearing was bias circus orchestrated by evolution opponents. The hearings were attended by all the major participants in the intelligent design movement but were ultimately boycotted by the scientific community over concern of lending credibility to the claim, made by proponents of intelligent design, that evolution is). Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science. Fact is the two pillars of intelligent design (Irreducible complexity, Specified complexity) can be show to be false.

[Scimajor]

The Force is extraordinarly weak in this one. A Jedi he will not be.

[luvdomus]

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-Isaac Asimov

Most people trust scientists more than they do fundamentalists.

[theot58]

The battle is often misrepresented as science agains religion - this is bull. The real battle is between science and Darwinism.
Dr. Newton Tahmisian, Atomic Energy Commission said:
"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever!
In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact."

[Scimajor]

@theot58

You have to love people who use quotes as evidence to support their argument. "Those aren't pillows!" - Steve Martin (or was it John Candy?). See, my quote is just as useful as yours.

I one had a discussion with someone about religion and his counter to everything I said amounted to "It says in the Bible that .." or <insert some quote from some person here>. I gave up the argument knowing that he could care less about evidence and would continue his belief in some mystical being regardless of the lack of a single shred of supporting evidence pointing to the existence of his deity.

The Asimov quote, however, is useful to us as it asks us whether it is more valuable to use knowledge or ignorance as our basis for our arguments for or against something.

[myth1958]

There are many things in life we can't see clearly but have to accept on experience + knowledge: the sound of a window breaking in your house late at night lends a gut feeling your house is being broken into; casting a line in deep water in the belief you'll catch a fish; praying to your own particular deity - who is most often invisible. Evolution, on the other hand, has a lot more facts surrounding it than creationism. There is solid science from years of research; archaological finds going back millions of years showing all the steps of a species up to modern time. With the advances in testing, the use of computers and better scientific methods, less and less doubt should be our guide. Biblical accounts that purport to show Earth as much younger - placing human timelines alongside ancient animals and plants as if by magic - are not the basis for true knowledge: only faith. Nothing wrong with faith, but it is another field entirely from actual fields where early humans can be examined all the way back to our simian ancestors.

[theot58]

I struggle with your comment "There is solid science from years of research; archaological finds going back millions of years showing all the steps of a species up to modern time."
The claim about "mountains of evidence" supporting evolution is chanted almost like a mantra. I have been looking for scientific evidence supporting Darwinian/Macro evolution for over 5 years and I am still looking. There are loads of exagerations, deceptions even frauds (eg Ernst Haeckels Ontogeny recapitulate philogeny). There are also many examples of Micro Evolution given and the the inference is that this is proof of Macro evolution - this is deceptive.

Do a YouTube search on "kansas evolution hearings" to hear real, credible scientists, present powerful arguments which debunk Darwinian/Macro evolution.