The popularity of creationism in Europe is explained not by religiosity, but by scientific illiteracy

Turkish creationist Harun Yahya, one of the most active and prolific propagandists of creationism, actively sends out his books as “gifts” to residents of European countries. Unfortunately, they resonate strongly with many Europeans. Illustration from the discussed article in Science

On February 20, an interdisciplinary scientific conference was held in Dortmund (Germany) dedicated to the problems of teaching evolution and the attitude of Europeans to science in general and to evolution in particular (Attitudes and Knowledge concerning Evolution and Science in Europe, AKESE). Those gathered recognized that creationism is not “a purely American problem.” Surveys and tests show that in Europe the main reason for the rejection of evolution is not religiosity (as in Islamic countries), but a lack of understanding among students, teachers and the “general public” of the basic principles of science and the methodology of scientific knowledge. In a number of countries, this is facilitated by the fact that schoolchildren receive religious education starting in the elementary grades, and begin to study biology and other natural sciences later, when many of them have already become convinced creationists.

It is difficult for any even more or less qualified biologist to imagine how one can doubt the reality of evolution in our days, when evolutionary biology has achieved unprecedented success, and evidence of evolution obtained by geneticists, molecular biologists, paleontologists, embryologists, comparative anatomists, etc. so numerous, diverse and undeniable that it would seem completely impossible not to see and understand this. It is possible that it was precisely because of this indisputability of the fact of biological evolution, so obvious to scientists, that the European scientific community for a long time refused to take seriously the threat of the spread of creationism in Europe. Many people are accustomed to considering creationism a “purely American problem.” Indeed, surveys conducted in the United States regularly show that more than half of American citizens deny evolution. It is no secret that this is directly related to the irreconcilable position of Protestant churches, which have a very great influence on the minds of Americans, especially in the southern states.

However, in recent years, in a number of European countries, creationists have also begun to loudly declare themselves, including at the highest level. Of course, this means “high level” not in the scientific hierarchy, but in the political one (who gave the right to politicians and journalists to take on issues that fall strictly within the competence of science is a separate question). For example, in 2004, Silvio Berlusconi's government tried to ban the teaching of evolution in Italian schools. In 2006, Poland's deputy education minister, Mirosław Orzechowski, called evolution a "lie." In 2007, Karin Wolff, Minister of Culture of Hesse (Germany), advocated teaching creationism in schools.

Pan-European sociological research on this topic has not yet been carried out, but the conference presented very alarming results from surveys conducted in individual countries. According to conference organizer Dittmar Graf of the Technical University of Dortmund, the results presented convincingly showed that creationism is not only an American problem.

Even in Charles Darwin's homeland, creationism turns out to be quite strong. A December 2008 survey of 923 schoolteachers in England and Wales found that 37% of teachers supported teaching creationism alongside evolution. Even among teachers of biology and other natural sciences, as many as 30% were supporters of creationism.

In 2007, the Council of Europe, with great difficulty, managed to pass a resolution stating that the Council was “strongly opposed to the teaching of creationism as a scientific discipline on an equal basis with the theory of evolution, and in general to the presentation of creationist ideas in any lessons other than religion lessons.” The resolution was eventually adopted, but it met with unexpectedly strong opposition from a number of deputies.

According to many conference participants, the reasons for the persistence of creationism in Europe should be sought not only in churches, but also in school classrooms. Dittmar Graf cited extremely interesting results from testing 1,228 German students planning to become teachers. The testing revealed a number of surprising gaps in their education. Only a third of future biology teachers were able to satisfactorily answer basic questions about the mechanisms of biological evolution. The most important and unexpected finding of this study is that the best predictor of creationist views among pre-service teachers is not, as might be expected, religiosity, but a general lack of understanding of the basics of science and the methodology of scientific knowledge. In other words, it is not so much religion that drives people toward creationism as it is basic scientific illiteracy.

However, in general, Germany is a relatively prosperous country in this regard (only 20% of the population denies evolution). The situation is much worse in Muslim countries. More than half of biology teachers in countries such as Senegal, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria agree with the statement that “life is undoubtedly created by God.”

In Turkey, which is actively seeking to become a member of the European Union, schools are supposed to be secular. Moreover, teaching creationism in Turkish universities is officially prohibited. However, testing carried out using the same methodology as in Germany showed that 75% of students at Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey), preparing to become school teachers, deny evolution. Unlike Germany, in Turkey the best predictor of anti-evolution views is the degree of religiosity.

One of the main reasons for the spread of creationism in European countries is the fact that creationists began to apply early indoctrination to schoolchildren with great success. In a number of countries, including Germany, schoolchildren begin to receive religious education in elementary school, while they first hear about evolution in biology lessons only in high school. It is not surprising that many students come to these classes already convinced creationists. According to Graf, it is necessary to start introducing evolution to schoolchildren much earlier. In addition, the teaching of basic principles of science and the scientific method in schools appears to be ineffective. Today, many European schoolchildren and even teachers do not actually understand what science is, how it works, what its conclusions are based on and why it should be trusted. And this, perhaps, is the main reason for the amazing persistence of creationism and other pseudoscientific ideas in European countries, and throughout the world.

Source:

Andrew Curry.
Creationist Beliefs Persist in Europe // Science
. 2009. V. 323. P. 1159.

Alexander Markov

Varieties

As in any scientific community, within creation scientist circles there are several groups that may have different points of view. The most pronounced orientations of the groups are: young earth and old earth.

Young-earth creationism - assumes that the Universe, planet Earth and life on it appeared relatively recently (several thousand years ago). Young-earth creationists criticize the theory of evolution and develop their own scientific concepts to explain the origin of life and the species diversity of living beings. Man, according to young-earth creationists, was created intelligent from the beginning
Old-earth creationism - accepts as a fact the ancient age of the Earth (billions of years). Followers of this trend often identify their worldview only with the concept of Intelligent Design, otherwise agreeing with the atheistic trend of science. The vast majority of old earth creationists view biological evolution as God's instrument to accomplish his purpose.

Creationism is most widespread in the Christian world, although there are representatives among other religions.

Introduction.

I decided to write this article after long, and largely fruitless, debates on evolutionary topics in debates on the A-site. Creationists argue that their concept should be on par with or completely supplant evolutionism. Meanwhile, these claims are completely unfounded. Creationism manipulates all facts into theory. Although it’s difficult to call it a theory: they say God created everything and everything. The substantive part of creationism ends here. Next comes a critique of evolutionism.

Before writing about a detailed analysis of creationism (more precisely, criticism of the theory of evolution, which I will refer to as TE in the future), I will allow myself a small analogy. Imagine that someone published a theory that the Egyptian pyramids were built by aliens. No one will tell anything about the methods of building pyramids. Only that the aliens’ technology is infinitely complex for us. Next comes a fantasy about the goals of extraterrestrial intelligence, drawn from the fingertips or vague drawings of the Egyptians. Well, 95% of the theory will be criticism of the standard ideas of historians. Of course, the normal antithesis would be historical information about the construction of the pyramids by the Egyptians themselves. How should a normal person react to an alien theory? The answer is simple - he will ignore it, without even getting into the depths. At the same time, some of the criticism may be fair. But this part does not prove the alien hypothesis in any way. This is criticism against, but we need evidence of positive theses. But they don’t exist and cannot exist, since the positive component of the theory can be expressed in 2 sentences. And, as luck would have it, it will turn out to be unprovable.

I hope everyone understands my analogy with creationism. But analogies are bad because they are never absolute. Therefore, from the next chapter I move on to a consistent comparison of theories.

Here I will deviate a little from the topic of the article and touch on the origin of life. Creationists usually confuse the emergence of the first living forms and the evolution of ready-made ones. Meanwhile, these are completely different topics. The theory of the origin of life is in the same position as TE was in the mid-19th century. At that time, Lamarckism coexisted with Darwinism, and the arguments of creationists were considered on a par with evolutionary ones. Time will put everything in its place; many concepts that are being seriously analyzed today will go into the archives. But even now we can say that the biblical version of creation does not work. After all, criticism of any concept does not prove another. We can confidently say that the most primitive forms of life, single-celled ones, arose first. It has been proven that they arose several billion years ago, as opposed to 6 thousand according to the Bible. Concluding the conversation about the origin of life, it should be noted that we do not know (yet) how exactly it arose; but we know that its origin has nothing to do with the biblical version.

Basic provisions of the creation model

Intelligent Design - The Universe and the whole world were intelligently designed by the Creator
Days of Creation - the entire visible world was created in 6 creative periods (according to some, just days consisting of 24 hours).
The age of the Universe is very small, significantly less than billions of years (see Comet, Sirius)
The dimensions of the Universe are significantly smaller than those proposed in atheistic hypotheses
Planet Earth is significantly younger than several billion years
The Great Flood, a terrible catastrophe that happened about 4000 years ago to planet Earth (fallout of water in the form of precipitation, the release of groundwater to the surface, multiple volcanic eruptions), destroyed most of the living organisms, changed the composition of the atmosphere, climate, etc.
Grand Canyon and other similar geological formations - consequences of the Flood
Most of the fossilized remains of plants and living things were formed during the Flood
Dinosaurs, like other types of living organisms, have always coexisted with people, since the moment of Creation (see Cambrian Explosion)
Taxonomy - all animals and plants of one genus differ significantly from others (for example, species from the passerine family differ from species from the hawk family). Vestigial organs are absent.
There are no types of observable evolution other than microevolution (species variability designed into the genome initially)
Man was originally an intelligent and developed higher being (see Anthropogenesis)

Different directions of creationists interpret the above provisions differently.