The Childlike Minds Of Intelligent Design (Creationism) Advocates

7:31 pm EST May 21st, 2007 | Uncategorized | 10 Comments

And when I say childlike, I don’t mean it in the way that so much of childhood is good. I mean the bad way.

In the last three decades, studies of children show that they quickly pick up an intuitive understanding of how the world works, say the researchers. For example, babies know that objects fall and are real and solid (even though physics experiments show they are mostly made of atoms containing empty space.) “These intuitions give children a head start when it comes to understanding and learning about objects and people. However, they also sometimes clash with scientific discoveries about the nature of the world, making certain scientific facts difficult to learn,” the review says.

“To be scientifically educated means you have to pick up a lot of counter-intuitive beliefs,” says Bloom, whose research centers on how children develop their ideas about the world. It’s perfectly rational for people to rely on intuitive beliefs about the world, i.e. that objects fall down, rather than learning Einstein’s theory of gravity, he adds. “Life is too short.” The conflict comes when intuition conflicts with scientific evidence.

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10 Responses to “The Childlike Minds Of Intelligent Design (Creationism) Advocates”

  1. Mike says:
    May 21, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    Too bad you missed the true nugget of wisdom in this piece, Oliver:

    “Many people who accept that natural selection and evolution are reasonable explanations for where species come from, can’t explain the concepts, polls show. This ‘scientifically credulous subpopulation accepts this information because they trust the people who say it is true, says the review.”(emphasis sdded)

    I would venture to guess that this measure of scientific illiteracy also explains why so many people think that a consensus of “expert” opinions equals good science.

  2. mwg says:
    May 21, 2007 at 9:42 pm

    Evolution seems to be a tough concept for many people to pick up on. The fact that schools tend to skirt away from it doesn’t help any.

  3. Rounds77 says:
    May 21, 2007 at 11:02 pm

    Mike, human beings are imperfect and are therefore incapable of knowing everything. But if we can’t turn to the experts for scientific information, who do you suggest we listen to?

    Limbaugh?
    Pat Robertson?
    Bush?
    O’Reilly?
    Any fundamentalist windbag?

    I.e. those self-proclaimed experts on everything?

  4. Wilbur says:
    May 22, 2007 at 12:54 am

    This ‘scientifically credulous subpopulation accepts this information because they trust the people who say it is true

    The flip-side of that is that regardless of the facts of the matter people tend to reject claims made by people they don’t like

    …which pretty much explains the entire wingnut response to the global warming issue.

  5. merlallen says:
    May 22, 2007 at 6:56 am

    If Rush Limpballs said evolution was real, millions of people would automatically believe in it.
    They reject it because they don’t like Al Gore. That is the only reason.

  6. St Wendeler says:
    May 22, 2007 at 10:00 am

    shall we apply the same child-like beliefs to socialist (aka liberal in the US) economic policies?

    The intuition of any number of liberal economic policies (minimum wage, “free” heathcare, protectionist trade policy, taxation, etc, etc) vs economic evidence.

    Or perhaps the environmentalist movement (see Gore’s intuitive propaganda, promotion of inefficient ethanol, prohibition on clean-burning nukes, prohibition on extracting natural resources in a clean way, etc)?

    Or perhaps abortion policy (living in the intuitions of the 60s instead of modern science)?

    Or perhaps the intuitions of thinking expanded government spending on education versus the evidence of poor performance in inverse correlation?

    Yes, child-like intuition is only found on one side of the political spectrum.

  7. St Wendeler says:
    May 22, 2007 at 10:10 am

    Unfortunately, when it comes to the formation of the universe (ie, what was here before the big bang), intuition is what most scientist have to rely on.

  8. Wilbur says:
    May 22, 2007 at 12:10 pm

    Yes, child-like intuition is only found on one side of the political spectrum.

    I wouldn’t say that, but you’ve just proved once again that the lion’s share is on your side.

  9. mambochicken23 says:
    May 22, 2007 at 12:57 pm

    Hey Mike, maybe the people that cannot accurately describe the concepts governing evolution by natural selection are willing to accept it on the basis that people they trust (e.g., scientists) overwhelmingly support it as a scientific theory.

    I don’t have to know anything about rocketry to accept the opinions of the scientists at NASA on space flight.

  10. Zython says:
    May 22, 2007 at 5:17 pm

    Or perhaps the environmentalist movement (see Gore’s intuitive propaganda, promotion of inefficient ethanol,

    Wasn’t your hero, Bush II, the one supporting ethanol?

    prohibition on clean-burning nukes,

    Pft, good luck getting public support of that.

    prohibition on extracting natural resources in a clean way, etc)?

    Ok, now you’re just making shit up.

    Or perhaps the intuitions of thinking expanded government spending on education versus the evidence of poor performance in inverse correlation?

    Because cutting funding to the point where schools can’t afford text books printed after 1952 is REALLY going to boost test scores.

    Or perhaps abortion policy (living in the intuitions of the 60s instead of modern science)?

    Modern science has proven that women aren’t people? Show me this fascinating study.