MIT students who don't accept evolution

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
21

<p>Hi Lidusha,</p>

<p>I admire your desire to be respectful to everyone, and to defend your friends. Those are admirable qualities. However, while your heart is clearly in the right place, I disagree with several of your comments from a scientific perspective.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I may have misunderstood, but when you said, “So 11% of MIT does not lean in the currently trendy direction. That’s not stupid.” I thought you were referring to the 11% that did not believe that evolution happened, and implying that evolution is “currently trendy” which, to me, implied a view that evolution is just a matter of opinion that is currently in fashion. </p></li>
<li><p>I am not sure why you think that I am trying to convince you that evolution happened. I assumed that since you are a biologist, you accept it.</p></li>
<li><p>Response to your quote “I don’t think that not believing evolution is quite comparable to denying that the Holocaust happened.”</p></li>
</ol>

<p>You are free to think whatever you wish, but I disagree. For 150 years, there has probably been more scientific research done related to evolution than on any other idea in the history of the world. The result of that research is a vast body of evidence supporting evolution and no scientific evidence at all that disproves it. While many people continue to say that they do not believe evolution is true, I am not aware of any of them actually doing any scientific research to support that contention. In my view, that is telling.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>It is fine if you think calling some beliefs odd is disrespectful. To me that term usually means superstitious. For example, I have known many baseball players who always take great care to never step on a baseline because they think it is bad luck, or actors who call Macbeth “The Scottish Play” because saying “Macbeth” is bad luck. To me these beliefs are odd. Perhaps that is disrespectful. However, I would like to be clear that when I say that, I am not calling the person odd, just that particular belief.</p></li>
<li><p>Response to your quote, "… Have you talked with any of the people at MIT who don’t believe that “humans and other living things evolved due to natural processes or that a supreme being guided the evolution of living things”? Do you know what their “belief” (should really be plural) is? </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Because Evolution is so well established, and my level of knowledge on the subject, I do not think that I need to speak to these individuals, just as I would not need to speak to a Holocaust denier to hear their reasons for thinking it did not happen. If they had any valid scientific evidence, I would have seen it on the cover of Nature.</p>

<p>I would recommend that you ask your Evolutionary Biology professors their opinion of my view that the evidence that evolution happened is just as strong as the evidence that the Holocaust happened. I will be very surprised if you can find even one who will disagree with that statement. </p>

<ol>
<li>Quote “Evolution is a work in progress. It is also not fact, it’s more of a mathematical model. It is something that we are working on understanding.”</li>
</ol>

<p>Science is working on understanding more details of evolution, but not on whether it happened. To the extent that all scientific conclusions are provisional, science is always open to new evidence, but it is as much a fact as anything in science. All living things on earth evolved from earlier living things. There are many details about evolution that we do not know the answers to. However, those details are not required to know that evolution is true. Just like understanding that my Thanksgiving turkey is real (and tasty) does not require knowing all the details of its growth and preparation. Mathematical modeling can be used to better understand the mechanisms of evolution, but it is not the theory itself. In fact, I do not recall any mathematical modeling in Origin of Species. </p>

<p>This issue concerns me greatly because the people who disagree with evolution are still working hard in many states to prevent science teachers from telling children the truth about evolution, and also to prevent science teachers from teaching children critical thinking skills in science classes. </p>

<p>Just last year, the Texas GOP’s party platform went so far as to oppose Critical Thinking Skills because they “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.” I am not taking a political side here, just a pro science side. In this case it is the GOP, but I also oppose the anti-vaccination liberals who also oppose significant scientific evidence.</p>

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<p>If someone asked me if I “believed in” evolution, I might say, “No,” on the grounds that I don’t think it is really a matter of “belief” or “disbelief.” I think that Darwinian evolution is a highly probable mechanism for the changes in living organisms, and that the conversion from simple reacting molecules to self-replicating molecules happened on a chemical basis. </p>

<p>I wouldn’t actually say that I “believed in” quantum mechanics, either. I accept quantum mechanics as the best current experimentally tested and largely self-consistent method of describing the quantum world.</p>

<p>From my perspective, this is not just linguistic persnickety-ness. It’s more a question of my philosophy of science. Science is not something that I “believe in” or not.</p>

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<p>And yes, collegealum314, epigenetics and Lamarck, #20. Gotta love it!</p>

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<p>You misunderstood. I’m saying many survey takers would be ■■■■■■ :stuck_out_tongue: We’ve had other surveys ■■■■■■■ in similar ways, too.</p>

<p>That said, I’ll certainly agree with lidusha that not all of them are ■■■■■■. I just think a fair number of them are. The genuine ones I’ve met disbelieved evolution due to religious requirement, though.</p>

<p>I do think it’s theoretically possible to reasonably doubt evolution, but I don’t think that’s a large part of that 11%.</p>

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<p>QM @ #22 makes some v. good points. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms but I like it, especially as someone who both values science as an epistemological mode and also has a background in STS-critique of science as socially constructed.</p>

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No, but disbelief in evolution correlates very highly with belief in God, specifically of the fundamentalist Protestant Christian variety.</p>

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<p>turn left thread noo</p>

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<p>Thanks, MITChris, for post #25. I might have an idiosyncratic definition of “belief,” but in my view, “belief” applies to something that is taken as an a priori, rather than being decided on evidence–more or less the opposite of the attitude to any scientific result. So I would say that I “believe” in justice. All of the accumulated evidence that justice is sorely lacking in the world would not dissuade me, nor would an argument that I would come out ahead if I acted unjustly. I suppose that I “believe” in the scientific method, though not exactly in the form laid out by Pasteur (I think he’s the right person to name). </p>

<p>Within the scientific community, the closest I can come to a topic that warrants “belief” or “disbelief” is probably cold fusion. There are still some adherents out there.</p>

<p>I would guess that as many as half of the MIT students who don’t “believe” in evolution were objecting to the terms of the question. I probably would already have done so as an undergrad.</p>

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<p>Earlier, I said I would be an observer in this thread. That decision was based on prior experience of public discussions about evolution and religion. But this discussion seems to be going in an illuminating direction, definitely not off the rails, so I changed my mind.</p>

<p>Two points to make:</p>

<p>First, by clicking around the survey site, anyone can find out some interesting breakdowns of the data that may help in understanding it. For example there is this, with accompanying bar chart, “Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus accept evolution - 19% of Christians are unsure, or reject evolution, as do 26% of Muslims.”</p>

<p>[The</a> Tech Religion | Religion Breakdown](<a href=“http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N25/religion/affil/]The”>http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N25/religion/affil/)</p>

<p>Second, practically all surveys I am familiar with have error factors or margins of error. Even the pros such as Gallup disclose margins of error…if my general memory serves me…of as much as 4 percentage points in key political surveys. Don’t know the methodology of the current survey or what the estimated margin of error is, but if Gallup tolerates up to 4 percentage points for the work it publishes, I don’t think 5 percentage points would be unreasonable for the survey at issue. That would get 89% to 94%, if the error went that way, and 94% probably would not be considered a remarkable number to call attention to.</p>

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<p>And there is this one:</p>

<p>“According to the religion survey results, architecture and political science students were the least likely to believe in evolution.”</p>

<p>[The</a> Tech Religion | Major Breakdown](<a href=“http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N25/religion/major/]The”>http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N25/religion/major/)</p>

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<p>Really interesting surveys made at MIT. Finally a proof to my high school friends that religion and science are not mutually exclusive.</p>

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<p>I haven’t read most of the posts up to now, so what I have to say may be null.</p>

<p>I believe in evolution but recently I have watched a video defending creationism. The speaker has a PhD. He gave some interesting points, but I am not sure if they are true. Some people may believe in creationism with evidence not based on religion.</p>

<p>Our education system sometimes teaches us only one side of things, without ever considering the other. Sometimes I wonder if “education” stifles some people’s ability to think creatively.</p>

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<p>I’m sure that most of these people don’t accept DARWINISM, not evolution. I agree with those people - the human MIND (not brain) is much more superior than those of other animals. We have a sense of innovation, creativeness, and ambition, animals only spend their days looking for something to eat. No monkey will ever wake up one day and say, bro, I need to invent something. This is why Darwinism, not evolution, is wrong in my eyes.
As for evolution, it doesn’t conflict with religion or creationism since it’s just a scientific phenomenon. So you can knock religion out of this. Scientifically speaking, we don’t really have evidence for large-scale evolution. By that I mean, we have yet to see monkeys of a certain tribe give birth to babies who look radically different from their parents, for example. So evolution is still just a theory, but it’s a theory that the liberal media likes and calls everyone who is skeptical about it a moron.
You know, I’m proud of the 20%. They are not completely brainwashed. When there’s room for doubt, always doubt - there’s no need to conform to anything that you don’t think is right simply because of pressures.</p>

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<p>Given that I’m pretty sure that this is some emailed out survey (that’s what the Tech tends to do) I’m not sure how accurate it is. Would love to know how many people responded. Pretty numbers though.</p>

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<p>The survey shows the sad truth about the 80% who “accept” evolution - it’s all the result of media liberal bias. Look at the more political polls, and you see that they obviously have political beliefs that are skewed to the left.
To me, this shows provinciality rather than intelligence. I’m proud of the 20% that are actually intelligent, in my eyes, by not conforming to the accepted beliefs.</p>

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<p>Oh headdesk.</p>

<p>As a practicing scientist, I can assure you that the acceptance of evolution by a virtually unanimous cohort of my peers is not due to liberal media bias. Evolution by natural selection and the theory of common descent (either or both of which are frequently meant when laypeople call something “Darwinism”) are overwhelmingly supported by more than a century’s worth of data in all subfields of biology, from genetics to molecular biology to paleontology. “Large-scale” evolution, as you call it, is just “small-scale” molecular and genetic evolution over a long period of time – no special sauce, no magic.</p>

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<p>Thanks Mollie. I was scanning your post for a like button, lol.</p>

<p>For those of you who do not accept evolution, and are honestly more interested in learning the truth than in defending what you believe now, please take the time to educate yourself on the subject. A few excellent and easy to read books on the subject are Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne, The Blind Watch Maker, The Selfish Gene, and The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. Once you understand the evidence, it is also very good to read the opposing views. Then you will realize how abysmally weak they are. </p>

<p>I would also mention that it is the double meaning of the word believe that causes a lot of confusion. </p>

<p>When most people say the believe something, they mean that they accept it as true completely without evidence. In contrast, when scientists say they believe evolution is true, they mean they accept it because there is a mountain of evidence to support that conclusion.</p>

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<p>Other than ManwithHeart, who incidentally is not MIT-affiliated, everybody else on this thread accepts or believes evolution. We are just trying to find reasons why someone might answer the question negatively.</p>

<p>I just don’t buy that 11% of the MIT population doesn’t believe evolution. I would have to see the question posed and see the exact wording to be able to draw conclusions. </p>

<p>There are sizable chunk of scientists who believe in God and subscribe to the “God set the rules” theory. That is, the most fundamental laws were created by God, and the universe unfurled from there. This doesn’t and cannot conflict with any scientific theory, now or in the future. If the question was posed asking whether God had any hand in the creation of the world, then some of this group may have appeared to be creationist and anti-evolution when they are not.</p>

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<p>I bet the people who responded to the survey were on average more religious and therefore more likely to not believe in evolution.</p>

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<p>@collegealum314</p>

<p>Oh no, I believe in evolution. I am just saying that there are other reasons than just religion to believe in creationism. I am not sure how much merit they have, but they are there. Also I am somewhat MIT-affiliated.</p>