Science Education and Attitudes toward Evolution and Related Issues: A Survey of
By Alexander Nussbaum
Posted August 1, 2008
A survey on
students in a public university found little belief in a young earth, a much
higher than expected degree of belief in the historicity of Noah's ark, and
that 67% accepted the evolution of humans. A Science education was found in
this survey to be related to greater acceptance of empirical reality and the
findings of objective science. This finding in a general university population
was in contrast to what I had found when previously surveying a dogmatically
religious sub-group. There those exposed to science courses were even more
motivated to espouse religiously mandated young earth creationism.
surveys on the attitudes of Orthodox Jews toward evolution, the age of the
universe, and other science issues. One such survey on Orthodox Jewish college
students was featured in an article in Skeptic magazine . At the
time I also had the opportunity to obtain data from the general student body at
the public University. This data from a sample of 72 college students was never
written up or published before. The survey items were written to tap into the
belief system of Orthodox Jews, thus the phrasing and selection.
college students at a public college completed the survey. Forty were graduate
students and 32 were undergraduates. Thirty of the students had majored or were majoring in a science area, and 39 were not.
Twenty-nine students described themselves as very religious or religious, 27
described themselves as somewhat or non-religious, and 14 described themselves
as no religion or atheistic.
Survey Results and Discussion;
Let us start
with some good news. The number of "Young Earthers" was negligible, as where those who believed humans and
1. The age of the universe is
About 7,000 years -3
about 15 billion years -68
2. Which of the following is true of dinosaurs?
lived at the same time as the first humans. -2
became extinct millions of years before the first humans. -69
never existed. -1
The third option above was given
because it is the required belief in the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, which is
the largest single Orthodox Jewish group, accounting for 23% of all Orthodox
synagogues . Unlike the
Creation Museum, the participants did not buy saddled dinosaurs. A difference between fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews is that
Fundamentalist Christians consider the Flintstones a science film and Orthodox
Jews consider the Flintstones as forbidden pornography because Wilma and Betty
wear short skirts.
The next five
items were specifically designed to allow Orthodox Jewish beliefs to
emerge. I expected few "trues" from the
general college population, but nevertheless got a surprising number of them.
3. Secular scientists know that evolution has been
discredited but are deliberately lying-
Apparently 8 people watched too much
"X-files" in their formative years! And after all some people believe the moon
landing was faked. At least one Right-wing Orthodox Jewish rabbinical authority
had his followers watch the Fox special on the moon landing being a government
conspiracy (on tape of course, so commercials showing females could be removed). Though exposure to the popular media is forbidden among the right
wing Orthodox, this exception was made as it offered proof of the rabbinical
belief that the moon is a spiritual being, hence no landing possible. At one of
the secular degree granting college under orthodox auspices, despite the
disparagement on television watching, a large number of students had access to
that Fox special, and delighted that it provided evidence as to gentile
sciences that contradicted the torah being frauds.
4. Statisticians have proved that the first cell could not
arise by chance and evolution could not occur.
That's over one in five answering true; a
truly bizarre, and discouraging, result.
"statisticians have proved" item is based on the Orthodox Jewish urban myth of
the great mathematician, an atheist Jew, who discovers to his abject horror
through math that evolution could not have occurred, and tearfully confesses
this to a great rabbi. The name of the great rabbi varied, the name of the
"great mathematician" was not given. Of course this idea has since become part
of the "science" of Intelligent Design.
5. The sun revolves around the earth
is the required belief of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and is making a return
in orthodox Judaism in general. A few
of the true answers here may have been carelessness, rather than doctrinaire
geocentrism, still I would not have expected this many "trues". The degree of
ignorance is frightening.
6. Current land animals descended from those on Noah's ark
Thus 30% of
the participants believed in the historicity of Noah's ark. This may be taken
to illustrate the persistence of beliefs acquired as children, but the blame
here must also be borne by "educational" cable channels which seem to have a
program on the search for, if not the finding of, Noah's ark seemingly weekly.
languages descended from Hebrew, which was spoken universally until about 4000
Over 1 in 5 answered true! - an
unexpectedly high number for this general student population.. It is the
accepted view among orthodox Jews that until the tower of Babel all the world
spoke Hebrew. I had phrased this question based in the books of Isaac Mozeson
who "proved" that English words are all (d)evolved from Hebrew, the
language of creation, and whose works have got rave reviews from some
Orthodox Jewish sources including at
Yeshiva University . However his approach represents
an attempt at a "scientific" Orthodox Jewish linguistics. On my Orthodox Jewish
surveys, some of those who answered false may have shared the view that Hebrew
was the one language at creation, but strongly objected to and disagreed with
the term "descended".
there literally yelled at me that she could not answer this question because
the other languages did not "descend" from Hebrew, but appeared
instantly at Babel, and answering true implied accepting "descent", a
code word for the heresy of evolution. Other participants had hand written or
said much the same thing. Orthodox Jews tend not to believe other languages
"descend" from Hebrew, but at a precise second in 1764 B.C., at the
tower of Babel, instantly appeared!
The item that
held the greatest interest for me was :
8. Human beings evolved from apes
The total of
"trues" was 66.7 %. This could be taken
both as bad news and good news, depending perhaps on whether one is a glass
half full or glass half empty person.
In a 1991 survey
conducted by the International Social Survey Program, the percentage in the USA
answering true to "Human beings developed from earlier species of animals" was
35.4% . In CBS polls conducted in 2004 and 2005 the percentage of
Americans agreeing with "God created humans in present form" was 54%
and 51% respectively .
So the participants here accepted human descent at a higher rate than in
the USA as a whole. But these were students at a public university in one of
the most liberal cities in the country. That 33.3 % of the participants
answered "false" can be seen as troubling.
Especially since, as we all know,
evolution is a fact as certain as anything in science, as certain as anything
humans can possibly know. Evolution
is not just the central concept of biology, it is also the central
concept of cognitive science, neuropsychology, computer science, the study of
culture, and information processing. It is also the central concept in my area
of cognitive/social psychology.
psychology is the search for and understanding of evolved cognitive mechanisms.
Evolution, with its telling imperfections, with its reliance on jerrybuilding,
with it being the very antithesis of intelligent design, has built our brains
with all the biases and imperfections, it has created and explains our culture.
Ironically it may be that Homo Sapiens have not evolved the cognitive
architecture to accept being the product of evolution. In addition to the
survey on Orthodox Jewish college students mentioned above, I did another
survey in modern Orthodox synagogues . The combined percentage on these two surveys who answered true to
"Human beings evolved from apes" was a miniscule 7.2 %
Effects of Religious Level and Science Education on Acceptance of
When presenting the results of the
surveys on Orthodox Jews, I received criticism that the "Human beings
evolved from apes" item was somehow misunderstood, contributing to the very few
"true" answers. Yet here, being able to breakdown answers by level of religion,
it is clear that the item measured what it was designed to measure. There was
an inverse relationship between degree of religion and answering true. This
result was certainly not unexpected. A
large number of studies have found that acceptance of evolution goes down as
religious belief increases. For example, Lawson and Worsnop (1992) found
religious commitment and belief in evolution to be negatively correlated .
And as stated above, in my previous surveys, the percentage of modern Orthodox
Jews (who are fanatically religious by contemporary standards) who answered
true was 7%.
Human beings evolved from apes
|Level of Religion||true||false||Pct.
|very religious or religious||17||11||60.7|
|somewhat or non-religious||18||8||69.2|
|no religion or
Students majoring in, or having a degree in, a science area showed a
higher acceptance of human evolution, that those not science majors.
Human beings evolved from apes
| ||true||false||Pct. answering true
|Not science majors||21 ||16||56.8|
in the survey on Orthodox Jewish college students and survey I did in modern
Orthodox synagogues, those with a science background were even more rejecting
of evolution and other scientific facts than those without such a background.
As those with
a science degree, or studying for one, were more likely to have been exposed to
heresy, they were under greater pressure to more militantly defend the approved
worldview. Orthodox Jewish scientists with sterling credentials and impressive
careers believe in a 5768 year old universe.
previous surveys of modern Orthodox
Jews together, the percentage of those without a science background who
answered "true" on the above item was 9.2 %. Of those who were science majors
or had a science degree it was 2.7%!
western values does not necessarily mean acceptance of western values; in those
conditioned by their culture/social group to disparage them, it leads to ever
greater hatred of such values.
Writing on Moslem extremism Mark Steyn
points out "There's plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme
"extremists" are those who've been most exposed to the west - and
western education" 8. Many terror cells seem to consist primarily of
medical doctors 9.
In the West, college education has
become almost universal, yet "multiculturalism" has allowed honor killings to
flourish. Clearly mere exposure to science, humanism and liberty is not the
answer concerning those whose identification is not with mainstream Western
1. Nussbaum, A. (2006). Orthodox Jews and science: An
empirical study of their attitudes toward evolution, the fossil record, and
modern geology-. Skeptic Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.29-35.
2. Schwartz, J., Scheckner, J. & Kotler-Berkowitz, L.
(2002) Census of U.S. Synagogues in American Jewish Yearbook: The American Jewish Committee, p. 136.
3. see <http://edenics.homestead.com/prj.htm> last accessed July 25, 2008
4. see <http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_comp.htm>
last accessed July 25, 2008
last accessed July 25, 2008
6. Nussbaum A., (2006, May). Orthodox
Judaism: Creationism and a 5766 Year Old Universe. Poster presented at 2006
Association for Psychological Science convention, New York, N.Y.
7. Lawson, A. E. & Worsnop, W. A. (1992). Learning about
evolution and rejecting a belief in special creation: Effects of reflective
reasoning skill, prior knowledge, prior belief, and religious commitment. Journal
of Research in Science Teaching, 29, 143-166.
Come west, young man March 27, 2008
9. Witness the following telegraph article from the
available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1556553/45-Muslim-doctors-planned-US-terror-raids.html