How not to do a survey about evolution.

In my little Darwin Day post last week, I used a chart of acceptance of evolution in various countries.

The data on that chart came from a fairly well-known 2006 study, as reported in Science (pdf). The chart itself has been extensively reproduced since then.

In the comments to that post, commenter "ryan" mentioned seeing something in the Guardian about 50% of Britons rejecting evolution (probably this article). But the chart from the Science article only shows about 20% of Britons rejecting evolution. That's a big change for two years' time!

So what's going on?

The Science study presented a simple statement: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals", and asked people whether the statement is true or false, or if they didn't know.

They didn't use the word "evolution," which is politically loaded (albeit for idiotic reasons), they just presented a very fundamental aspect of human evolution and asked people what they thought of it.

Asking about human evolution specifically is fine, since people generally have more difficulty accepting that humans evolved from earlier species than accepting that a flatworm did. People who think that the botfly evolved but that humans were made "in God's image" will correctly be included in the anti-evolution or undecided sides.

This is a pretty sensible way to do things. If you want to know if people agree with an idea, ask them about the idea itself. Don't ask them if they agree with the label that the idea has been given, because there's a good chance they don't actually understand what that label means.

Not surprisingly, Science publishes well-done research!

So what about this thing in the Guardian? Well, we're suffering from two problems here. First, the study was badly done. To make matters worse, the reporting on it is misleading (I'll focus on the Guardian piece, but they're far from the only offenders).

The study in question here was part of the "Rescuing Darwin" report. That name should immediately set off alarms. It suggests that they have an agenda beyond just finding out the truth. And while we don't know what that agenda is (yet), such things can skew studies pretty badly.

They can skew studies. But did they?

Hell yes!

In the original study (found here) we have five questions. The first is simply asking what the respondent's age is. The other four are about various theories.

Here are the the theories of evolution religion people were asked about, and the definitions assigned to them by the survey monkeys:

1. Young Earth Creationism is the idea that God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years.
2. Theistic evolution is the idea that evolution is the means that God used for the creation of all living things on earth.
3. Atheistic evolution is the idea that evolution makes belief in God unnecessary and absurd.
4. Intelligent Design is the idea that evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages.

Each of these ridiculously oversimplified and misleading statements was followed by "In your opinion [this theory is] ______" and people were expected to fill in the blank with "definitely true," "probably true," "probably untrue," "definitely untrue," or "don't know."

So, these folks have decided against the sensible method of telling people the idea and having them state whether they agree with it or not in favor of giving definitions for various theories and then asking if people agree with these theories. Oddly, none of these questions even asked people about the actual theory of evolution. They don't even bother to define what the theory of evolution itself is. It's all about religion, and not a bit about science.

The question about "atheistic evolution" is particularly terrible. The other three questions at least refer to real terms, but the only people who use the term "atheistic evolution" are generally wingnuts who then equate it with Stalinism in the next sentence.

Worse yet, if you're an atheist who totally accepts the theory of evolution but doesn't believe it "makes belief in God unnecessary and absurd" (which it arguably doesn't, since it has nothing to say about the supernatural), then you could honestly answer no even to the question about "atheistic evolution"!

Congratulations, you evolution-accepting atheists who think religion and evolutionary theory don't have anything to do with each other, you will now be accused of rejecting evolution thanks to an incredibly poor survey question!

A hint for the survey question-writers: If you're going to do a survey about acceptance of evolution, don't phrase your questions in such a way that someone who accepts evolution gets lumped in with those who don't. Also, maybe ask a question about the actual theory of evolution and not just people's religious beliefs.

It doesn't look like the people behind the survey really cared about getting to the truth, though. They have an agenda, and here it is:

Rescuing Darwin argues that Darwin and his theory have become caught in the crossfire of a philosophical and theological battle in which he himself had little personal interest. On the one side stands a handful of modern Darwinians who insist that evolution has killed God and ideas of design, purpose, morality and humanity. On the other side are their mainly, but not exclusively, religious opponents who, unwilling to adopt such a bleak vision, cite Genesis and Intelligent Design as evidence of evolution's deficiency.

Oh no! A "bleak vision" of life without the Christian God! The book of Genesis and ID as "evidence of evolution's deficiency"! The horrors!

Yeah, this piece of shit was written by Theos, "the public theology think tank." Here's a little about them from "Rescuing Darwin" itself (available as a pdf here).

what Theos stands for
Society is embarking on a process of de-secularisation. Interest in spirituality is increasing across Western culture. Faith is on the agenda of both government and the media. In the arts, humanities and social sciences there are important intellectual developments currently taking place around questions of values and identity. Theos speaks into this new context. Our perspective is that faith is not just important for human flourishing and the renewal of society, but that society can only truly flourish if faith is given the space to do so. We reject notions of a sacred-secular divide.

Well, there's the explanation for why this "study" was about religion instead of science, and also for why it was so poorly done. They don't want people to believe in evolution because they see it as a threat to their little god club. A study showing that people reject evolution supports their agenda, one that shows most people accept it hurts them.

I could spend quite a bit of time tearing apart this shitty "Rescuing Darwin" paper, but it's not worth it. A quick perusal is all you really need to know that this "theological think tank" is exactly what you'd expect from an organization with that title. It's a bunch of morons in fancy robes pontificating on things they know very little about and trying to pass it off as deep thought. Reading it might actually leave you dumber than when you began.

Still, people are allowed to commission surveys if they want. And they can ask really lousy questions to try to lead people to the responses they most desire. Hell, they can even present the "results" of their meaningless survey to the public!

Unfortunately, it takes a gullible and lazy press to move those "results" from their rightful realm of crackpot non-science into the public consciousness. And the Guardian is playing the role of enabler here.

Does the Guardian's story on this all-but-meaningless survey mention the flaws? Does it identify the source as a theological think tank? Does it tell you anything useful about how the study was conducted or what questions were actually asked?

Of course not. Instead it naively reports as fact that:

Half of British adults do not believe in evolution, with at least 22% preferring the theories of creationism or intelligent design to explain how the world came about, according to a survey.

Huh? What about the other 28%? The ones who apparently reject evolution but don't believe in the other bullshit either? Or maybe they don't reject evolution but just got tripped up by the poorly-worded study...

I don't know where that 22% number came from, either. The YEC question got 11% "definitely true" and 21% "probably true", while the ID one got 14% definite and 37% probable. How any of that works out to 22% is beyond me.

I'm going to assume the Guardian's religious affairs correspondent who wrote the story pulled these numbers out of her ass.*

Now, it's entirely possible that a significant percentage of the British people reject evolution. But you can't draw that conclusion from this study, which is, to put it politely, a giant pile of shit.





*Ha ha, the reporter's last name is "Butt"!

Happy Darwin Day!

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin! Let's celebrate together! But how?

Well, you could go to the Darwin Day website and see if there are any local events. Its search form seems to work terribly for me, though.

You could also read the complete works of Darwin online here, in his own handwriting! Darwin had messy handwriting though, so maybe you'd prefer just to read The Origin of Species online in a font of your choosing.

If you're already well-versed in evolutionary theory, you could go pick a fight with some creationist morons. If you choose to do so, the talk.origins archive should provide you will all the information you need to refute their bullshit.

You could also look at this nice graph showing public acceptance of evolution in various countries. Then you can celebrate that America isn't quite as stupid as Turkey!


Or you could just watch this very pretty video with Sir David Attenborough. I think I even spotted my friend the archaeopteryx in it!



If audio is more your style, you could also check out a bunch of Nature podcasts about Darwin & evolution. Despite using the terrible term "podcast," they're still pretty cool.

Whatever you do, enjoy!


ps It's also the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. So... ummm... read Hello Fitchburg or watch "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" or something? Darwin's vastly more important in the grand scheme anyway.

New species of Letter to the Editor writer discovered!

We humans are pattern-seeking animals. One could argue that we're driven by our very genes to create taxonomies.

This doesn't just apply to science, of course. We do it with everything, sometimes without even realizing it.

For instance, I've developed an informal taxonomy of people who write letters to the editor. Most of them fit into certain groups pretty easily.

There are the confusingly whiny ones, the ones that are hilariously ignorant concerning the very topic about which they're writing, the religious proselytizers, the ones who predict some sort of apocalypse, people who talk foolishly about the "founding fathers," people who have personal grudges against some elected official (or the very concept of government itself, sometimes), and so forth.

There are other species too, but I mention these specifically because they generally fit into the genus of "people who can't write worth a damn."

Well, today is an exciting day!

I've discovered a letter/editorial thing with the lackluster title of Library budget cuts will have long-term implications in the S&E. This title was no doubt assigned by the paper, because surely the author did not pick such an uninspiring title! Regardless of the poor title, it introduces a species that's rarely seen in the wild, and may in fact be a new one altogether!

The species in question is the poetic-and-literate-apocalypse-
predictor-who-also-mentioned-the-founding-fathers-at-some-point. Witness the awesomeness!

Every once in a while, if we are fortunate to have the favor of divine providence, we find a fellow citizen amongst us who has a truly brilliant and beautiful mind.

I am writing about those citizens in our Republic who help make us be much better than we truly deserve to be.

[...]

The only thing I know for certain about these people is that their brilliant minds were all shaped by reading. Such is the supremacy of books.

There is no greater method of empowering people than to give them the gift of literacy.

Literacy inoculates our Republic from the tyrannies of ignorance and conformity. Our founding fathers knew the importance of literacy and the need for our democracy to have public lending libraries.

Nobody can honestly tell me that a line like "Literacy inoculates our Republic from the tyrannies of ignorance and conformity." is not utterly awesome. You can tell me it's not true (and I'd agree), but it's still a damn good sentence!

Also, I like books too! Perhaps not as much as this guy, but it's nice to see that kind of passion!

He continues, with a bit less aplomb:

Presently, in this day and at this time, I can report to you my fellow citizens; ignorance and conformity are alive and well in Fitchburg Massachusetts.

The mayor and the local City Council are planning on gutting the library and taking away the gift of literacy.

First, check out that semicolon. I have never been properly instructed in the use of a semicolon (it's a huge gap in my education), so color me impressed!

As for the substance; I can agree with the first sentence, but there's something fishy about the second one.

Yeah, cuts to the library would (will?) suck. I'd like to see the library funded as well as it can be. But "taking away the gift of literacy"? That's just silly. There are other ways to get reading material than just the library. They're just not as convenient or cheap. Then again, perhaps our author is just using hyperbole as a literary tool! So let's give him a pass for now.

Crap, it's a recurring theme:

In the United States of America, a nation that for the past 200 years has brought enlightenment and hope to this world, we are taking the power of the written word away from toddlers, preschoolers, grade-school students, middle-school students high-school students and college students.

Toddlers can read now? Dammit, kids are growing up so fast these days! And ummm... don't schools have libraries? Plus, bookstores and the internet still exist I think. Also, don't adults count for anything? We like literacy too!

Now to the apocalypse* with which he closes...

What I do know with any certainly [sic] is that the next brilliant mind of our generation is not going to come from Fitchburg Mass.

The young minds in our community, waiting to be inspired to greatness, will never get the opportunity because the body of all human knowledge; which can normally be found at your local public library, will not be available to them.

Oh Mr. Pretty-good-letter-writing-guy, what happened to you? I hope that typo is the fault of the paper and not you!

The hyperbole boat has capsized at this point (Note: that is a metaphor, another literary tool, which I am currently using in a confusing manner). Is there only one brilliant mind per generation?

Because if so, I'd say that it's a pretty safe bet that out of the 6.6 billion people in the world, Fitchburg won't be the home to that one brilliant person. No matter how good our library is. Still, I don't think you can take a reduction in library hours to mean the next brilliant mind is doomed if they happen to be growing up in Fitchburg.

Also, is it true that "the body of all human knowledge" is found at the Fitchburg Public Library? Frankly, it doesn't seem that big.

Still, these are minor quibbles!

The important part is we've discovered a guy who can write awesomely while also taking on some of the traits of the crazy people who can't write! He's a transitional form, like our Archaeopteryx friend up top!

Today may be a momentous day in the evolution of letter to the editor writing! Expect an increase in well-written letters from literate individuals, as environmental pressures cause the poorly-written letter writers to fade away. It's the dawning of a new age, people! Celebrate!


* Note: By "apocalypse" I obviously don't mean a Mad Max-style nuclear holocaust or anything like that. Rather, the apocalyptic letter-writer specializes in predicting some sort of negative effect that's totally disproportionate to the event purported to cause it. For instance, those who claim that a trash fee will lead to mountains of garbage all over town due to illegal dumping fit into my category of "apocalypse predictors."

How not to promote a propaganda film

So, there's this dumb propaganda film named Expelled coming out next month that will promote Intelligent Design (AKA creationism) and make the ridiculous claim that evolutionary theory leads to Nazis.

Of course, in order to avoid the appearance that they're just a bunch of anti-science nutbags, they couch the film in spurious claims that "Big Science" has unfairly censored ID proponents.

They also got a bunch of respected evolutionary biologists to appear in it by misrepresenting the purpose (and even name) of the film.

Then they held screenings for friendly audiences (read as "church groups").

Then for some reason they held a screening in the same town where the annual American Atheists convention was going on. Oops.

Then one of the biologists who actually was featured in the movie (and thanked in the credits) tried to attend this free screening, but they wouldn't let him in. Oops again, since they're claiming to promote free discourse of dissenting ideas (or something).

Then they really fucked up.

Oh well!

Now here's a totally unrelated video! Happy Good Friday!

Apes Evolved From Conservative Talk Show Hosts

Election's over, enough local politics for a minute!

As a guy who strives to provide a different voice in Fitchburg, I ingest a lot of media that I quite frankly can't stand. But unless you know what other people are saying you're in no position to point out that they're often totally wrong. That's why I read skim the Sentinel thoroughly for things to make fun of and that's why I occasionally listen to the horrible Chuck Morse show on WEIM.

I happened to be listening last night while Morse went off about how people who believe the theory of evolution is correct (i.e. everyone with even a basic grasp of science) are big fat jerks. Now, I may be a big jerk, but I'm not fat. Morse also updated his terrible blog with information about it! Incidentally, I think his blog gets even fewer readers than his radio show has listeners, which might put it into negative numbers somehow.

Morse is clearly neither a scientist nor a theologian. Nor does he seem to have any real understanding of science or theology. You'd think that would make him unqualified to have a meaningful discussion of the evolution vs creationism "controvery," and you'd be right!

But funny thing about evolution. Most scientific theories are debated by scientists. If some radio host started going off on a totally uninformed tirade about the theory of relativity people would just laugh at him. But evolution has been politicized to the point where anyone who's even heard of Darwin can rant about how horrible evolutionary theory is and have a similarly uninformed subset of idiots believe him.

But this is science, not politics. So let's get to the facts, shall we?

First, a quote from Morse's blog so you can see where this all came from:

I am proud of comedian, author, economist, and former presidential speechwriter Ben Stein for taking on the thorny issue of evolution versus intelligent design in his new film "Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed" due to be released in theatres [sic] February, 2008.

Besides delving into the raucous debate over the scientific legitimacy of Darwinism, the theory that claims that man randomly developed from muck and was formed by mutating over millions of years, the movie also documents the Stalinist tactics of the darwiniacs, the devout cult followers of this questionable theory.

Hmm, okay. Ben Stein was a teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." And though I don't see "scientist" or "theologian" in his credentials either, people seem to be under the odd impression that he's kind of smart.

After all, he had that show where people tried to steal his money, right? No way could that have been set up to mostly ask questions that he'd be likely to know the answers to!

Morse, as usual, began spouting things that just aren't true right away. There's absolutely no "raucous debate over the scientific legitimacy of Darwinism." There's a political debate, not a scientific one. Sure, there are debates within the field of evolutionary biology, but they're about elements of the theory, not the legitimacy of the theory as a whole. Nor is the theory "questionable" in the usual sense. All scientific theories are open to questioning, but the validity of the theory isn't in doubt in the scientific community (it's only in doubt by the moron community).

Also, evolutionary theory doesn't really claim that "man randomly developed from muck." It has little to say about the origins of life, and is really about the development of life after that point (which actually means it's not even incompatible with a "creator," but more about that later). He's right about mutations being important though, so good for him getting at least one fact right!

Morse talked last night about how he considers evolutionary theory "just a theory," and how he wrote a column several years ago that said that and got a lot of criticism. Chuck Morse apparently does not know the difference between a "theory" (as used by the general public) and a "scientific theory" (as used by scientists, natch). This is a common argument used by similarly-confused creationists, like the Cobb County Board of Education, whose unconstitutional sticker for textbooks is reproduced below.



Anyway, here's a link that explains the difference in ways even Morse should be able to understand. For those of you too lazy to follow it or that need a refresher, in a nutshell:

A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology...

A theory is developed only through the scientific method, meaning it is the final result of a series of rigorous processes. Note that a theory never becomes a law unless it was very narrow to begin with...

...Real scientific theories must be falsifiable. So-called "theories" based on religion, such as creationism or intelligent design are, therefore, not scientific theories. They are not falsifiable and they do not follow the scientific method.

Pretty simple, no?

Evolutionary theory, of course, is a scientific theory. One that's as well-proven and accepted as quantum theory or the theory of relativity. It's open to debate and revision, but outright rejection of evolutionary theory would require some pretty dramatic evidence against it.

Back to Morse:

Stein reveals how how [sic] educators, scientists and commentators have been publically [sic] denounced, scorned, and in some cases denied tenure and even fired for the “crime” of believing that there might be evidence of design” [sic] in nature.

Maybe that's true. I don't know. If a science teacher is denying evolution in favor of creationism I'd certainly deny him tenure. Similarly, I'd deny him tenure if he was staying the Earth is flat or that gravity only exists because God keeps shoving everything to the ground. Science teachers are supposed to teach science, not crackpot theories.

Come to think of it, evolution is probably better understood than gravity (which works, but isn't well-explained). Probably even better than quantum theory (which is just incredibly hard to wrap your head around). Quantum theory is accepted as fact though, because it explains how the world works with incredible accuracy. Evolutionary theory does the same thing. And that's what a scientific theory is about! If it works, it's a good theory. If it doesn't, it's rejected and hopefully replaced by a better one. Hurrah for science!

Morse seems to have a touch of PTSD from his dramatic loss when he ran against Barney Frank for Congress:

I had my own run-in on this issue when I ran for Congress in Massachusetts against Barney Frank in 2004. In his opposition research, Frank had uncovered an article I had written that (gasp) questioned Darwin's theory of evolution. He brought this up during a joint television appearance on NECN - Nightline with Chet Curtis and Jim Braude.

Frank looked angry as he exposed what he considered to be a bombshell, a shocking scandal. By questioning Darwinism, I was not to be taken seriously. [blah blah blah]

Yeah, indeed Morse shouldn't be taken seriously. But it's not for "questioning Darwinism," it's just for being really really dumb. I wouldn't take someone who denies the Holocaust seriously, I wouldn't take someone who denies the theory of relativity seriously, I wouldn't take someone who thought that when I hit the button to open my garage door invisible pixies flew over to it in order to do the heavy lifting seriously, and I wouldn't take someone who denies evolution seriously.

It's not about asking questions (science actually encourages that), it's about intelligence. If you question evolution intelligently then you should be taken seriously. If you deny it wholesale because your invisible friend in the sky told you to then you absolutely should not be taken seriously.

Morse ends his blog post with this paragraph:

Darwin's evolution is the cornerstone of the secular faith because it removes the possibility of God. Thus, God is replaced by the State which is, according to the secular faith, charged with the moral responsibility to evolve man. This was the faith of the ancient pagans, the idol-worshippers of biblical times. The state set up an idol, such as Baal, and dictated the means of worship down the lines of supporting "enlightened" state power. This also gave the King, who controlled the false idol, the moral pretext to denounce and remove his enemies. Perhaps not much has changed.

Okay, ignore for a minute that most of it makes no damn sense and let's just focus on this idea that evolution=atheism. Morse doesn't come right out and say that in his blog, but he did on the radio. As we've come to expect, it too is totally made up.

Of course there are plenty of atheists who accept evolution as fact. The brilliant Richard Dawkins is perhaps one of the best-known evolutionary biologists at work today, and has taken an extremely strong stance against religion (and I dare anyone of faith to read The God Delusion without questioning what they believe). But there are plenty of others in the field who believe in a god.

One very well-known evolutionary biologist who also believed in a god was the late Stephen Jay Gould. Gould introduced the concept of Non-Overlapping Magesteria, which boiled down to a belief that religion and science are seperate "magisteria" with nothing to say about each other. For that matter even the Vatican under John Paul II has endorsed evolution, though I think the current pope isn't on board with that anymore.

The head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, has also espoused the theory of Theistic Evolution (TE). I happen to disagree with Collins (personally I'm a Pastafarian), but the fact that so many respected biologists are clearly theists pretty effectively debunks Morse's claim.

As for Theistic Evolution, it's the belief "that religious teachings about creation and scientific theories of evolution need not be contradictory." And indeed, they need not! Who's to say that a god didn't set evolution in motion? That'd be a pretty clever trick! Certainly smarter than creating men with nipples and all humans with an appendix that does nothing except sometimes get inflamed and kill people!

One last thing I want to address. Morse talked a lot last night about how he got so much anger and hatred and so forth for his evolution denial. He seemed baffled by it, and suggested that evolutionary theory was the one thing in this country you're not allowed to question.

Now, I'd actually argue that other people's religious beliefs are the one thing you're not allowed to question, but let's just go with this...

Chuck, the reason people react so strongly is because you're totally uninformed about the subject you're discussing. To reject evolution at this point is (rightfully) seen by many people as a sign both of ignorance and of a desire to impose your religious beliefs on others.

No question here, so-called "Intelligent Design" is just creationism in fancy clothes. Its goal is to get God into the public schools, which is clearly forbidden by the Constitution. If you endorse gutting the Bill of Rights, you're going to piss people off. People who are pissed off are going to react strongly. It's not just atheists, it's anyone who respects the First Amendment.

I haven't focused much on the creationism side of this argument, because I believe it to be nonsense. You can believe it if you like, but the instant that belief turns into a desire to corrupt the minds of our children with fairy tales when they should be learning real science, you earn yourself an enemy. And I'm hardly alone in that.

Question evolution all you want, but learn a thing or two about it first. Try reading a book that doesn't agree with your religious preconceptions once in awhile. Just being a dumbass won't get you far.