There have been three fairly recent polls regarding UK beliefs in origins.
1. Ipsos MORI for the BBC's Horizon series (see here).
22% chose creationism
A further 17% favoured intelligent design.
(39% combined)
48% chose evolution.
Uncommitted 13%
2. The UK section of the Science magazine article by J.Miller et.al. (See here and here and here)
67-68% Accept Evolution as true using it seems a combination measure of several questions about evolution.
15% unsure
17% rejecting.
3. The recent Opinion panel Research poll reported in the guardian. (See here)
(This is focused on students.)
In this poll 12% of students chose creationsism.
A further 19% favoured intelligent design.
(31% combined)
56% chose evolution.
Uncommitted 13%
What these results show it seems to me (as always) is that a great deal depends on the precise questions that are asked and perhaps the context of the questions. The Ipsos and the Opinion Panel results are comparable. If they are broadly correct then it appears that the Science survey seems to include some intelligent design supporters as those who believe evolution is true.
5 comments:
"Bearing in mind that Intelligent Design is only partly compatible with Creationism..."
Richard: perhaps you could elucidate on what parts of ID are incompatable with all forms of pre-existing Creationism (e.g. Young Earth, Old Earth, Progressive, Creation Science).
What places ID in the Creationism camp is the fact that it implicitly assumes that its "Designer" is supernatural (as a natural designer can be shown to be logically inconsistent with ID's postulates).
richard h:
You make a number of factual errors, specifically that ID "does not ... claim to provide ... evidence that the universe itself is designed" (it does, e.g. with the claims of Guillermo Gonzalez) and that ID is a "scientific theory" (it isn't, under any reasonable definition of "scientific theory"). Regardless, you have provided no evidence that it is incompatible with Creationism. In fact you made no attempt to even discuss Creationism at all.
"A question in return - why is a natural designer logically inconsistent with ID?"
1) Intelligent Design states, as its central hypothesis, that life is too complex to have evolved spontaneously, and so must have had a designer.
2) This designer can conceivably have been either natural (aliens, etc), or supernatural (God).
3) But, under Intelligent Design's own argument, any natural designer, sufficiently complex to be capable of designing living organisms, is likewise too complex to have evolved spontaneously (and even assuming that some other natural designer designed our first one still leaves us with an unexplainable designer).
4) We are thus left with only the supernatural designer, God.
Richard H:
The claims of ID are subject to such obfuscation and equivocation, that I seldom find it worth while to preemptively challenge them except in the broadest terms.
As to why I am here, it is a combination of a love of argument (and the mental stimulation I gain from that) and a desire to (like Allygally) ensure that when IDers make specific claims, they do not go unchallenged.
Regarding the original comment on putting the polls together.
The Ipsos and the Opinion Panel wording talks about just the evolution of man and explicitly excludes God. Thus Theistic Evolutionists will not choose thos option. So the overall results underestimate support for the Theory of Evolution and overestimate support for Intelligent Design.
You may well be right Anonymous.
The wording and context is crucial.
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