Who believes in intelligent design?

“Some readers have chided me for referring to ID [Intelligent Design] as "flapdoodle." .... Heaven forbid I should be thought ill-mannered! … I therefore beg you to strike out the word "flapdoodle" and replace it with one of the following, according to taste: balderdash, baloney, blather, bunkum, bushwa, claptrap, gobbledygook, hocus-pocus, hogwash, hokum, hooey, humbug, mumbo-jumbo, piffle, rigmarole, tripe, twaddle.” 

-John Derbyshire, author and commentator.

We should name it the Two Hundred Years’ War. Since the time of Darwin, battles have raged in classrooms, courthouses, churches, and coffee shops between advocates and opponents of the theory of evolution. So how goes the war? If one is to believe the preponderance of professors, politicians, and pundits, intelligent skeptics of evolution are long extinct, losers of a long settled competition for survival of the fittest arguments. Or, if any do survive, they persist only in the remote jungles of fundamentalist religious sects where intelligence is suspended by dogma. On the other hand, Gallup surveys indicate the theory has so far failed to capture the allegiance of the general public, a fact that is repeatedly and passionately invoked to prove the dismal failure of public education (and, of course, its need for additional funding).

It is treated as an article of faith that not just a majority, but a Supermajority, of scientists unreservedly accept evolution as the final explanation for the origin of life and species.

Well, maybe…and maybe not. A 1996 Gallup survey of American scientists found that presented with only three options, 55% chose naturalistic evolution, 40% chose theistic evolution, and 5% believed man was created sometime in the last 10,000 years. Given the choices offered, it is hard to make sense of this data, except that even at 5%, belief in a recent Creation is probably higher among scientists than journalists or members of the ACLU. The questions left no room for a believer in some version of creation who thinks humans appeared much more than 10,000 years ago. If they had, would it be higher than 5%? Nor do we know what to make of the 40% of scientists who subscribe to theistic evolution. There is no universally agreed upon definition for this expression. This camp could include both True Believers in evolution who happen to be theists, as well as theists who dispute the adequacy of naturalistic explanations, but are willing to believe that evolution could have and did work with a little Divine assistance.

A a different twist on things comes to us courtesy of the Finkelstein Institute at the Jewish Theological Seminary. In May of 2006, the Institute conducted a survey of U.S. physicians regarding their views on human origin. In a major setback to hard-core evolutionists, only 39% of surveyed physicians believe humans came into existence by purely natural means. When asked whether they agreed more with evolution or intelligent design, a majority (63%) favored evolution, as long as theistic evolution was an option. But then comes the kicker: 34% of physicians surveyed voted for intelligent design. Among Protestant physicians, support for intelligent design attained majority support with 54% of the votes. 

Within the study group, certain non-Christian groups were overrepresented and Protestants were underrepresented compared to the general medical community, so that overall support for Intelligent Design among physicians may actually have been underestimated. Even so, 34% of 800,000 physicians adds up to a lot of scientists leaning toward intelligent design, especially when one considers the fact that there are more MD’s by far than PhD’s in the natural sciences. There are ten times as many neurosurgeons as there are paleontologists.

Who gets to be called a “scientist”? According to the National Science Foundation, about 40,000 doctorates are awarded each year in U.S. universities. Of these, about 25,000 are in science and engineering, and all could legitimately claim to be scientists. One could stipulate that to have an informed opinion on evolution, a scientist should have some graduate education in biochemistry or biological sciences. Yet fewer than 8,000 doctorates are in chemical or biological sciences, compared to the nearly 30,000 physicians graduating from U.S. residencies each year.

Should physicians’ opinions matter? Are they really scientists? It would be hard to deny them the appellation based on training. Just to get into a medical school requires two years of college chemistry, one year of physics, and one year of biology – and not just passing them, but finishing in the upper half, at least. Because of the intense premedical requirements in the sciences, the majority of practicing physicians majored in either biology or chemistry. Upon entry to medical school a more advanced curriculum kicks in, with graduate level courses in biochemistry, embryology, genetics, microbiology, physiology, and anatomy. Insofar as it prepares one to form an informed opinion on the complexity of life and the adequacy of a naturalistic explanation, this curriculum is as broad as it gets. Some might think that a closer acquaintance with the fossil record might be useful, a valid point but for two caveats. First, the fossil record is equally compatible with some versions of divine origin; second, evolution is at its core not an anatomical matter but a biochemical one. It is driven by genetics, and genetics is driven by DNA.

Is there a potential for bias among physicians? There is evidence that physicians are more religious on average than some segments of the scientific community. A 2005 report found that nearly all U.S. physicians identify with one of the major religions, with only 2% favoring atheism and 1.5% agnosticism. Over 60% identified themselves as Christian. By contrast, a 1998 survey of members of the National Academy of Sciences found this cohort to be almost totally opposite, with very low levels of belief in any deity. The least religious of all? Biologists, with only 5.5% expressing belief in a God. Even after allowing for the margin of error, it’s pretty clear that physicians are quite religious and biologists generally irreligious, but what impact might that have on one’s attitude toward evolution? Some will argue that physicians’ religious beliefs leads to a bias against objective appraisal of the scientific evidence, but the same case can be laid against the biologists. Theists are free to believe, or not believe, in evolution as they see fit. Even the most ardent advocates of evolution, when they take a occasional breather from ridiculing people of faith, are quick to point out there is no necessary contradiction between theism and evolution, a position echoed by the Roman Catholic Church. Atheists are in more of a bind – their worldview demands total commitment to a naturalistic explanation to the origin of life and species (and absolute faith that the evidence is forthcoming). So who is at greater liberty to form an unbiased opinion, the theist or the atheist?

Perhaps one reason physicians are so diverse on this subject is because they have so little at stake. Hardly anyone cares whether they believe in evolution or not – neither medical school admission committees, nor their faculty, nor nurses, nor patients. A biologist who did not believe in evolution would have a very difficult time making friends, much less a career. Peer pressure, after all, does not release its grip upon high school graduation.

Despite (or on account of) having received extensive training in the biological sciences at the graduate level, less than 40% of physicians accept a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life and species. This one finding alone confutes the assertion that evolution is the only scientifically acceptable explanation for life’s origin, much less still that it should be treated as fact. Based on the Finkelstein survey, there are probably hundreds of thousands of scientist-physicians in this nation who lean to intelligent design, exceeding by far the total number of biologists.

There is ongoing debate as to whether or not evolution can explain all of life’s mysteries, and that is likely to continue for decades to come. How evolution should be approached in schools is a different matter. It is time for whomever wishes to responsibly engage in that debate to admit that belief in the theory is far from universal even among scientists, that supporters of intelligent design are not imbeciles (it is assuredly the case that many are a quite a bit brighter than their critics), and that there is genuine disagreement over a theory that has demonstrably failed to capture the undivided support of America’s scientific community.