Evolution vs. creationism.

Innovation ability is an important factor to measure firms’ strength and is vital to the long-term development of the enterprises, previous studies have shown that financial position and corporate governance can have effects on corporate innovation, but put little attention on the informal system which may influence on innovation. This article selects religion as one of the informal system and tries to explore the impact of religion on the innovation input and output of enterprises. Using the data of A-sh are listed companies from 2008 to 2015, the empirical results show that there is a significantly positive correlation between religion and innovation inputs and outputs, and this positive correlation between religion and innovation is negatively regulated by the politics and marketization index. The results prove that politics and marketization index are substitution of religion on corporate innovation. In further analysis, the religion is divided into eastern and western parts, the results show that both eastern and western religions can promote corporate innovation, but the promotion effect of western religions is stronger. Negative moderating effect of political and marketization index on the positive correlation between religion and innovation still exists, and basically showing a more forceful inhibitory effect made by western religions on corporate innovation.

Despite the ubiquitous use of anthropomorphic language to describe biological change in both educational settings and popular science, little is known about how anthropomorphic language influences children’s understanding of evolutionary concepts. In an experimental study, we assessed whether the language used to convey evolutionary concepts influences children’s (5- to 12-year-olds; N = 88) understanding of evolutionary change. Language was manipulated by using three types of narrative, each describing animals’ biological change: (a) need-based narratives, which referenced animals’ basic survival needs; (b) desire-based or anthropomorphic narratives, which referenced animals’ mental states; and (c) scientifically accurate natural selection narratives. Results indicate that the language used to describe evolutionary change influenced children’s endorsement of and use of evolutionary concepts when interpreting that change. Narratives using anthropomorphic language were least likely to facilitate a scientifically accurate interpretation. In contrast, need-based and natural selection language had similar and positive effects, which suggests that need-based reasoning might provide a conceptual scaffold to an evolutionary explanation of biological origins. In sum, the language used to teach evolutionary change impacts conceptual understanding in children and has important pedagogical implications for science education.

People believe the weirdest of things. Forty percent of the US population endorses the claim that Earth and all life on it has been created by God six to ten thousand years ago (Newport, 2010); three in four Americans accept some form of paranormal belief such as astrology or extra-sensory perception (Moore 2005). Europeans are no less gullible: two Britons in five believe that houses can be haunted and one in five thinks that aliens have visited our planet at some point in the past (Lyons 2005). Pseudo-medical treatments such as homeopathy are widely practised and in some countries like Belgium even refunded by health care. Horoscopes can be consulted in numerous popular magazines and newspapers. In sum, there seems to be no end to the irrational propensities of the human mind.

The evolution of creationists in the United States: Where are they now, and where are they going?

Most biologists outside the USA and a few other countries, like Australia and Canada, are under the impression that the threat to the teaching of biology represented by creationism does not concern them directly. This is unfortunately no longer true: the recent growth of creationism, especially in its pseudo-scientific manifestation known as "intelligent design", has been obvious in several countries of Western Europe, especially the UK, Germany and Poland, and it is beginning to be noticeable in Brazil, and maybe elsewhere in Latin America. The problem is complicated by the fact that there are not just two possibilities, evolution and creationism, because creationism comes in various incompatible varieties. Turkey is now a major source of creationist propaganda outside the USA, and is especially significant in relation to its influence on Muslim populations in Europe. The time for biologists to address the creationist threat is now.

The thesis examines representations of science education in UK newspapers and focuses on the role of expert sources in a controversy about the teaching of creationism alongside the theory of evolution in science classrooms. The newspaper reporting revolved around the City Technology College Emmanuel College in Gateshead, mainly in Spring 2002. The empirical research focused on two connected media elements: newspaper content and newspaper production. A quantitative and qualitative approach to analysing media content examined 287 newspaper articles from 20 UK newspapers, from I January 2002 to 20 February 2004, inclusive. The production analysis was based on semi-structured interviews with media professionals. The analysis of media content shows that the debate around Emmanuel College consisted of several related controversial issues. A range of expert sources were quoted in the articles, using various argumentation lines to address the issues of the controversy. The way expert sources were described by the journalists mainly seemed to enhance the credibility of those supporting the scientific consensus. Further analysis shows that some experts formed heterogeneousc oalitions of experts calling for action. Collaborative networks of experts appeared as efforts to enhance credibility and gain access to the media. The evidence presented in this thesis points to the importance of understanding expertise not only in individual but also in collective terms and to investigate expertise in terms of the argumentation lines reported. The analysis of semistructured interviews with media professionals demonstrates that the specialism of correspondents (e. g. on covering science or education) could influence which expert sources were selected, how they were represented and whether newspaper accounts were balanced or not. This influenced how reports were framed. Overall, the thesis demonstrates a more complex conceptualisation of expertise, one where experts are mobilised to conduct boundary work in key sites: media reporting and the National Curriculum for Science.

Examining the relationship between religion and science has until recently been considered a philosophical exercise and, as a consequence, theories of how natural and supernatural explanations are related tend to be highly abstract and operate at the level of ideal rationality rather than in the psychological reality of actual believers. Although cognitive developmental psychologists have studied the topic of explanation quite extensively, until recently little has been known about how people interpret, accommodate, and reconcile natural and supernatural explanations in everyday life. We review psychological data from three core biological domains and provide an analysis of how philosophical and psychological accounts are complementary. We propose that emerging psychological accounts of the coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations may be developed further by adopting the conceptual resources provided by philosophers, especially with respect to the topics of explanation and possible relationships between science and religion. Furthermore, psychological data can inform philosophical accounts by providing information concerning how people reason about topics of fundamental concern to humans.