Evolution revolution Part II
by digby
Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institute of health, believes in God. He also believes in science, obviously. And what he says here is what I assumed for most of my life was the way the vast majority of religious people thought about this:
It is certainly true in the United States that there is an uneasiness about certain aspects of science, particularly evolution, because it conflicts, in some people’s minds, with their sense of how we all came to be,” Collins said. “But you know, if you are a believer in God, it’s hard to imagine that God would somehow put this incontrovertible evidence in front of us about our relationship to other living organisms and expect us to disbelieve it. I mean, that doesn’t make sense at all. So as soon as you kind of get over the anxiety about the whole thing, it actually adds to your sense of awe about this amazing universe that we live in, it doesn’t subtract from it at all.”
I remember watching Inherit the Wind when I was a kid and thinking that it was almost funny how old fashioned that whole argument was. I truly thought that we had passed way beyond the point at which evolution could be challenged. But we have been going backwards.
Actually “we” haven’t been. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, it’s one particular sub-group:
A new Pew Research Center poll shows a widening political gap over theories about how humans came to be, with Republicans growing increasingly skeptical about the idea that humans evolved over time.
Over the last four years, the percentage of Democrats who said they believe in evolution has risen by three points, from 64 percent to 67 percent. But the percentage of Republicans who believe in the theory has dropped 11 points, from 54 percent to 43 percent.
So while there was a 10-point gap in 2009, there is now a 24-point gap.
Apparently, the conservative party can no longer comfortably accommodate the opinion expressed by Dr. Collins — that God and evolution are not mutually exclusive.
The Republican Party is rapidly becoming exclusively a party of religious fundamentalists. (Just don’t compare them to the Taliban, because that would very rude …)
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