Polls, like statistics, are neither definitive nor sacrosanct in helping us understand the world, but they are not without value. A series of recent polls indicate that somewhere between 28 percent and 47 percent of Americans think that the theory of evolution is a better approach to an understanding of life on earth than a belief in creationism. If the polls are close to correct, somewhere between more than half to more than two-thirds of Americans do not believe in evolution. To those of us who view creationism as something akin to a professed or real belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, virgin birth, the Easter Bunny, infallibility, American exceptionalism and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, this is astonishing.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised. Other polls show that 52 percent of American teenagers believe in astrology. Among biology teachers, 34 percent think psychic powers can be used to read peoples’ thoughts, 29 percent believe we can communicate with the dead and 22 percent believe in ghosts. Biology teachers who use psychic powers to read minds, who communicate with the dead and who believe in ghosts are as astonishing as Creationists. One wonders what sort of evolutionary biology they teach their young charges.
Creationism comes in more than one flavor, but the plain species maintains that the universe, including all life and humanity, was created by God in six days sometime around 6000 years ago. The theory of evolution maintains that the universe and everything within it, including humanity, is a bit older, mysterious and complex than that simplistic description.
That a majority of Americans hold creationist beliefs about the universe, the earth and human life (and death) has both obvious and subtle religious, educational, cultural, social, political, military and personal consequences. It also has incalculable and mostly unacknowledged environmental costs. As Van Potter who coined the term ‘global bioethics’, said in reference to world survival, “To future generations, ignorance, superstition and illiteracy are the greatest barriers to a hopeful future for our descendants.”
If a majority of the people do not believe in and are, therefore, ignorant of evolution, then it follows they do not believe in and are ignorant of the tenets of biology. It is a biological environment in which we live. All of us‑‑Creationists, evolutionists, environmentalists, religious fundamentalists, Republicans, Democrats, scientists and evangelists‑‑all live (and die) in this same environment. A person who is convinced that the environment was created in a few days less than 10,000 years ago for the convenience and use of human beings is going to view things like ecology, biology and the connections between different living species differently than one for whom evolution is an on-going biological process (experiment?) in which we are all, inescapably, involved.
Laurence Moran defines evolution as “a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.” That seems simple enough, scientifically provable (and proven) and not threatening to any but the narrowest religious perspective. But it takes more generations than creationists have, and, more to the point of the environment, the possibility of change carries with it the responsibility of change. If the earth and its environment and all its creatures, including man, are part of an interconnected evolutionary process which mysterious beginning and ending and meaning we do not (and cannot) know, then we have a responsibility to be very careful about disrupting that process and destroying its mechanisms. If, on the other hand, the earth and its environment and creatures were put here a few thousand years ago for the use and benefit of homo-sapiens, then polluted rivers, dead lakes, clear cut forests, toxic air, two-headed frogs, drought, the extinction of any species besides homo-sapiens, acid rain, denuded and eroded landscapes, nuclear and toxic waste sites so poisonous that 10,000 years will not erase their peril to all life are just part of the creation. Not to worry. As Oklahoma U.S. Senator James Inhofe says, “God is still up there, and He promised to maintain the seasons and that cold and heat would never cease as long as the earth remains…The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
That somewhere between more than half to more than two-thirds of Americans do not believe in evolution helps explain why environmental issues are so far down the list of American voters’ concerns. To those of us who view the environment of earth as the very foundation of all life, including human life, such cavalier apathy is insane, in the same realm of human consciousness as burning women and calling them witches at the stake was insane, but, excepting the burned women themselves, having far more serious consequences.
Be that as it, according to the polls, is, the environmental movement needs to shift its focus. Using science to convince voters that the environment and the evolution of all life are in danger of being irreparably damaged by man’s technology, stupidity and greed is not sufficient. The environmental movement operates on the assumption that evolution is accepted by most Americans. At the risk of being branded witches (or worse), environmentalists need to meet the gibberish that is creationism head on and expose it as the irrational, brain-dead, fear-based, dogmatic religious superstition that it is.
The environment and human thought will benefit and show heritable changes over many generations by such a focus on evolution in action.