First here is how the results came in for the membership as a whole:

With 2/3 of our members accepting evolution of humans it’s probably pretty surprising to your average church goer. Is it the evil secular universities that Expelled railed against? We can look and see how the answers differed for those who attended secular or Christian universities.

My columns correspond to:

1. The Universe is 14 billion years old
2. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old.
3. Natural evolution. That is plants and animals evolved with natural causes.
4. Generic evolution. That is plants and animals evolved through either natural or non-natural causes. This is calculated by counting up who answered yes to either the natural or non-natural question.
5. Human evolution.

I’ve included a bar called all in all my charts so that the average response can be compared.

Nope. No difference. Another thing to explore is whether there is any difference between scientists who are currently employed full time and those who are retired. Presumably the former would be more aware of the current state of the evidence since they are in the thick of it.

So, at least in the minds of those who are currently full-time scientists, the state of the evidence is moving in the direction of natural and human evolution. The difference between the full-time scientists and the retired ones is 13-14%.

Now let’s look at the employers of the scientists. Since origins is basic and not applied research those who are in education, government, and medical should be more aware of the state of the evidence over and against industry and ministry.

Education, government, and medical all cluster together. I haven’t talked about the age of the Earth or Universe since there is mostly agreement regardless of category. Here we have a drop in support for an old Universe by those in the medical field. Hmm. We see more profound drops in support of natural evolution: 17% for industry and 31% for ministry. Human evolution drops 16% and 29% respectively.

Finally, let’s test my hypothesis that differences in opinions stems from differences in familiarity with the evidence by looking at the specific domain experts. I will look at full-time biologists, geologists, and physicists/astronomers. I will include engineers as a group of non-experts with which to compare.

100% of the physicists/astronomers affirm an ancient Universe and 100% of full-time geologists affirm an ancient Earth. 80% of full-time biologists affirm natural evolution and human evolution and 88% of them affirm generic evolution. The difference from engineers is 30% for natural evolution, 18% for generic evolution, and 24% for human evolution. The degree to which there is a difference of opinions on origins is not related to whether Christian scientists went to a Christian or secular school. Rather, it is related to the degree of familiarity with the scientific evidence. The greater the familiarity, the greater the degree of acceptance of mainstream science on origins.

So far, I’ve limited myself to areas where there is scientific consensus. The questions above are more in the developing stage where there is some evidence but more work needs to be done. See my blog post for one example. We still see a similar pattern where the domain experts see more of the evidence, probably because it’s more obscure. Still, only the OOL evidence was sufficient to warrant a bare majority (51%) of the experts. Multiverses were the exception where the physicists/astronomers scored it lower than the non-experts.

CORRECTION:

In the comments our executive director, Randy Isaac, noted a flaw in how I did the calculation and Doug Hayworth noticed my graph format was not helpful (N.B. for those who are unfamiliar with peer review Terry’s, Randy’s, and Doug’s comments are similar to what happens in the peer review process. The difference between this and real peer review is the intensity of the review and the domain expertise of the reviewers.) Randy noted that roughly 8% did not choose to affirm any of the statements. I interpreted this as no answer and didn’t include them in the calculations. For example, a young earth creationist would presumably also not select any of the options and by treating it the way I did his response would not be counted. So, the better approach is to treat this situation as “none of the above”. Treating none of the above as a proxy for YEC and since a non-domain experts maybe hesitant to give an exact answer to the age questions, 8% is probably the upper limit of YEC in our organization.

So, I redid the calculations and here are the comparisons.

There is still no real difference based on going to a Christian or secular college. This doesn’t explain any difference of views.

There is a 14% difference on evolution based on natural causes in the original calculation and 13% with the new one. The difference for human evolution 13% and 12% respectively.

The difference between education and ministry is 31% for the old calculation and 28% for the new for evolution with natural causes. The differences are 29% and 26% respectively for human evolution.

Expertise is the only area where the new calculation shows any substantive differences. 7% of the full-time biologists affirmed none of the statements. All the full-time geologists picked at least one of the statements and all affirmed an old earth. Engineers, physicists and geologists had a response rate than the biologists and had a higher response to the age of the Universe question.

For the old calculation, there is a 30% difference for the natural evolution statement between biologists and engineers and a 31% difference between geologists and engineers. For the new calculation this changes to 27% and 33%. Human evolution showed similar small changes between the new and old calculations.

So, my original thesis still appears to hold. Employed scientists are more likely to accept the consensus science than retired ones. Scientists employed in areas that are more likely to do basic science, likewise. Finally, the areas of expertise closest to the areas of age of the earth and evolution are also more likely to accept this than areas that are further away. Going to a Christian college versus a secular one has no bearing on whether the mainstream science is accepted.

An Origins Parable

Over the years, there has been a great deal of blood spilled, or at least ink spilled, over the creation science and origins debates. What follows is an “intelligently designed” attempt to illustrate the differences between various positions on origins, using a somewhat humorous but generally accurate parable. This is presented in the form of position statements on the fictitious but highly controversial “embryology versus Bible” debate.

BACKGROUND

The science of embryology says that a baby is formed through natural processes, starting with the “conception” when a sperm cell joins with an egg cell. These two cells join their DNA and subdivide into multiple cells, which becomes a fetus. Over time, the fetus grows in size through cellular division, and various biological structures gradually develop into distinctive body parts. After approximately nine months, a normal pregnancy will come to full term, and the baby is born.

By contrast, the Bible declares that babies are made by God. Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV) declares, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Also, “Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things” (Isaiah 44:24); and “Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?” (Job 31:15).

Does God create babies, or are they formed through gradual biological processes? The following statements outline various theological positions in this controversy.

ATHEISM / MATERIALISM

Babies are formed through purely natural processes of biological development. These processes can be studied and examined scientifically, and follow regular patterns of natural cause and effect. There is no reason to think that a divine being or miraculous intervention are required in order to help this process along. Physical matter is all there is, and nature is quite capable of getting the job done without the action of a god or gods.

NEW ATHEISM

Same as above, and anyone who still believes God is involved in the process of human birth is either a lunatic, an idiot, or both.

YOUNG EMBRYO CONCEPTIONISM (YEC) with APPEARANCE OF AGE and CATASTROPHISM

The godless embryologists tell us that babies are formed through naturalistic processes in the absence of God. This is known as “materialism”. They also mistakenly believe that babies are formed gradually over a process of many months, which is based on their naturalistic assumption of “uniformitarianism” – the belief that processes of biological development only take place uniformly and gradually. Yet they have no explanation for all the complex interactions that lead to the development of the various systems in our bodies.

Holy scripture, on the other hand, declares that God knits us together in our mother’s womb, and that He is the creator and maker of our physical bodies as well as our souls. Who are we to believe, human scientists with limited and incomplete knowledge, or God who knows all things and has declared Himself to be our Maker?

Since God is all-powerful, there is no reason to believe that He needed all those months and laborious activity in order to create a human body. Whereas secular, anti-Christian science declares that it takes nine months for a baby to form, the Christian assumption of “catastophism” says that things don’t have to necessarily happen slowly over long periods of time, but can actually develop quickly through a rapid succession of stages. New research indicates that babies may actually be formed in about ten seconds through a rapid process of development, not the nine months as generally assumed by materialistic scientists. All the presumed length of time and gradual steps of development over months of time, including the detailed history implanted in the memory of the mother, sonagram pictures, and doctor’s office records, actually just indicate an appearance of age and not actual age. God creates babies in ten seconds and implants a supernatural soul just before their eventual birth, but due to the effects of “appearance of age” it merely seems like it has taken place over a long period of time.

OLD EMBRYO CONCEPTIONISM (OEC)

The science of embryology is generally correct with respect to the physical sequence of the creation of babies, including the time of development from conception to birth, and the processes of fertilization, implantation, and gradual biological development. Yet science cannot explain exactly how the body of a fetus develops new body parts and internal organs, the development of the complexities of the eye, the circulatory and immune systems, etc. All they can do is presume that nature is capable of doing these things in the absence of God, without providing any sort of complete explanation.

Scripture provides the answer to these problems that continue to stump materialistic scientists. It says that God forms us in our mother’s womb, but it also says that God “fashions” us, using language similar to the working of an artisan, such as a potter. A potter uses raw materials such as clay and the spinning motion of a potter’s wheel, yet he imparts intelligent action at various points in order to shape the clay. In the same way, naturalistic forces and materials by themselves are unable to account for all the amazing complexity of the human body. God intercedes at various points during the process of fetal development in order to miraculously create elements of bodily function, yet in between times, He allows the natural process of biological development to proceed in normal fashion. Most notably is the injection of the human soul, which is an act of divine fiat and cannot be explained in naturalistic terms.

INTELLIGENT DESIGN (ID)

The intricate processes and systems in the human body are amazingly complex and cannot be accounted for in terms of materialistic assumptions. Systems such as the human eye, DNA, immune system, etc., have surprising levels of complexity and specificity which are best viewed in terms of information theory, using Shannon’s theorems. The degree of complex specified information (CSI) present in DNA and many other biological structures and systems are best explained as a designed system that originated from some intelligent source, rather than through a series of random, chance events.

Intelligent design is a scientific claim about design being evidenced by the information content, not a theological or philosophical claim. ID makes no claims as to the identity of the “intelligent designer” — it might have been from a God or gods, an alien, or possibly an intelligent stork that is capable of producing these designed features within an otherwise natural process. ID also makes no statement as to the length of fetal development — it could be ten seconds or nine months, but that conclusion is beyond the kind of scientific assertion that ID is able to make.

THEISTIC EMBRYOLOGY (TE)

The science of embryology is very well developed and has a great deal of accurate knowledge of bodily processes inherent in the development and birth of a child. While science cannot (and perhaps never will) have complete knowledge of every detailed step in this developmental process, the general conclusion that human fetal development occurs through essentially natural processes seems to be an inescapable conclusion based on the evidence at hand. There is no reason to assume that supernatural miracles are necessary in order to progress a fetus from one stage of development to another, and science continues to fill in gaps in our limited human knowledge as to the details of this process.

However, science is limited to studying only the natural, “secondary” causes and effects, and has nothing whatsoever to say about the presence or absence of a divine Creator. The belief in a divine Creator is a theological position, which is entirely justified based on the evidence, but which can neither be conclusively proven nor disproven by science. Among the evidences that point to a divine creator is the very fact that something exists rather than nothing, and the fact that life bears evidence of a beginning and progress toward a final end, rather than an eternal self-existence. As theists, we absolutely believe that God is the Creator and sustainer of all things, including fetal development, and that He is the “primary cause” of all things. The fact that He chooses to create human bodies through a progression of apparently natural, secondary causes is not surprising, because that is how all of nature appears to work from a scientific point of view.

Theistic Embryologists differ over the degree or manner of God’s involvement in fetal development. Some believe that God’s providence is universally and completely present within and through all things at all times, so that the development of a fetus is simultaneously the work of Providence (primary cause) and natural processes (secondary causes). Others prefer a view known as “front-loading” or “fully gifted conception”, which holds that God only needed to create the initial blueprint of how cells can fertilize, reproduce, and develop. After that, no more interventions or miraculous acts are required to progress the fetus through its development. TEs also differ on whether the soul is a supernatural creation that is implanted into the physical human body, or whether the soul is an emergent property of humankind.

From a personal perspective, I’m proud to say that the team leader, Paula Reimer, is married to a good friend of mine from my home town. I haven’t seen him for four decades but I always enjoy hearing from him and about their work in radiocarbon dating.

Randy