Even in a heightened state of cynicism, this isn’t something I would have guessed. In comments to the Santorum post, Becky Stanek points out that most medical doctors believe that evolution should be taught in schools. That brought me up short — “most”? Shouldn’t it be “essentially all”?
Actually, no. The poll results are, from my perspective, horrifying. Some lowlights:
- 37% of physicians do not agree that the theory of evolution is more correct than intelligent design.
- More than half of Protestant physicians (54%) agree more with intelligent design than with evolution.
- 35% of those Protestants believe that God created humans in their present form.
- Half of all doctors believe that schools should be allowed to teach intelligent design.
- When asked whether intelligent design has legitimacy as science, an overwhelming majority of Jewish doctors (83%) and half of Catholic doctors (51%) believe that intelligent design is simply “a religiously inspired pseudo- science rather than a legitimate scientific speculation,” while more than half of Protestant doctors (63%) believe that intelligent design is a “legitimate scientific speculation.”
Don’t doctors have to, you know, go to college? I could imagine noise at the 10% level, but this kind of widespread superstition among purportedly educated people is appalling. What is going on?
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