Why literalists must reject evolution

I gave each of these framings a code which I describe in the findings section below. Additionally, I would compare similar but distinct codes by combining such sections with NVivo and comparing the codes to each other e. To deepen the analysis, I compared my findings with concepts from the literature on framing i. Finally, I went back through all 1, letters including those that I had disregarded in earlier stages of the analysis to establish a count of each of the types illustrated below.

Two framings of the relationship between evolution and faith emerged in of the analyzed letters. Both sides of the evolution conflict advance each frame. They constructed nonequivalence through distancing and articulation. These three ways of framing religion and evolution are outlined in Table 2.

There are two ways that these processes are combined. Second, there are also letters that include combinations of distancing and articulating that advance a non-literalist perspective. These framings result in the variably incidental and unintentional stigmatization and validation of atheism, literalism, and non-literalism. The equivalence frame casts atheists as supporters of evolutionary theory and believers as anti-evolutionists. This framing follows the conflict model of the relationship between science and religion, which holds that science and religion are at war with each other Ratzsch , see also Guenther, Mulligan, and Papp Implicit polarization occurs when authors do not acknowledge any belief in the compatibility between belief in God and evolution.

One must choose between science and religion. The frame was created through implicit polarization in letters — anti-evolutionists letters, evolutionist letters, and eight letters that were neutral. This author asserts that evolution is inherently faithless and meaningless. This statement makes non-literalist faith invisible by not acknowledging those who reconcile faith and science. Other anti-evolutionists performed implicit polarization by referring to anti-evolutionists as Christians.

To be a Christian is to reject evolution. These authors do not use a specific term to distinguish evolutionist believers from anti-evolutionist believers. By implication, evolutionists are non-Christian or atheists. These letter writers label evolution as atheism. In doing so, they provide a justification for rejecting the theory. One cannot accept evolution without rejecting God.

Evolution is not science; it is merely a competing worldview. Some evolutionists would similarly conflate anti-evolutionism with faith. One way of doing so was to assert that religion, in general, is unreasonable.

For example:. Evolution has been proven and can be tested. They believe in the religion they are taught by their parents, because they are indoctrinated as guileless children Weidman In this excerpt, religion is presented as inferior to science, with opposition to evolution being a case in point.

Religion is undifferentiated. Such framings ignore non-literalist theologies that accept evolution. Note the moral claims made while engaging in polarization. They are not simply wrong; they are guilty of indoctrination. Likewise, certain evolutionists cast the conflict as a matter of science versus religion. This author demeans all faith by contrasting it with science. Darwin is correct for one reason and one reason alone — the evidence he presented and since discovered is overwhelming.

There is no other theory that can compete; if one arises, it will be based on fact, not mystical nonsense i. Here evolution is equated with reason and evidence, and the author casts all religion as nonsense. For another example:. Religion is a nasty remnant of our ignorant past. With what we now know, anyone who still believes in talking snakes and the parting of the seas and such is an idiot, plain and simple Bowen This author attacks anti-evolutionism as pathetic before generalizing to all religion as ignorance.

Another version of this framing involves the denunciation of scripture. Similarly, two other authors argue:. Science is just that — science. Not a class on mythology. There is more evidence as to the theories of evolution than the beautiful story that was passed down in the literature known as the Bible or Holy Scriptures. There are too many holes in the story. Teach your children whatever mythology you chose in your home or church.

Leave the science to real science, not fantasy Crosby It is not possible that the book of Genesis is an accurate description of the origin of the human race. It was written by Moses, a Jew, around BC. Moses was six generations from Abraham, who was 18 generations from Adam Sciotti Finally, some evolutionists polarized the debate by arguing that the world appears chaotic and unjust.

This author is not only claiming that intelligent design is unscientific, but ontologically unsound, as well. This argument leaves no room for a God who cares about humanity. There are two ways of framing a non-conflictual relationship between faith in God and acceptance of evolutionary theory: distancing, which I discuss in this sub-section, and articulation, which I outline in the following subsection.

Distancing, found in letters, results from authors extricating atheism from evolutionary theory or faith from anti-evolutionism. There are five types of distancing: anti-evolutionism from faith, evolutionary theory from atheism, science from religion, literalism from non-literalism, and non-literalism from literalism. There is a growing number of scientists who have changed their beliefs from evolution to creationism, not because they have accepted Christianity, but simply because they finally gave up on baseless facts of evolution.

They have accepted creationism based upon the scientific facts it contains Sutton According to this letter, Christianity and presumably faith in God is not a requisite for the rejection of evolutionary theory. Anti-evolutionism is scientifically, not religiously, motivated. It ostensibly agrees with atheistic claims that science is superior to religion.

This type of argument sacrifices faith to attack evolution. Similarly, claims that evolution is faith based represent another type of distancing. In these examples, the authors discredit evolutionary theory as religious. In doing so, they distance anti-evolutionism from faith. It uses the same dichotomy between religion and science more prominently used by evolutionists to claim that evolutionary theory is illegitimate. Creationists, who tend to be religious, then, are making and reading anti-evolutionist arguments that stigmatize faith.

One wonders if the stigmatizing statements from allies have the same influence as those that come from opponents? In 50 letters, authors distanced evolutionary theory from atheism. With the first excerpt, acceptance of evolutionary theory is framed as nonequivalent with atheism by claiming that Darwin was not an atheist. The other evolutionist accomplishes this task by asserting that he is not an atheist.

The implication of both excerpts is that one can support evolution without being an atheist. Separating atheism from evolutionary theory could imply that not believing in God is problematic. Others circuitously distanced evolution from atheism. These excerpts do not appear to be ridiculing atheism. These letters present atheism as discrediting — otherwise, there would be no need to explain why the theory is not atheistic.

Additionally, decoupling atheism from evolutionary theory undermines an argument that some atheists make when crafting their identities e. Regardless of authorial intent, this form of distancing aligns non-literalism against certain expressions of atheism. Another mode of distancing separates the functions of science from those of religion.

This framing, found in letters, argues that science and religion have disparate social roles. They are not incompatible because they have discrete questions and different methods. An implication of this framing is that one does not need to choose between science and religion, but one cannot practice both simultaneously Ratzsch Some letters would argue for the independence of science and religion by casting the two modes of thought as having disconnected functions and social locations.

A third explains:. Science and religion are fundamentally different in how they determine what is true. Religion is based on faith. Science is based on experimental results.

These evolutionists distance religion from science by claiming different tasks for each. They assert that science and religion are analytically distinct. Because they have different functions, they need not be in conflict with each other. This means of distancing often overlaps with arguments that distance evolution from atheism. By asserting that both have separate spheres, one neither accepts nor opposes faith or faithlessness.

In some versions of this framing, authors explicitly conclude religion and science should occur in different places. The first author validates both science and religion by suggesting that each has a legitimate place.

Both wish to segregate science and religion. Of course, such a limitation on religion does not fit with literalism. Nor does it conform to the view of religion advocated by some atheists. By disentangling evolutionary theory from faith, non-literalists create an ideological space for themselves.

There were 50 letters where anti-evolutionists distinguish literalist from non-literalist theology. In the first excerpt, the author suggests that evolutionist believers deny the power of God. In the second letter, the author presents theistic evolution as acquiescing to atheism. Unlike implicit polarization, these statements recognize belief systems that accept evolution.

These arguments construct a nonequivalence frame. They are not concluding that evolutionary theory is simply atheism. Instead, they make the less ambitious claim that non-literalists have diminished faith. It stigmatizes non-literalism by presenting it as a weaker form of faith. In letters, evolutionists distinguish between literalist and non-literalist perspectives by associating anti-evolutionism with literalism.

Literalism is only one type of faith; therefore, such a framing implicitly creates a space between non-literalism and literalism. Additionally, these excerpts stigmatize literalism as ignorant and autocratic. Others would also suggest that literalists are a numerical minority:. The creationist position is wholly without merit as science, and of dubious merit as theology. It represents a narrow, literal interpretation rejected by most mainstream religions of ancient, contradictory texts.

It ignores the intellectual progress of the last 2, years Bleckmann In addition to defending evolution, these authors marginalize literalism.

They stigmatize it as isolated and unreasonable. Non-literalism is willing to change with new information, while literalism is ossified. In another version of this framing technique, evolutionists identify anti-evolutionism with conservativism.

The first two excerpts connect anti-evolutionism with the Right and, thus, implicitly suggest that liberals and moderates are pro-evolution. The above subsection demonstrates how authors create nonequivalence through various distancing moves. Below I show how nonequivalence is also constructed by weaving faith and science together. Frame articulation, found in letters, is the second way of constructing the nonequivalence frame.

Although articulation often occurs alongside distancing, it is an analytically distinct process. There were 99 letters that had both distancing and articulation, instances of distancing without articulation, and 43 letters with articulation but no distancing. Distancing explains how two entities are unlike each other and articulation connects two different objects.

A typical articulation 96 letters between belief and acceptance of evolution is to indicate the existence of individuals who accept both. Some non-literalists offered personal testimony. Scientists are not opposed to creationism or its teaching.

These authors use their identity as support for the claim that one can be a believer and an evolutionist. Others offer a broader accounting of religious believers. These framings are similar to efforts to distance creationism from faith by arguing that only certain religions reject evolution. Here, the emphasis is on highlighting that many religions accept the theory.

This technique, on its own, does not show how non-literalism can adjust to the contradictions between scripture and science. These statements merely assert that evolutionist believers exist.

The next types show how non-literalism squares faith and evolution see also Wuthnow In 73 letters, non-literalists invoke the nonequivalence frame by claiming that God works through evolution.

These quotations represent typical ways of arguing that God is involved in the evolutionary process. Neither atheism nor literalism accepts this proposition, of course. Likewise, others suggest that evidence for evolution is also evidence for God. These sorts of frames explain how one can believe in God and also accept evolutionary theory. Notice how the second excerpt moves from citing the existence of religious scientists to arguing for how they integrate science and theology into a coherent worldview.

The next technique reconciles evolution and the Bible. Non-literalists occasionally 31 letters articulated faith and evolution by providing an interpretation that aligns the Bible with acceptance of evolution. Such an approach reconciles faith and science. There were three overlapping ways of doing so. First, one could claim that others should not interpret the Bible literally. A second explains:. Both of these authors assert that the Bible is not meant to be interpreted literally.

Therefore, contradictions between science and scripture are not an impediment to acceptance of evolutionary theory. Second, authors resolved apparent contradictions between the Bible and evolutionary theory by explaining how scripture does not contradict established science:.

How can the two coincide? Genesis tells us that the world and all living things were created in six days. Time, to God, is surely inscrutable Klabunde and Klabunde All life began in the sea. The waters were parted, land appeared.

Substitute eons. These authors suggest that Genesis is essentially in keeping with the scientific literature. This reading depends on not interpreting the seven days of creation as a hour period.

The second author asserts that the Biblical account is roughly similar to the one given by science. The purpose of these verses is not to show any scientific detail, but to show his power and loving nature.

It also established the principal of the [S]abbath rest that people would not constantly work toward the achievement of human goals, but stop and take time to honor and relate to God Hemenway Creationism, or intelligent design, are pseudosciences that try to Westernize an ancient Middle Eastern bit of Jewish storytelling into the literal and absolute truth about nature.

The Bible, however, is about faith and finding meaning and hope in the human condition; it is not meant to be a science primer on natural phenomenon Brandstetter These types of letters do not claim that the Bible corresponds to the scientific explanation of the development of life. Because the Bible is not meant to be taken literally, one can accept it and scientific accounts that contract Biblical narrative. Summary of courses recruited and student response rate by course.

After they had learned evolution, we found that Finally, See Table 4 for the percentage of students who chose each view on religion and evolution. TABLE 4. We identified students as highly religious, and within this sample of highly religious students, Table 5 shows a comparison for the percentage of nonreligious and highly religious students who perceived evolution as atheistic or agnostic.

TABLE 5. Student perceptions of the definition of evolution a. Next, we focus on highly religious students only and compare those who perceived evolution as agnostic with those who perceived evolution as atheistic. Table 6 shows a comparison of the demographics of these students. Highly religious students who perceived evolution as atheistic or agnostic were similar with respect to major, gender, and race, but there was a lower percentage of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints LDS students who perceived evolution as atheistic and a higher percentage of Catholic and other Christian students who perceived evolution as atheistic.

These results for LDS students may be due in part to recent attempts to help LDS college biology students in Utah reduce their conflict between religion and evolution Manwaring et al. TABLE 6. Full regression tables with all omnibus statistics for each regression are available in Section 5 of the Supplemental Material. Highly religious student evolution acceptance a—d , comfort learning evolution e , and perceived conflict f between religious beliefs and evolution disaggregated by highly religious students who thought evolution is atheistic atheistic perception and highly religious students who thought evolution is agnostic agnostic perception.

Higher scores represent higher evolution acceptance a—d , more comfort learning evolution e , and more perceived conflict f. We also found that When exploring differences in student scores between highly religious students who perceived evolution as atheistic and highly religious students who perceived evolution as agnostic, we found that highly religious students who thought evolution is atheistic were less accepting of evolution by all measures compared with highly religious students who thought evolution is agnostic.

Further, highly religious students who perceived evolution as atheistic perceived more conflict between their religious beliefs and evolution and felt less comfortable learning evolution compared with highly religious students who perceived evolution as agnostic. These results, in tandem with prior literature, suggest that college biology instructors may be able to support highly religious student evolution acceptance by explicitly describing that evolution does not disprove the existence of supernatural entities.

In other words, teaching the bounded nature of science in the context of evolution by describing evolution as agnostic rather than atheistic.

While prior literature suggests that religiosity and evolution acceptance are related due to specific religious beliefs that are incompatible with evolution Scott, ; Winslow et al. However, our methodology for this study does not allow us to make claims about the causality of the relationships we studied.

However, student self-reports in interview studies suggest that helping students understand that evolution is agnostic may increase their evolution acceptance Winslow et al.

Our results build on the prior literature and confirm that the conception that evolution is atheistic is prevalent among students and statistically significantly related to lower evolution acceptance among religious students. Together, this body of research and experience from evolution educators suggests that instructors can increase evolution acceptance among religious students by explicitly teaching them that evolutionary theory is agnostic rather than atheistic.

The magnitude of this effect should be explored in future research. Our results also highlight the importance of examining religious students separately from nonreligious students in evolution education. Because religious students have a set of worldviews that can create barriers to evolution acceptance that are not present for nonreligious students, relationships between variables and evolution acceptance will likely be different for religious and nonreligious students.

Although recent evolution education studies have probed the interactions between religiosity and other variables when studying evolution acceptance Weisberg et al.

However, our results build on the growing body of literature that suggests this should become a common part of any protocol in which researchers are measuring evolution acceptance. Given these results and prior literature, we encourage biology instructors to think about how their own personal views of evolution and religion may affect how they communicate with students about whether evolution is atheistic or agnostic.

Seventy-five percent of biologists nationwide do not believe in a God Ecklund and Scheitle, ; Pew, , so presumably these biologists hold the personal view of atheistic evolution.

However, do biologists who hold an atheistic personal view of evolution recognize and communicate to their students the bounded nature of science? It is likely that instructors who do not have personal religious backgrounds themselves do not think or teach about this distinction in the context of evolution Barnes and Brownell, , , because the culture of science is generally seen as more compatible with atheism than theism Ecklund and Park, However, our data suggest that whether an instructor recognizes and communicates the bounded nature of science accurately during evolution instruction could matter for religious student outcomes in evolution education.

For these reasons, we encourage instructors to familiarize themselves with Religious Cultural Competence in Evolution Education Barnes and Brownell, , an umbrella framework of instructional practices identified in the literature to help nonreligious instructors better understand how to teach religious students about evolution in an effective and culturally competent way, which includes teaching the bounded nature of science Barnes et al.

We operated on an assumption about the nature of science that supernatural existence or influence is outside the scope of science. We agree that evolution operates from the assumption that a God is not needed for evolution to occur, but do not agree that this is incompatible with a personal belief that a God does exist and has somehow influenced evolution.

Researchers in evolution education have discussed and advocated for this distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism in the evolution education literature Scott, ; Sober, We chose to aggregate scores from Likert-type response options to create continuous Likert scales and used parametric statistics in our analyses.

As argued by Norman , this issue has two parts: measurement and statistics. The conclusions from the parametric statistics are valid as long as the assumptions of the data distributions are roughly met. Substantial literature exists to show that parametric statistics are robust, giving the right answers even when assumptions are violated. In the Results sections of this paper, we have demonstrated that the assumptions linear regression has on data distributions are roughly met, which justifies the use of the parametric statistics methods on the data.

However, we would like to acknowledge the controversy in the measurement part. In our study, we followed a commonly accepted practice of summing individual items scores to form the score of the scale and use the summed score to represent the latent construct.

We agree with the opponents of this practice that single Likert response format items are on an ordinal scale, but the proponents of this practice argue that many studies have shown that Likert scales as opposed to single items produce interval data appropriate for parametric statistics e.

As a further direction, one may consider applying item response theory Hambleton et al. Further, we found that having this perception predicted lower levels of evolution acceptance and comfort learning evolution as well as higher perceived conflict between religious beliefs and evolution among highly religious students.

We define religiosity as the extent to which one participates in religious activities such as prayer and service attendance i. We would like to acknowledge Jim Collins for his feedback on earlier versions of the article as well as members of the Biology Education Research lab at Arizona State University for their feedback.

Barnes et al. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author s. It is available to the public under an Attribution—Noncommercial—Share Alike 3. Hayley M. Gale M. Taija M. Sara E. Add to favorites Download Citations Track Citations. View article.

Agnosticism is of the essence of science … It simply means that [we] shall not say [we] know or believe that which [we] have no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe … Consequently, agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology … Agnosticism simply says that we know nothing of what may be beyond phenomena. Options students were given for their personal view of evolution and then what they thought most closely represented the scientific view of evolution Choice Description presented to student Young Earth creationism All forms of life were first brought into being in their present form by God —10, years ago at the same time.

Old Earth creationism All forms of life were first brought into being in their present form by God at different times over billions of years. Creationism with some evolution Some forms of life evolved from earlier forms, but God created groups of organisms such as reptiles, birds, mammals, and humans separate from one another, and organisms that currently exist have evolved slowly from those first creations.

Humans-only creationism Almost all forms of life evolved from earlier forms, but humans were created by God in their present form separate from the rest of life. Interventionist evolution All forms of life evolved from earlier forms, but God intervenes from time to time to shape or override evolution. Deistic evolution All forms of life evolved from earlier forms, but life and evolution were first set in motion by God without a specific purpose or plan.

Agnostic evolution All forms of life evolved from earlier forms, but it is uncertain whether God was involved in evolution. Atheistic evolution All forms of life evolved from earlier forms, but no God has ever played any role in evolution. Vision and change in undergraduate biology education: A call to action. Washington, DC. Google Scholar Barbour, I. Religion in an age of science. Google Scholar Barnes, M. Practices and perspectives of college instructors on addressing religious beliefs when teaching evolution.

Experiences and practices of evolution instructors at Christian universities that can inform culturally competent evolution education. Science Education , 1 , 36— Different evolution acceptance instruments lead to different research findings. Evolution: Education and Outreach , 12 1 , 4. American Biology Teacher , 79 2 , — Evolution: Education and Outreach , 10 , 7. Experiences of Judeo-Christian students in undergraduate biology. Differential impacts of a culturally competent genetics curriculum on student perceptions of conflict between religion and evolution at an evangelical Christian university.

American Biology Teacher , 82 2 , 93— Creationism and evolution beliefs among college students. Skeptic , 14 3 , 13— Google Scholar Bishop, B. Student conceptions of natural selection and its role in evolution. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 27 5 , — A longitudinal study of attitudes toward evolution among undergraduates who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Perceived consequences of evolution: College students perceive negative personal and social impact in evolutionary theory. Science Education , 87 2 , — Ten common misunderstandings, misconceptions, persistent myths and urban legends about Likert scales and Likert response formats and their antidotes.

Between and , a group of conservative Christians wrote a large collection of papers titled The Fundamentals. Even William Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist who crusaded against the teaching of evolution in public schools, accepted an old earth. Nevertheless, the modern Creationist campaign gained traction as an anti-evolution movement in the decades that followed.

Around the same time, the federal government funded the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study BSCS , which produced a series of textbooks that taught evolution without reservation. Soon after, small groups of conservative Christian scientists began to form in support of this research. They came to be known as Young Earth Creationists and referred to their flood geology as scientific creationism.

With his faith firmly grounded in the creeds of the early church, Gray conducted brilliant scientific research and maintained an unwavering commitment to Christ.

It was actually not until the second half of the 20 th century that Young Earth Creationism became a mainstream view within the evangelical community. Prominent scholars like Asa Gray and BB Warfield demonstrate that it is indeed possible to maintain a high view of scripture and accept scientific evidence of evolution. Join us to receive the latest articles, podcasts, videos, and more, and help us show how science and faith work hand in hand. The seven-day pattern in Genesis 1 is a literary device that serves the theological purposes of the author, rather than revealing information about the chronology of natural history.

We believe Genesis is a true account that, like other ancient narratives, uses vivid imagery to describe past events. It is silent on the scientific questions we might wish it to answer. God is the creator and sustainer of all things, and evolution is the best scientific explanation for the relatedness of life on Earth. Part Six in the Uniquely Unique mini-series. We take stock of one more distinguishing feature of humans—the image of God. In the final part of his four-part series, J.

In the third part of a four-part series, J. In this excerpt from their new book, geologist Gregg Davidson and theologian Ken Turner shine a spotlight on Genesis One as theologically rich literature first and foremost. Introduction Many believe that before Darwin published The Origin of Species in , Christians as a whole maintained an entirely literal, six-day interpretation of Genesis in which the earth was only a few thousand years old.

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