I think most people who don't believe in evolution are unaware that the pope of the Catholic church (who is seen as one heck of a theologian, even by non-Catholics) declared that evolution isn't a problem for the church. That's a message that needs to get out there. But, as the above excerpt states, evolution needs a better ad campaign.
Is only partially the case I think.
The latest surveys in the UK show only half the population believes in evolution.
We are by no means a religious country, with a very small percentage of Christians etc.
We teach only evolution in schools and no Creationism and have done so since I was at school in the eighties. All of our Natural History TV programs are saturated with it.
We have no overarching paradigm that prevents us from believing it - the overwhelming worldview is agnostic materialism.
The problem, I think, for evolution is that it is counter-intuitive.
I have no reason to deny it at all and I accept the science (apart from the thousands of evolutionary psychology 'just-so stories').
But even I have difficulty when I think about the astounding complexity of the brain and mind. If it uses quantum effects to get past determinacy then I have even more difficulty believing that an unguided natural process could come up with something so amazing.
I am not alone in thinking this way. The more facts we gather about the brain, the less light is shed upon how the brain/mind interface works. It becomes ever more complex, the further our knowledge advances - we discover ever deeper rabbit holes.
I am certainly not saying I would rule out evolution as a completely godless and natural process. I just find it very hard to believe - and so it seems does half of the UK.
Blacknad.
