Evolution News & Views is reporting on a rather revealing study of Scottish first year students at Glasgow University who doubt Darwinian evolution. In fact, the Times Education Supplement (TES) article reports that “One in 20 first-year biology students at Glasgow University don’t believe in the theory of evolution, according to new research.”
The article further reports that,
The study, presented at last week’s Edinburgh International Science Festival, at a “Creeping Creationism” seminar run by the Humanist Society, found that 85 per cent of students who reject evolution and 85 per cent of students who accept it were able to identify the definition most closely describing intelligent design (the most recent alternative to Darwinism).
And,
When asked why they rejected evolution, 41 per cent said they believed there was an alternative explanation for the diversity of life, while a third said they simply had insufficient knowledge of evolution.
The concept that humans descended from ancient species of apes, one of the theories creationists most rigorously reject, was accepted by over one third of evolution rejecters, and two thirds of them agreed that natural selection acted within species to adapt to environmental change.
So, it would appear that many of those “evolution rejectors” accept at least some level of common ancestry, which likely reflects an increasing awareness that there is much more at stake in this debate than merely the proposition of descent with modification.
And, moreover,
“There is a move away from the traditional,” said Mr Southcott. “Instead of using the bible to say you shouldn’t accept evolution, it seems they are trying to use science as a way forward.”
The future of ID is certainly looking bright in Scotland. The Darwinian monopoloy on academia is slowly but surely eroding. Perhaps in a generation or two we will see Darwinism’s long over-due collapse. Perhaps we’ll even live to see it. I live in hope…