Even
though the suppositions underlying the Big Bang Theory are taken straight out
of Genesis, many creationists nevertheless find the theory abhorrent. They
don’t mind things popping out of nothing, but they assume that it had to be
with the help of an imaginary friend. As Jerry Coyne mentions in his post
below, belief in naturalistic evolution in the US is still only about 15%:
From Jerry Coyne’s review of the recent poll by Gallup (http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/latest-gallup-poll-on-u-s-acceptance-of-evolution-flatlined-as-usual/ ).
Not only that, note that the liberal religious position has recently lost 6%, while the strictly creationist position has gained 6%. Remarkably, this is in spite of the rise of the unaffiliated, which is an inverse function of age:
Why these two polls don’t agree is somewhat of a mystery, although, as Jerry points out, the summary written for the Gallup poll “is somewhat of a sop to evolution-deniers, unworthy of a respectable poll.” The Gallup poll, of course, concerns only biological evolution. You can imagine what the results would be for univironmental determinism, which after all, states that “what happens to a portion of the universe is determined by the infinite matter within and without.” Coyne’s charge is to teach evolution to the mostly devout college students. He has enough trouble with the biological; he doesn’t need to introduce the univironmental. Besides, like most other neo-Darwinists, he is a great supporter of the Big Bang Theory. It does purport to have an evolutionary component after all. Neo-Darwinists generally take offense at any disparagement of the BBT, automatically assuming that anyone in opposition must be anti-science at the least or a creationist at the most. Few seem to realize that the assumption opposing creation is conservation, not evolution. I guess that biologists need more education in thermodynamics, whose first law is the Fifth Assumption of Science, conservation (Matter and the motion of matter can be neither created nor destroyed).