How Do Scientists Believe in God and Evolution?

American scientists. 45% of American scientists.From the NCSE article;

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While most US scientists think humans are simply smarter apes, at least 4 in 10 believe a creator "guided" evolution so that Homo sapiens are ruled by a soul or consciousness, a new survey shows...

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...according to the random survey of 1000 persons listed in the 1995 American Men and Women of Science.

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Emphasis in the original.That may or may not be a fair representation of the opinions of scientists worldwide. But that doesn't make sense. Even if we accept your idea that Satan exists and wants to trick us, it is clear that the reason why so many Christians are persuaded by the theory of evolution is the abundance of evidence in the natural world.The appearance of distinct strata, with distinct life forms appearing in them, with not a single fossil so positioned that it disproves evolution or an old Earth, is a good example. This is compelling evidence that evolution is real, but Satan wasn't responsible.If we accept the common creationist position that these strata were laid down in the flood, then it seems pretty clear that God arranged them like that, because the formations we see are just not otherwise compatible with a flood. For sedimentary rock formations to form in the wake of a global flood would require a huge chain of miracles of staggering proportion. Are we to believe that Satan was responsible for this?Scientists are persuaded by the evidence. To suggest that Satan planted that evidence is to suggest that Satan created our genes, our chromosomes, all fossils, all sedimentary rocks and so on. It just doesn't make sense. It certainly makes less sense than simply plucking up the courage to cross that line you mentioned and begin to accept the fact the Biblical creation myth is just that; a myth.

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Mutate and Survive

Yeah, I know. I just wanted to make sure that Wumpini doesn't think I'm trying to bludgeon him into submission with italics. That tends to come across as preachy and overbearing. Even easier, just stage a really showy and public miracle and associate it with some false religion. Fake an angelic visitation over Mecca during the Hajj, that should do it. Even I might convert to Islam then. Even Buzsaw might be tempted! Certainly no need for all that tedious messing around with rocks.

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Mutate and Survive

I don't doubt it. Indeed, I almost mentioned that likelihood in my last post, but it slipped my mind. I was also going to point out however, that the percentage was very likely to be lower in Europe. OK, so Satan didn't plant the evidence. This raises some awkward questions, mostly covered by Bluejay.Did God create misleading evidence? If so, how can that gel with the concept of a benevolent and loving God? You seem to be saying that God did not create misleading evidence, we are merely misinterpreting it, due to Satanic interference.Is this true? Is our ability to observe the physical world and make judgements about it really that bad? To what extent is Satan altering our perceptions or conclusions, and how? How would we tell?The great biologist J.B.S. Haldane, when asked what might constitute evidence against evolution, grumpily relied "Rabbits in the pre-Cambrian." He was being somewhat flippant, but this oft-quoted point remains a good one. We never find rabbits in pre-Cambrian deposits. We never find them in the Cambrian period either. There are no fossils of rabbits in the same strata as dinosaurs. Not one. From this, I conclude that the total lack of such anachronistic fossils represents a strong piece of evidence for evolution.How am I misinterpreting this? How has Satan led me astray in coming to this conclusion? You have already said that he did not plant the evidence himself, so I can only assume that you don't believe that Satan has gone around hiding pre-Cambrian rabbit fossils either!Has the evil one warped my mind in some way, in order to lead me to this conclusion? If so, how, and what other possible conclusion could I reach? In your model, God made the Earth. If this is so, then he seems to have deliberately arranged the fossils in such a way that trilobites are never found alongside sharks and rabbits are never found alongside dinosaurs. To suggest that we are mistaken in this simple observation of what we find in rocks is surely to doubt our senses to such an extent that we can't trust anything we see or touch. This way, madness lies.The fossils are real. They are not Satanic illusions and we are not imagining them. If God made these fossils, and they genuinely do not include anachronistic fossils such as pre-Cambrian rabbits, how do we explain this contradiction between the account in Genesis and the testimony of the rocks themselves? I wouldn't know, although I could hazard a few guesses. All I can suggest is that, if you have any problems with any aspect of evolutionary theory, that you bring up your concerns on this forum, or do some more research and see if you can find an answer.

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Mutate and Survive

Not true, at least not in the sense that you mean it.Not everyone bases their beliefs on faith as you do. Scientists base their beliefs on ever-accumulating evidence, and those beliefs are only ever tentative in nature. That makes science categorically different from religious faith, where the only excuse for evidence is the holy book and there is always great resistance to change.Really, if you want to discuss this in detail, it belongs on another thread. Perhaps you might like to start one, but before you do, you might like to familiarise yourself with the issues raised in this thread, Equating science with faith.I don't mean to be a pest, but you didn't reply to my last message. Does this mean that you are dropping the "evolution is a trick by Satan" line of argument?

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Mutate and Survive

Aw, schucks! The feeling is mutual. Your attitude is considerably more reasonable than many creationist posters, who swagger in, full of hubris, convinced that they have the argument that is going to destroy evolution, only for it to turn out to be yet another tired old PRATT. I understand that you have a lot of replies to get through, so I shan't hector you about it. Reply as and when you can. We are in agreement. Here is an interesting survey on the topic of scientists and belief in God. It too is based on American scientists, but it paints a rather different picture to the one you cited. It was carried out by Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham and the results were published in Nature.

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Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever ” almost total.
Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 "greater" scientists within his sample [1]. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively [2].

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In 1996, we repeated Leuba's 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature [3]. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba's 1914 survey to gauge belief among "greater" scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever ” a mere 7% of respondents.

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The 1998 survey saw, amongst the "greater" scientists (chosen in this case from the National Academy of Sciences), only 7% express belief in God, with 72.2% expressing disbelief and the remaining 20.8% expressing doubt or agnosticism.Food for thought. I quite agree with you that factors such as pride and personal ambition could cloud a scientist's judgement. Scientists acknowledge this. That is the reason why the scientific method seeks to drive out bias. Proper science is repeatable. It is peer reviewed and vigorously tested. Findings are not just accepted at face value, but ruthlessly tested and retested. That is why good science is always published in peer-reviewed journals, so that other experts can check if it's correct. Errors are found this way.If a overly prideful scientist were to misinterpret his results, due to a desire to be hailed as a genius, or whatever, he would eventually have his mistake revealed by the peer review system.You also list a number of questions that scientist might ask themselves. Since God is supernatural and not independently verifiable, scientists have no way of including God in their assessments. I think that if you asked this question of any scientist, they would reply that their conclusions would be the same even with this consideration in mind. Much the same can be said of your other questions about respect of peers, getting a job, etc. Science, when done properly, excludes such biases and even if a particular finding is biased, this will be rooted out in the peer-review process. It is also worth mentioning that the scientists who really command the respects of their peers are the ones who break the mould and move beyond the prevailing paradigm, such as Darwin or Einstein. Science values truth way above orthodoxy.To suggest that some scientists might misinterpret their results is reasonable. To suggest that the overwhelming majority of the scientific community are deluded due to their petty biases and furthermore, that they are all labouring under the same delusion, stretches credulity to breaking point. OK, good. We are agreed then, that Satan has not hidden fossils and that God has not deliberately planted misleading evidence in the fossil record.That leaves us with the inescapable conclusion that the fossil record paints an accurate picture of what actually happened, does it not? All that is left to decide is what the record is actually telling us. In which case, you are very poorly placed to make judgement upon thousands of hard-working biologists.Let's look at a simple example. Trilobites were an very successful group of invertebrates that lived from the mid-Cambrian, through to the end of the Permian, about 250 million years ago.Dolphins on the other hand, only appear in the fossil record about 50 million years ago.Let's leave aside the exact dates, and how they are decided upon, for now. Let's just look at one simple fact; we never see dolphins and trilobites in the same strata. There are no fossils showing trilobites and dolphins next to each other, despite the fact that they share a common habitat.What interpretation could there be, other then to conclude that trilobites and dolphins never lived at the same time? This contradicts the account in Genesis of course, where all the marine animals are created at the same time, in a single day. But what other explanation can there be for the distinct separation of trilobite and dolphin fossils, that leaves the Bible's account intact? You say that God isn't tricking us, you say that Satan hasn't messed with the fossils, so how exactly are scientists misinterpreting this simple fact?It is no use to say "You guys are misinterpreting things, but I don't have any idea how, I can only speculate as to why and I have absolutely no idea what the real interpretation might be, except that it has to agree with Genesis."Scientist believe in evolution because it is a good match with the evidence and because there is no other explanation of that evidence that makes any sense. If you want to challenge evolution, you are going to have to come up with some alternative explanation for the lack of dolphin+trilobite bearing strata, as well as for the lack of any and all other anachronistic combinations, human/ape chromosome analysis, genetic comparisons and all the many other reasons why scientists find the theory of evolution so convincing.

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Mutate and Survive

Hi Wumpini,It appears to me that your main obstacle in coming to an understanding of how theistic scientists believe in the theory of evolution is your insistence on interpreting the Bible literally, as obvious Child and Coragyps have already noted. I think that this is a big mistake.The creation account of the Old Testament, backed up, as you say, by the New, is only a problem if you insist on its being literal and absolute truth. Many Christians do not see it this way, preferring to view it as allegory or simply myth, yet with important truths revealed within it. This arguably more modern way of approaching the text poses no problems of disagreement with observed reality. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone can can remove them, but it is up to you how you interpret them. Biblical literalism creates many problems, not just in the arena of the epic stories. There are many items in the Bible that are simply not true. Bats are not birds. Hares do not chew the cud. Pi is not equal to 3. Explaining all of these silly mistakes (understandable mistakes, given their antiquity) either requires a host of tenuous and torturous apologetics, or they can simply be cut away at a stroke, by the simple acceptance that the Bible is not 100% infallible and not to be taken literally in every last detail.Perhaps you would do well to start a discussion on Biblical literalism or inerrancy, where we can discuss this kind of issue in more detail.

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Mutate and Survive