A commenter to my article about John McCain supporting the teaching of ID in public schools replies that he won’t vote for McCain because of it. The stated reason is the United States is falling behind other industrialized countries in science literacy.
Piffle! The notion that science literacy in the U.S. is substandard is rooted in the results of science surveys that include questions about evolution. Without doubt a much larger fraction of the US populace doesn’t believe in mud to man evolution than compared to any other industrialized nation. So in those surveys they give the “incorrect” answer to questions about the origin of life. In all other category of science questions Americans score as well as or better than non-Americans. But the weight of the “wrong” answers about evolution pulls down the average and makes it appear a few other countries are doing a better job of science education.
Be that as it may I’m a results oriented guy. Instead of presuming that “poorer” science education leads to poorer scientific output I instead look at what America actually produces in the way of science and engineering. Without question America’s output in science and engineering leads the world. Not just a little but a lot. We don’t steal nuclear technology secrets from China, they steal ours. We don’t use European GPS satellites for navigation, they use ours. The list can go on and on. We put a man on the moon 40 years ago while to this day no one else has. America has almost 3 times the number of Nobel prize winners as the next closest nation. That doesn’t support the notion that disbelief in Darwin is causing any problems. In fact it supports just the opposite. Disbelief in evolution makes a country into a superpower – militarily, economically, and yes even scientifically.
Education in America is working just fine, thank you, judging by the fruits of American science and engineering. Disbelief in Darwinian evolution, if anything, leads to greater technological achievements not lesser. If it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it.