Accepting evolution and believing in God: how religious persons perceive the theory of evolution

Religious Students Can Be Taught Scientific Principles
Katie Manwaring from BYU is interested in understanding the relationship between religious affiliation and the acceptance of the theory of evolution. This talk began with the recitation of statistics: 70% of Americans identify with Christianity, the US is second to last in terms of countries whose population generally accepts the theory of evolution. Of the world religions, Manwaring showed that most religions are not in direct conflict with evolution and that their official stance is either in support of or neutral to the acceptance of the theory of evolution. She also states that the Mormon church is neutral to evolution, so he research question has become, 'if Mormons are educated about how their religion does not oppose the theory of evolution, will they accept it?' 1000 BYU students were surveyed on their knowledge of evolution, their acceptance of evolution, their understanding of the Mormon official stance on evolution, demographics and religiosity. Manwaring then had some students in an experimental group attend workshops/lectures where they were informed about how Mormonism does not oppose evolution and then re-surveyed. Most students took a moderate stance, but as a result of the intervention, the percentage of students who were highly accepting of evolution increased from 12% to 22% while the percentage of students who were not accepting decreased from 22% to 9%. In other categories of the survey there was a small gain in evolutionary understanding while interestingly the opposite trend was seen in evolutionary knowledge. This subtly (although not explicit in the presentation) suggests that although students may have felt more understanding of evolution after the intervention, they may have just been confused since their knowledge of evolution was reduced. The next question Manwaring was interested in asking was whether religious commitment predicted poor scientific reasoning. In other words, if one is religious, does that mean that they lack reasoning skills? I felt that the implicit question was really are people religious because they lack reasoning skills? To answer this question, 724 adults nationwide from four religious groups (Jewish, Catholic, Mormon and Baptist) were surveyed to test their scientific reasoning skills and contextualize them with religiosity (i.e., what kind of clothes they wear, what type of food do they eat, who do they socialize with, how often do they read scriptures, how often do they attend church, what are their beliefs). The four religious groups were chosen because apparently Jewish and Catholic individuals are more accepting of evolution than Baptist and Mormons, while Baptists and Mormons have stronger creationist views than Catholic and Jewish individuals. The results indicated (1) religious individuals have strong reasoning skills, (2) religious affiliation and religiosity do not predict the likelihood of accepting the theory of evolution and (3) scientific reasoning ability does not predict the acceptance of the theory of evolution. Future work will be done in documenting the causes for resistance to accept the theory of evolution and how to overcome that resistance.