The American National Academy of Science calls for a warm embrace of both religion and evolution. How do scientists manage to reconcile these two contrasting ways of explaining our origins? There is a more widespread acceptance that believing in evolution and creationism is incompatible.
Evolution is an idea based on scientific evidence that life developed because of random mutations in genetic material and the process of natural selection.
Creationism, on the other hand, requires faith without analysis that life began due to the intervention of a supernatural creator. For this reason, there is a conflict between evolution and creationism that some people say can never be resolved. For instance, some evolutionary scientists, including Richard Dawkins , see a world where only evolution can exist. Such evolutionists reject the premise of religion on the grounds that there is no evidence for it, instead favouring a naturalist worldview.
Naturalism is the belief that only things in the natural world that can be observed and verified with evidence exist. For these scientists, evolution is the only way of explaining the origins of life, as belief in a creator requires faith and faith has no natural basis that can be subjected to experimentation.
Participants were classified as Christian i. These results held when Catholics were classified as non-Christians rather than Christians, and this was the case in all studies. Indeed, MS manipulations tend to have little impact on explicit affect, but effects emerge occasionally, as was the case in Studies 1 and 3 here.
However, entering positive affect and negative affect as covariates in all five studies did not alter any results. Thus, belief in IDT may, in part, be a normative response to heightened death awareness. However, the sample included in Study 1 was highly homogenous; it remains unclear whether students of more varied science backgrounds, better representing the educated public who support IDT, would respond similarly. Study 2 was designed to address this issue.
A 2 Behe-IDT vs. In general, the findings of Study 2 replicate those of Study 1. This difference between studies may be due to a lower baseline belief in ET in the more diverse Study 2 sample, or to reluctance among Study 1's psychology student participants to question ET while participating in scientific research. Nonetheless, the studies converge to suggest that university educated individuals' views of IDT and ET can be influenced by existential threat. However, both studies were restricted to student populations, leaving it unclear whether widespread support for IDT and skepticism toward ET seen among post-collegiate Americans can be attributed to terror management processes.
Similarly, we do not know whether individuals who have not attended college would respond similarly. Individuals who do not subscribe to the scientific cultural worldview may be less likely to implicitly use their beliefs about scientific or seemingly scientific theories as a way of managing existential threat. Thus, to the extent that the results of Studies 1 and 2 were due to the scientific framing of IDT and ET, they may not generalize to less educated individuals.
In addition, to retain ecological validity, both Studies 1 and 2 manipulated ET and IDT using statements written by two prominent authors, thus examining how MS influences views of these theories as they are actually encountered by the average science student, teacher, or other well-read individual. However, as a consequence of this design, it remains possible that the differences found were due not to the relative merits of the theories, but rather to something unique about the writing of the two passages.
Study 3 was designed to address these issues. To examine whether participants' educational background—a rough indicator of their subscription to the scientific worldview—moderated effects, we first converted education to a dichotomous variable based on a median split college graduates vs.
These findings suggest that the present results are not driven by individuals with a strong educational background, but rather seem to represent a terror management strategy used regardless of education. This is informative for the distinction that emerged between Studies 1 and 2, regarding whether participants were more likely to support IDT or disavow ET in response to MS.
Given that the specific effects of Study 3 mirrored those of Study 2, and in both studies participants were not drawn from a population of psychology students participating in research for psychological course credit as they were in Study 1 , these findings support our interpretation of the difference between studies as related to individuals' longstanding beliefs about ET.
Individuals who are not necessarily psychology students, may or may not have strong educational backgrounds, and tend to hold weaker pro-ET views than do psychology students, appear more willing to shift their views of ET in response to MS, compared with psychology students participating in psychological research as part of a course requirement.
Supporting this interpretation, the highly diverse Study 3 sample showed greater control-condition positivity toward IDT and negativity toward ET than did the less diverse Study 1 and 2 samples; examining the four items that directly addressed views of IDT and ET i. Together, these studies suggest that individuals ranging in age from late adolescence to late adulthood, from a diverse range of socioeconomic, regional, and educational backgrounds, tend to respond to MS with increased support for IDT or decreased support for ET.
However, the results thus far do not tell us whether these effects were, as we surmise, due to an activated search for greater meaning and purpose in response to existential threat. However, few previous studies have established a motivational causal process beyond avoidance of death-related anxiety underlying the effects of MS. In one relevant study a motivation to increase feelings of control was found to account for MS effects [38] , but that motive is unlikely to account for the present results because both ET and IDT depict humans as at the mercy of external forces i.
In addition, one limitation of Studies 1—3 is that religious belief was assessed only during the experimental session, and stable attitudes about evolution could not be assessed separately from the dependent variable, so we had no baseline measure of religion or attitudes toward ET. Furthermore, the religious disposition that might be expected to most strongly influence views of IDT and ET, religious fundamentalism, was not assessed.
Thus, Study 4 included a follow-up assessment, in which we measured religious including fundamentalism and evolution beliefs several months after the experiment, on a subset of the sample. If participants in Studies 1—3 responded to MS by evidencing discomfort with ET, a scientific theory that may be taken to indicate the meaninglessness of human existence, or embracing IDT, a seemingly scientific theory that may be taken to indicate greater meaning in human life, because existential concerns promote the acceptance of seemingly scientific theories that provide such meaning and the rejection of those that do not, then framing ET as having the potential to provide meaning and purpose should remove or reverse these effects.
Under such conditions, psychology students should not need to embrace IDT in the face of existential threat, as they did in Study 1, because the more normative theory associated with their scientific worldview would no longer be inconsistent with the need to find greater meaning.
We tested this account in Study 4 by assigning half the participants to read an excerpted passage by cosmologist and science writer Carl Sagan arguing that humans can attain meaning and purpose by seeking to understand the natural origins of life [35]. The passage articulates a way in which greater meaning can be found from embracing naturalism, so if the findings from Studies 1—3 were due to the apparent absence of such meaning in ET compared to IDT, reading this passage should weaken or reverse those effects.
A 2 Sagan vs. To interpret this three-way interaction, we conducted two 2 MS vs. This represents a full reversal of the effect found in Study 1, where MS led to significantly increased positivity toward Behe-IDT compared to control.
Finally, with only one exception, none of the four measures of stable religious views or ET acceptance moderated any of the interactions or main effects in this subsample.
Given that similar effects did not emerge with any of the other religion measures, and this particular effect is not easily interpretable, it is unlikely to be reliable. In sum, the present results cannot be attributed to stable individual differences in religious belief, fundamentalism, or views of evolution, and do not vary depending on these beliefs or views.
One potential limitation of this study is that we did not include a neutral control passage in the no-Sagan condition, given that even a seemingly neutral passage might have elicited unexpected priming effects. This resulted in an approximately 2-minute additional delay following the MS manipulation in the Sagan condition. However, this delay-length difference is unlikely to account for effects, because: a in Studies 1 and 2, participants read counterbalanced passages by Dawkins and Behe, and completed each measure immediately after each passage, yet no order effects emerged despite the varying delay lengths; and b if the additional delay influenced results, previous research suggests that it would either increase the effect, if the delay heightened participants' terror-management response, or decrease the effect, if the delay allowed terror-management processes to wane [39].
There is no indication, conceptual or empirical, that an additional delay would completely reverse effects. Thus, it is considerably more likely that the strong differences found between the Sagan and no-Sagan conditions resulted from the substantive content of the Sagan manipulation.
The findings of Study 4 converge with those of Studies 1, 2, and 3, but add to our conceptual understanding. Specifically, the finding that reading Sagan's excerpt moderated the interaction between MS and attitudes toward ET versus IDT suggests that a desire to see human life as having greater meaning and purpose likely underlies our previous effects. Reading the Sagan passage apparently dissuaded participants from embracing IDT as a way of managing existential concerns, and in fact made participants facing existential threat more antagonistic toward IDT, presumably because it threatened the theory that is the true mainstay of their scientific worldview and that could now be seen as providing existential meaning.
This result is important because it addresses the process underlying the causal link between MS and scientific beliefs. Given these findings, certain individuals who are more deeply invested in the scientific worldview e. Thus, in Study 5 we directly sampled natural-science students. For these individuals, ET is not simply a theory they have learned in some courses, it is the cornerstone of their academic life, and an identity-defining worldview.
Thus, we expected that these participants would not reject ET in the face of existential threat, but would instead more staunchly support the theory, given that, like Sagan, they may view naturalism as providing human life with meaning and purpose. Thus, Study 5 suggests that there is at least one group of individuals who do not embrace IDT or reject ET in response to MS: individuals invested in natural-science research.
Here, heightened existential threat led to the opposite response from that seen among psychology students in Studies 1 and 4, the diverse students in Study 2, and diverse adults in Study 3.
The present responses were, however, similar to those of the psychology students in Study 4 who learned that naturalism can be a source of greater meaning i. Together, Studies 4 and 5 thus suggest that individuals who can find greater meaning in a naturalist perspective respond to existential threat by rejecting IDT and trending toward greater belief in ET.
Presumably, shifting these views in response to MS allows these students to enhance symbolic immortality by reaffirming the scientific perspective that is a major part of their worldview and provides meaning and purpose. These findings thus support our account of the causal process underlying the effects found in Studies 1—3, and delineate an important boundary condition for these effects. The present findings demonstrate that reminders of one's mortality—inducing a state of mortality salience—promote relative support for IDT, and skepticism toward ET.
These findings also suggest that a desire to find greater meaning in human life accounts for this effect at least the effect of mortality salience on belief in IDT , because it is reversed by making ET more meaningful, and among natural-science students for whom ET is presumably already meaningful.
The findings are notable because they a help explain why some people are motivated to believe in IDT and doubt ET in terms of fundamental psychological drives; b account for the underlying causal process; and c emerged regardless of preexisting religious ideologies, religious affiliation, or with one highly limited exception, discussed below views of evolution.
This last point suggests that although religion influences baseline beliefs in IDT and ET, it cannot account for the impact of MS on these views. Given previous research suggesting that many MS effects are heightened, or occur only, among individuals with certain preexisting belief systems or cultural associations, the fact that we found no moderators of MS effects—other than the extent to which naturalism is seen as meaningful—suggests that embracing IDT or rejecting ET may be a unique, broadly appealing mechanism that addresses the existential concerns of religious and, for the most part, more scientifically oriented individuals alike.
In contrast, explicitly religious ideologies tend to be fairly parochial, limiting their appeal and making them viable defenses only for those who already believe in a supernatural god [15]. Yet, an exception emerged in Study 5, where individuals whose life goals require strong acceptance of ET showed the opposite responses. Like those explicitly taught, in Study 4, to view naturalism as a source of meaning, natural-science students responded to MS with stronger antagonism toward IDT.
This provides converging support for the causal process found in Study 4, and suggests that rejecting IDT can be a source of existential comfort for a limited population of individuals.
These individuals are not simply those steeped in the scientific cultural worldview—presumably psychology undergraduates fall into that category—but rather those who more specifically view evolution as a critical part of their understanding of the world and a source of meaning and purpose. Although the precise direction of the effect—whether it emerged more strongly as antagonism toward ET or support for IDT—differed across studies, this was likely due to sampling differences.
The same pattern of results was observed in the samples that, demographically, most resembled each other—those in Studies 1 and 4, and Studies 2 and 3—the former of which revealed a greater effect on Behe-IDT, and the latter on Dawkins-ET.
Study 1 and 4 participants were largely middle-to-upper class and well-versed if not firmly entrenched in ET and the scientific cultural worldview. These individuals appeared to be largely unmovable in their views of ET, probably because the theory has become such a mainstay of their worldview as social-science students that, even if they would like to reject it when confronted with existential threat, this desire is negated by a compulsion to affirm ET as an important worldview component.
Instead, these individuals modified their more malleable attitudes—those related to IDT, a theory with which they are almost certainly less familiar.
In contrast, Study 2 and 3 participants were drawn from a broader community; most were recruited by a survey company and either attended a wide variety of universities across North America Study 2 or were adults whose age and socioeconomic status represented almost the entire spectrum of the U.
Although these individuals are likely to be at least nominally familiar with ET, the theory is unlikely to be as important to their understanding of the world as it is for psychology undergraduates. This may explain why they were willing to espouse more negativity toward ET in order to defend against MS. It is unclear why these individuals would not also show stronger support for IDT in such conditions, but given trends in that direction, it may be that rejecting ET is simply the more powerful means of coping with existential threat, at least for individuals who do not feel a sense of loyalty to the theory.
Regardless, it is noteworthy that while demographic factors may influence the specific nature of this response, they do not change whether the response occurs; as was shown in the Study 4 follow-up, effects held controlling for stable views of ET.
More broadly, the fact that a consistent pattern emerged across studies, but with differences in the specific nature of the pattern depending on sample characteristics, suggests that embracing IDT and rejecting ET may be functionally similar in terms of regulating the potential for existential anxiety. Nonetheless, although we strongly suspect that differences across studies were due to sampling, further research is needed. The present research addresses critical questions about the process underlying effects found.
Thus far, studies have demonstrated that the effects of mortality salience may be mediated by death-thought accessibility [23] and the potential for anxiety [41] , but there is little evidence regarding the specific motivational nature of different terror management mechanisms; that is, few studies have directly examined why particular worldviews assuage death-related anxiety, by testing whether responses are moderated by the extent to which they resolve some need or motive.
Here, we expected that IDT would be more appealing than ET because it better addresses a motivation to find meaning and purpose in the face of existential threat; findings from Studies 4 and 5 support this account. Although Study 5's natural-science student participants may have been driven by a more general desire to embrace an already accepted worldview or reject a theory antagonistic to it [42] , the fact that they were able to do so, given the results of the previous four studies, suggests that they also view ET as a source of expansive meaning.
However, future studies are needed to probe the specific causal process underlying these individuals' responses, to determine whether it is the same as that of the psychology students in Study 4 who read the Sagan passage.
The results of Studies 4 and 5 also may have implications for the process underlying other effects of mortality salience, such as gravitation toward religious ideas [15]. They also pinpoint the problem with ET for individuals seeking security in the face of existential threat. Future studies are needed to examine whether manipulations along these lines, demonstrating the potential for meaningfulness in the natural sciences, generalize beyond psychology students who may already be motivated to find such meaning in science.
These findings have implications for our understanding of how existential concerns influence views of scientific theories and individuals' willingness to accept them, and for the success of the IDT movement. No previous study has examined whether psychological motives influence the ongoing debate between proponents of IDT and ET—a debate of great importance to the future of science and science education.
The present research suggests that attitudes toward scientific or seemingly scientific views and ideologies can be partly shaped by unconscious psychological motives to maintain security and ward off existential angst through the cultivation of meaning and purpose.
In addition to providing a psychological explanation for the popularity of IDT and antipathy toward ET, the present findings challenge the conventional assumption that attitudes toward such scientifically framed theories are determined solely by factors such as logic, educational background, and ideology, though previous research suggests that such factors clearly play a role [43] — [47].
Because such appeals to the supernatural are not testable using the rules and processes of scientific inquiry, they cannot be a part of science. Some members of a newer school of creationists have temporarily set aside the question of whether the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe are billions or just thousands of years old. But these creationists unite in contending that the physical universe and living things show evidence of "intelligent design.
If one component is missing or changed, the device will fail to operate properly. Because even such "simple" biological structures as the flagellum of a bacterium are so complex, proponents of intelligent design creationism argue that the probability of all of their components being produced and simultaneously available through random processes of mutation are infinitesimally small.
The appearance of more complex biological structures such as the vertebrate eye or functions such as the immune system is impossible through natural processes, according to this view, and so must be attributed to a transcendent intelligent designer. However, the claims of intelligent design creationists are disproven by the findings of modern biology.
Biologists have examined each of the molecular systems claimed to be the products of design and have shown how they could have arisen through natural processes. For example, in the case of the bacterial flagellum, there is no single, uniform structure that is found in all flagellar bacteria. There are many types of flagella, some simpler than others, and many species of bacteria do not have flagella to aid in their movement. Thus, other components of bacterial cell membranes are likely the precursors of the proteins found in various flagella.
In addition, some bacteria inject toxins into other cells through proteins that are secreted from the bacterium and that are very similar in their molecular structure to the proteins in parts of flagella. This similarity indicates a common evolutionary origin, where small changes in the structure and organization of secretory proteins could serve as the basis for flagellar proteins.
Thus, flagellar proteins are not irreducibly complex. Evolutionary biologists also have demonstrated how complex biochemical mechanisms, such as the clotting of blood or the mammalian immune system, could have evolved from simpler precursor systems. With the clotting of blood, some of the components of the mammalian system were present in earlier organisms, as demonstrated by the organisms living today such as fish, reptiles, and birds that are descended from these mammalian precursors.
Mammalian clotting systems have built on these earlier components. Existing systems also can acquire new functions. For example, a particular system might have one task in a cell and then become adapted through evolutionary processes for different use. The Hox genes described in the box on page 30 are a prime example of evolution finding new uses for existing systems.
Molecular biologists have discovered that a particularly important mechanism through which biological systems acquire additional functions is gene duplication. Segments of DNA are frequently duplicated when cells divide, so that a cell has multiple copies of one or more genes. If these multiple copies are passed on to offspring, one copy of a gene can serve the original function in a cell while the other copy is able to accumulate changes that ultimately result in a new function.
The biochemical mechanisms responsible for many cellular processes show clear evidence for historical duplications of DNA regions. In addition to its scientific failings, this and other standard creationist arguments are fallacious in that they are based on a false dichotomy. Even if their negative arguments against evolution were correct, that would not establish the creationists' claims.
There may be alternative explanations. For example, it would be incorrect to conclude that because there is no evidence that it is raining outside, it must be sunny. Other explanations also might be possible. Science requires testable evidence for a hypothesis, not just challenges against one's opponent. Intelligent design is not a scientific concept because it cannot be empirically tested.
Creationists sometimes claim that scientists have a vested interest in the concept of biological evolution and are unwilling to consider other possibilities. But this claim, too, misrepresents science.
Scientists continually test their ideas against observations and submit their work to their colleagues for critical peer review of ideas, evidence, and conclusions before a scientific paper is published in any respected scientific journal. Unexplained observations are eagerly pursued because they can be signs of important new science or problems with an existing hypothesis or theory. History is replete with scientists challenging accepted theory by offering new evidence and more comprehensive explanations to account for natural phenomena.
Also, science has a competitive element as well as a cooperative one. If one scientist clings to particular ideas despite evidence to the contrary, another scientist will attempt to replicate relevant experiments and will not hesitate to publish conflicting evidence.
If there were serious problems in evolutionary science, many scientists would be eager to win fame by being the first to provide a better testable alternative. That there are no viable alternatives to evolution in the scientific literature is not because of vested interests or censorship but because evolution has been and continues to be solidly supported by evidence. The potential utility of science also demands openness to new ideas. If petroleum geologists could find more oil and gas by interpreting the record of sedimentary rocks where deposits of oil and natural gas are found as having resulted from a single flood, they would certainly favor the idea of such a flood, but they do not.
Instead, petroleum geologists agree with other geologists that sedimentary rocks are the products of billions of years of Earth's history.
Indeed, petroleum geologists have been pioneers in the recognition of fossil deposits that were formed over millions of years in such environments as meandering rivers, deltas, sandy barrier beaches, and coral reefs.
The arguments of creationists reverse the scientific process. They begin with an explanation that they are unwilling to alter - that supernatural forces have shaped biological or Earth systems - rejecting the basic requirements of science that hypotheses must be restricted to testable natural explanations. Their beliefs cannot be tested, modified, or rejected by scientific means and thus cannot be a part of the processes of science.
Despite the lack of scientific evidence for creationist positions, some advocates continue to demand that various forms of creationism be taught together with or in place of evolution in science classes.
Many teachers are under considerable pressure from policy makers, school administrators, parents, and students to downplay or eliminate the teaching of evolution. As a result, many U. Regardless of the careers that they ultimately select, to succeed in today's scientifically and technologically sophisticated world, all students need a sound education in science. Many of today's fast-growing and high-paying jobs require a familiarity with the core concepts, applications, and implications of science.
To make informed decisions about public policies, people need to know how scientific evidence supports those policies and whether that evidence was gathered using well-established scientific practice and principles.
Learning about evolution is an excellent way to help students understand the nature, processes, and limits of science in addition to concepts about this fundamentally important contribution to scientific knowledge. Given the importance of science in all aspects of modern life, the science curriculum should not be undermined with nonscientific material.
Teaching creationist ideas in science classes confuses what constitutes science and what does not. It compromises the objectives of public education and the goal of a high-quality science education.
The pressure to downplay evolution or emphasize nonscientific alternatives in public schools compromises science education. Evolution Resources at the National Academies.
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