Paul Myers has a post at the Panda’s Thumb that points up a fundamental misconception of some evolutionists (go here for his post). The post is titled “American political conservatism impedes the understanding of science.” The point of the post is to chart the acceptance of evolution** among conservatives, moderates, and liberals against education, and the consistent finding is that conservatives, regardless of education, tend to “believe” evolution less than liberals and moderates (though believing evolution goes up across the board with education).
But why should disbelieving evolution reflect a lack of understanding of it? Alternatively, does understanding evolution automatically force one to believe it? I remember speaking at the University of Toronto in 2002 when a biologist challenged me about how holding to ID renders one a nonscientist. I asked him if that disqualified Isaac Newton from being a scientist. His instant response was, “but he didn’t know about evolution.”
Is it that ID proponents don’t understand evolution or that we understand it well enough and think it’s bogus?
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**By evolution here I mean what Dawkins and Myers mean by it, namely, a purely material process that creates living forms apart from any overarching teleology or purpose.