Evolution and Creation: The disconnect between how students process data and what they believe

This is a guest post by Marlowe C. Embree. Marlowe teaches psychology at the University of Wisconsin Colleges and published the 7-part series The Social Psychology of the Origins Debate last fall. He is currently conducting some original research on whether personality differences affect a person’s conclusions regarding creation and evolution, and how likely they are to change their views. This post is the last in a 3-part series where Marlowe shares some of the findings of his research.

In my previous two posts, I presented information about student views of origins and their relationship to personality type differences. In this last post, I will address some concerns related to the nature and source of knowledge.

A) Epistemology and Metaphysics

Philosophers use the terms “epistemology” and “metaphysics” (or “ontology”) to make the distinction I have in mind. Epistemology is the study of how truth can be known, what its sources and justification (or warrant) might be, and how we distinguish truth from opinion. The underlying conclusions about what is true is the domain of metaphysics or ontology. Different persons have different ideas about what is ultimately or noncontingently real, for instance: materialists believe that only matter is real (and thus presumably, in some sense or another, eternal), while theists believe that matter exists only because of the logically prior existence of God.

B) Relationship between how students process data and what they believe

For students, the data from this survey show that links between epistemology and metaphysics were modest at best. Correlations between items of the two different types were no higher than 0.2. Though it would seem logical to presume that epistemological views of such items as the existence of extrascientific sources of truth, the religious neutrality of the scientific method, the capacity for human certainty, and the like would be correlated with worldview stances like CR, TE, and SE, this did not largely prove to be the case. Nor did personality type differences correlate significantly with epistemological items on the attitude survey.

It appears that, for most students, their conclusions about reality are not grounded in a well thought out theory of knowledge. What students believe about God, about evolution, and about the relationship between science and religion does not appear, for the most part, to be a product of independent thinking. A few remarks about this observation follow.

First, this conclusion seems true for all worldview groups. The stereotype that only certain individuals (those whose conclusions one disputes!) are subject to this problem appears well refuted. Students across the worldview spectrum appeared equally subject to this kind of epistemological disconnect.

Second, the conclusion refers only to students in my research sample and cannot meaningfully be generalized beyond the sample. Since my students are at a freshman-sophomore level, the problem is likely a cognitive-developmental one. Researchers into the development of student epistemology (e.g., Belenky et al.) suggest a five-stage model of the development of independent thinking; many of my students have confirmed to me, in informal discussions, that they perceive themselves to be at an early stage of this developmental model. This isn’t a criticism of them; it’s natural for students who are just making the transition from high school to college to be at this point.

C) Conclusions and Next Steps

Overall, this study provides modest support for the notion that personality differences significantly mediate student beliefs about the origins debate and I believe further research is warranted. In future work, I hope to explore in more depth relationships among neurology, micro- and macrocultural differences, cognitive styles, personality, and views of origins.

Future studies might examine longitudinal impacts of higher education on changing attitudes about origins as mediated by type differences. There is some indication that there are discipline-specific impacts (for instance, students of biology may end up with different views than students of psychology), though rigorous empirical examination of this question in the light of type theory has not yet been completed. Self-selection biases represent an obvious confound, since students cannot be randomly assigned to different courses and since type likely plays a major role in determining student course selection. A content analysis of qualitative information, based on student narratives about their changing (or constant) views about origins throughout their college career, could prove quite interesting.

Given the ethics governing my research, I can’t directly ask interested readers to help me collect more data at this time, but would value opportunities to dialogue about this as a future possibility. You can also review a summary of my research on my college website.