Abstract
I welcome this courteous response from Nick Spencer and Denis Alexander; I also welcome the opportunity to respond to it.
Mr Spencer and Dr Alexander express the view that those who work in quantitative research recognise that it involves some unavoidable problems. As one who has worked in quantitative research for the past seven years, I concur with this. However, much of the confusion engendered by the Theos/ComRes survey could have been avoided if carefully-researched definitions of key terms had been used in such a way that overlap between them was avoided. For example, the Intelligent Design movement is constantly re-iterating its position. Intelligent Design is certainly not a “slippery and abstruse concept” as Nick Spencer and Denis Alexander claim. Rather, its very simplicity seems to be what they find difficult to grasp, with its central tenet that findings in the life sciences provide scientific evidence of the work of a designer, coupled with its refusal to take the debate any further than this. This clearly-stated self-definition has two consequences for a researcher. One is that a very useful research project would be to investigate intelligent design theorists to evaluate their views on other related matters. How many of them have a personal faith in God? What kind of God do these believe in? How many of them are agnostic? How many of them believe in a form of evolution? How many of them (if any) reject evolution entirely? How many of them hold to creationist beliefs? The second consequence is that the researcher knows, a priori, that belief in intelligent design must constitute a stand-alone question in any survey concerning creation and evolution. It cannot, by definition, be listed as an alternative view since theistic evolutionists and all shades of creationists can also be intelligent design theorists. The Intelligent Design movement is able to be a “broad tent” precisely because it refuses to align itself with any wider consequences of its central tenet. Therefore it follows that all intelligent design theorists also hold other positions on the creation/evolution spectrum.
The Theos/ComRes survey started out with a set of pre-determined definitions with the aim of categorising the British public according to those definitions. The use of definitions which employed different parameters was therefore bound to create confusion. Were the questions designed to find out what respondents believed about the age of the Earth? Were they designed to find out what they believed about the mechanism by which evolution may have come about? Were they designed to find out if the respondent believed that living things show evidence of design? None of these parameters is mutually exclusive and we are not here talking about minor “grey areas.” A single respondent could believe that the Earth is young, that God guides evolution (using the term in a particular sense) and that living things are designed. If the term “evolution” were taken to mean “change related to adaptation to the environment” this profile would come close to being an accurate definition of mainstream British creationism and could involve quite large numbers of people. How then could a survey which aimed to categorise people separately by these definitions possibly produce meaningful results?
To insist on the need for a definition of the word “science” in a survey about creation and evolution is not to be a “picky critic.” Profound consequences could follow from the use of data which were confused on this point. There is a world of difference between the questioning of theories which are well-established by repeatable laboratory-type experiments (sometimes referred to as “observational science”) and hesitation over much more sweeping grand theories put forward to answer such questions as “where did we come from?”. The “particles to people” version of evolution theory falls into the latter category. To use one word, “science,” to describe both the methods such as those which established Boyle’s Law and the quite different methods and approaches used when direct observation is not possible is to invite confusion and misrepresentation. In many contexts the distinction might not matter much but in the case of the creation/evolution controversy it does. Are creationists “anti-science” or not? A precise definition of “science” is crucial if the data are intended to be used to provide an answer to that question.
Theos and the Faraday Institute are institutions which openly take a position – that of theistic evolution. The Theos/ComRes survey was part of a wider project named “Rescuing Darwin,” set up with the expressed aim of rescuing Darwin from the “clutches” of atheists and creationists. This is not impartiality and it is not enough that the two institutions stood back from any analysis of the results; a bias was already built into the survey in the form and nature of the questions used. As leading institutions in their respective fields, Theos and the Faraday Institute had every right to insist on a certain definition of theistic evolution. I am sure that they did not intend to misrepresent the other positions but that is what in practice seems to have been the case. Their survey took the approach of starting with declared categories into which they intended to fit the views of the general population of the UK. When those views manifestly did not fit neatly into those categories, explanations were required. One such explanation would be that much of the population is hopelessly confused and contradictory on the issue. An alternative explanation is that the categories, as defined in advance, were not suitable for the task.
It could be argued that the categories failed because they were etic in nature whereas what the survey required were emic definitions which would chime better with the different cultural position taken by those who espouse creationism. In this instance both “cultures” claim to be operating within the modern scientific tradition and the problem seems to be more that the creationist and intelligent design positions were insufficiently observed by those who drew up the categories. More care should have been taken to ensure that the respondents would recognise the categories into which the survey intended to place them. One way to ensure that such potential problems with quantitative surveys are avoided is therefore to work with very carefully-researched definitions developed via the involvement of broadly-based research teams. For example, a team based at York St John University which has taken this approach will soon report its findings from a major research project investigating what church-going Christians in the UK believe about creation and evolution.