More cause for celebration: evolution acceptance on the uptick

[웃 910]

More cause for celebration: evolution acceptance on the uptick

According to a Gallup poll released today, there’s some heartening news: acceptance of evolution in America is on the rise. It isn’t jumping up precipitiously, but here are the latest data in a long-term (29-year) survey of Americans’ views on one aspect of evolution: how humans came to be (click to enlarge):

The good news is that although America still remains well behind most European countries in accepting a purely naturalistic scenario for human evolution, an increase from 9% to 16% is a 77% rise! That’s not to be sneezed at. And the proportion of Americans who think that God poofed humans into existence has dropped by 4%—a 10% decrease. (Those who think God helped human evolution along—the official position of the Catholic Church—have remained steady at 38% with some minor ups and downs.)

Some of the pro-evolution change has come from the “undecided or don’t know” camp, which this year is 6% but in 1982 was 9%. The other 4% of the increase came from the drop in straight creationists.

So things are looking up, I think. And this increase resolves what had been a puzzle for me. The data on religiosity in the United States shows it declining over time (see Sigmund’s post from earlier today). Here, for example, is a figure from a 2011 paper by Solt et al. in the Social Science Quarterly on religiosity and economic inequality. (I discussed this paper a while back):

So if religiosity is dropping in America (the data above shows a decline of 20% in religiosity since 1955 or 13% since 1982), and Coyne’s Theorem predicts that acceptance of evolution is negatively correlated with religiosity (because religion prevents people from accepting evolution), then why hasn’t acceptance of evolution increased? Well, the latest data show that it has: the increase that seemed to begin in 2000 has been sustained.

It’s not a big increase, but remember also that, at least among countries, the Darwin-vs.-God curve is relatively flat. Here’s a slide I made from survey data showing the relationship between acceptance of evolution and belief in God in 32 European countries (the US is circled). The regression on these data (which is highly significant: p = 0.0002) shows that religious belief among countries explains 36% of the variance in evolution-acceptance (this may, of course, not be causal!), and that the slope of the line is -0.33. That means that to get a 10% increase in evolution-acceptance, you have to give up 33% of your belief in God. So there’s a flat curve for the tradeoff between Darwin and God. (I am aware, of course, that the relationship among nations may not be relevant to the tradeoff in the U.S).

But, at any rate, we have good news today. And many of us feel that the benefits of waning religiosity far exceed those of simply increasing acceptance of evolution.

[bigdog 376]

A new generation.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Intelligent design? Really? If God designed this, he's a sadist.

The human reproductive system includes the following:

• In the human female, a fertilized egg can implant into the fallopian tube, cervix or ovary rather than the uterus causing an ectopic pregnancy. The existence of a cavity between the ovary and the fallopian tube could indicate a flawed design in the female reproductive system. Prior to modern surgery, ectopic pregnancy invariably caused the deaths of both mother and baby. Even in modern times, in almost all cases, the pregnancy must be aborted to save the life of the mother.
• In the human female, the birth canal passes through the pelvis. The prenatal skull will deform to a surprising extent. However, if the baby’s head is significantly larger than the pelvic opening, the baby cannot be born naturally. Prior to the development of modern surgery (caesarean section), such a complication would lead to the death of the mother, the baby or both. Other birthing complications such as breech birth are worsened by this position of the birth canal.
• In the human male, testes develop initially within the abdomen. Later during gestation, they migrate through the abdominal wall into the #######. This causes two weak points in the abdominal wall where hernias can later form. Prior to modern surgical techniques, complications from hernias including intestinal blockage, gangrene, etc., usually resulted in death.
  

Other examples of "poor design" include:

• Barely used nerves and muscles, such as the plantaris muscle of the foot, that are missing in part of the human population and are routinely harvested as spare parts if needed during operations. Another example is the muscles that move the ears, which some people can learn to control to a degree, but serve no purpose in any case.
• The common malformation of the human spinal column, leading to scoliosis, sciatica and congenital misalignment of the vertebrae.
• Almost all animals and plants synthesize their own vitamin C, but humans cannot because the gene for this enzyme is defective.
• Lack of vitamin C results in scurvy and eventually death. The gene is also non-functional in other primates and in guinea pigs, but is functional in most other animals.
• In the African locust, nerve cells start in the abdomen but connect to the wing. This leads to unnecessary use of materials.
• Intricate reproductive devices in orchids, apparently constructed from components commonly having different functions in other flowers.
• The use by pandas of their enlarged radial sesamoid bones in a manner similar to how other creatures use thumbs.
• The existence of unnecessary wings in flightless birds, e.g. ostriches.
• The route of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is such that it travels from the brain to the larynx by looping around the aortic arch. This same configuration holds true for many animals; in the case of the giraffe, this results in about twenty feet of extra nerve.
• The prevalence of congenital diseases and genetic disorders such as Huntington's Disease.
• Crowded teeth and poor sinus drainage, as human faces are significantly flatter than those of other primates and humans share the same tooth set. This results in a number of problems, most notably with wisdom teeth.
• The existence of the pharynx, a passage used for both ingestion and respiration, with the consequent drastic increase in the risk of choking.
• The structure of humans' eyes (as well as those of all mammals). The retina is 'inside out'. The nerves and blood vessels lie on the surface of the retina instead of behind it as is the case in many invertebrate species. This arrangement forces a number of complex adaptations and gives mammals a blind spot. Six muscles move the eye when three would suffice.
• The loss of tetrachromatic vision by mammals as compared to other tetrapods.
• The enzyme RuBisCO has been described as a "notoriously inefficient" enzyme, as it is inhibited by oxygen, has a very slow turnover and is not saturated at current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The enzyme is inhibited as it unable to distinguish between carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen, with oxygen acting as an competitive enzyme inhibitor. However, RuBisCO remains the key enzyme in carbon fixation, and plants overcome its poor activity by having massive amounts of it inside their cells, making it the most abundant protein on Earth.
• The enzyme nitrogenase actually preferentially binds with acetylene over di-nitrogen, despite its being the key enzyme used in nitrogen fixation in many bacteria and archaea.
• The breathing reflex is stimulated not directly by the absence of oxygen but rather indirectly by the presence of carbon dioxide. A result is that, at high altitudes, oxygen deprivation can occur in unadapted individuals who do not consciously increase their breathing rate. Oxygenless asphyxiation in a pure-nitrogen atmosphere has been proposed as a humane method of execution that exploits this oversight.
• Sturdy but heavy bones, suited for non-flight, occurring in animals like bats. Or, on the converse: unstable, light, hollow bones, suited for flight, occurring in birds like penguins and ostriches, which cannot fly.
• Various vestigial body parts, like the femur and pelvis in whales (evolution says the ancestor of whales lived on land) or the third molar - or 'wisdom teeth' - in humans (whereas some other primates with differing jaw shapes make use of the third molar).
• Turritopsis nutricula and Hydra genus have biological immortality
• Many species have strong instincts to behave in response to a certain stimulus. Natural selection can leave animals behaving in detrimental ways when they encounter supernormal stimuli - like a moth flying into a flame.
• The sea slug Elysia chlorotica can incorporate ingested chloroplasts into its cells, allowing it to get its energy from the sun (through photosynthesis). The oriental hornet is an animal that can naturally use sunlight for energy.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Mr. Big Dog