Results of a national survey of 1,472 physicians revealed that more than half of physicians (63%) agree that the theory of evolution is more correct than intelligent design.
The study was conducted by the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Social and Religious Research at The Jewish Theological Seminary and HCD Research in Flemington, New Jersey, from May 13-15. The study was conducted as part of a continuing investigation of the social, political, and economic issues confronting the U.S. health care system. The margin of error for the study was plus or minus 3% at a 95% level of confidence....
"Sympathy for the idea of intelligent design comes primarily from Protestant members of the medical community, although openness to consideration of intelligent design as a legitimate speculation is strong among Catholics but completely lacking among Jews," said Alan Mittleman, director of the Finkelstein Institute.
Compare the Discovery Institute spin:
A recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Social and Religious Research finds that 60% of doctors reject Darwinism, saying that they do not think humans evolved through natural processes alone. Only 38% of the doctors polled agreed with the statement that "Humans evolved naturally with no supernatural involvement." The study also reported that 1/3 of all doctors favor the theory of intelligent design over evolution.
What's going on?
Poorly-worded questions packed with assumptions. "Do you believe more in the evolution or more with intelligent design?" What does "believe more" mean, really? 63% say "evolution." Yet 81% explain human origins using either theistic or atheistic evolution. Clearly these aren't either-or categories to the respondents.
Ignoring contradictory results. In fact, 77% of the doctors polled "support Evolution," and 57% think Intelligent Design is "religiously-inspired pseudoscience." Yet the DI neither mentions nor attempts to explain these jarring results.
Extrapolating beyond the evidence. The poll gives no indication that doctors find evolution scientifically inadequate. Rather, judging by the mixed-up results, many of them realize that unguided "Darwinism" is metaphysically inadequate--or it just doesn't square with their worldview, given that so many are admitted theists. The DI also tries to claim these numbers somehow indicate "growing" support for ID. Compared to what? One dataset isn't a trend.
Ignoring the wider context. You would think, "Gosh, 17.54% of doctors think that humans were directly created by God! That's impressive!" Except that nearly three times that percentage in the wider population believe God created humans around 10,000 years ago. And while 10% of the general public states belief in some form of "naturalistic" evolution, 38% of doctors do. Odd, how a better education in biology makes one more, not less, likely to support "godless Darwinism."
In sum: there isn't much to surprise in this poll. Unremarkably, theological affiliations are strong predictors of answers to bogus questions.
Even more unremarkably, the Discovery Institute wants to spin dross into gold.
[Survey links courtesy of this silly essay by Jonathan Witt.]
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