Last week I pointed to numbers on evolution and the Muslim world. The New York Times has an article up about the conference which inspired my investigation into that topic. The reporter focuses on the rote learning and creativity as the factors behind a lack of knowledge or understanding of evolutionary theory. Plausible, but really unlikely. East Asian nations have the same issues (which they are trying to reform), but acceptance of evolution is high there. In fact, even in non-developed nations such as the Philippines acceptance of evolution can be high. It is higher than in the United States! In Russia there is surprisingly low level of acceptance of evolution, though that might be the aftereffect of the Lysenko interlude, when conventional evolutionary biology was rejected. In other words, the reasons for skepticism of evolution are somewhat diverse, though rote learning and lack of creativity are surely neither necessary nor sufficient.
I suspect that the best analogy for what’s going on with Muslims, even elite Muslims (the samples I pointed to last week were elites), is what occurred with conservative Protestants as they faced the forces of modernism in the 20th century. Some aspects of the modern world they accepted, and others they rejected. The historical sciences, and in particular those which bear upon human nature and origins, they reject with particular vehemence. Despite the pleas of a minority, such as Francis Collins, most American Evangelicals seem to believe that rejection of evolutionary theory is necessarily entailed by their religion. Similarly, most Muslims seem to feel the same way. Even American Muslims seem to have this attitude, though not as much as American Evangelicals. While 33% of American Evangelicals accept that evolution as the best explanation for the origin of human life, 45% of Muslims do (vs. 48% of all Americans). Yet 80% of Hindu accept evolution as the best explanation for the origin of life. In any case, the citizens of Muslim nations seem to assert that religion is very important in their lives, so naturally they would be skeptical of ideas which they believe contravene the precepts of their religion.
Below the fold are results where individuals were asked how important religion was in their life from the World Values Survey 2005 by country….
| Very Important | Rather Important | Not Very Important | Not Important | |
| Iraq | 96.10% | 3.30% | 0.40% | 0.20% |
| Egypt | 95.40% | 4.20% | 0.20% | 0.20% |
| Indonesia | 94.70% | 4.10% | 0.90% | 0.30% |
| Jordan | 94.50% | 5.20% | 0.20% | 0.20% |
| Morocco | 90.60% | 7.90% | 1.30% | 0.30% |
| Ghana | 90.40% | 7.50% | 1.70% | 0.40% |
| Mali | 90.20% | 8.60% | 0.90% | 0.30% |
| Burkina Faso | 84.30% | 12.20% | 2.70% | 0.70% |
| Guatemala | 83.30% | 12.10% | 3.40% | 1.20% |
| Ethiopia | 81.00% | 13.20% | 3.80% | 2.00% |
| Malaysia | 80.50% | 15.50% | 3.30% | 0.70% |
| Georgia | 80.20% | 17.00% | 1.90% | 0.90% |
| Iran | 78.50% | 16.20% | 3.90% | 1.50% |
| Zambia | 77.50% | 16.70% | 4.60% | 1.20% |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 76.80% | 13.00% | 7.90% | 2.30% |
| Turkey | 74.70% | 16.60% | 6.20% | 2.50% |
| South Africa | 70.30% | 20.20% | 6.50% | 3.00% |
| Mexico | 59.00% | 26.10% | 11.50% | 3.40% |
| Romania | 58.00% | 32.50% | 7.20% | 2.40% |
| Thailand | 56.30% | 37.90% | 5.40% | 0.40% |
| Cyprus | 54.10% | 27.20% | 12.10% | 6.60% |
| India | 51.40% | 29.30% | 13.90% | 5.50% |
| Brazil | 50.60% | 40.40% | 6.20% | 2.70% |
| Peru | 49.60% | 26.70% | 18.90% | 4.80% |
| Poland | 47.80% | 39.00% | 10.40% | 2.80% |
| United States | 47.40% | 24.20% | 19.70% | 8.70% |
| Chile | 39.90% | 33.50% | 18.40% | 8.20% |
| Rwanda | 38.90% | 56.90% | 4.10% | 0.10% |
| Italy | 34.40% | 41.70% | 17.00% | 6.80% |
| Argentina | 33.40% | 32.00% | 24.00% | 10.60% |
| Canada | 32.00% | 27.10% | 25.30% | 15.60% |
| Moldova | 31.80% | 41.20% | 20.40% | 6.60% |
| Serbia | 25.70% | 40.90% | 26.80% | 6.60% |
| Uruguay | 22.80% | 23.20% | 27.80% | 26.20% |
| South Korea | 21.20% | 25.80% | 34.50% | 18.60% |
| Great Britain | 21.00% | 19.70% | 33.90% | 25.40% |
| Australia | 19.50% | 19.70% | 31.40% | 29.30% |
| Bulgaria | 18.90% | 31.90% | 32.20% | 17.00% |
| Ukraine | 18.30% | 38.80% | 27.70% | 15.20% |
| Finland | 17.60% | 27.50% | 40.60% | 14.30% |
| New Zealand | 17.30% | 18.50% | 30.70% | 33.60% |
| Switzerland | 17.20% | 28.30% | 31.70% | 22.80% |
| Slovenia | 15.30% | 27.60% | 31.00% | 26.10% |
| Spain | 14.90% | 24.20% | 31.10% | 29.80% |
| Russian Federation | 13.70% | 35.10% | 32.50% | 18.70% |
| France | 13.00% | 27.90% | 30.70% | 28.40% |
| Netherlands | 12.50% | 19.00% | 28.40% | 40.20% |
| Taiwan | 12.40% | 39.30% | 35.80% | 12.50% |
| Germany | 11.20% | 22.70% | 29.00% | 37.00% |
| Norway | 10.50% | 22.20% | 41.30% | 26.00% |
| Sweden | 9.30% | 20.10% | 40.90% | 29.80% |
| Andorra | 8.00% | 21.20% | 31.30% | 39.50% |
| Viet Nam | 7.20% | 25.60% | 47.60% | 19.60% |
| China | 6.70% | 15.20% | 31.00% | 47.10% |
| Japan | 6.50% | 13.10% | 35.70% | 44.80% |
| Hong Kong | 5.30% | 22.60% | 62.10% | 10.10% |
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