Attitudes towards conventional 'Theories Of Origin' in science

Abstract

Many studies have shown that attitudes towards, and knowledge of, theories of origin in science, including biological evolution and the theory of the Big Bang are often affected by convictions in other non-scientific theories of origin or external frames of reference such as Creationism, geocentrism, alien life and deluge myths. The general purpose of this research was to investigate this in the Maltese context, since to date no detailed studies have been implemented in the Maltese Islands. According to the data gathered from 200 questionnaires and from 13 verbally-administered questionnaires, in general numerous participants had good genetic and general scientific literacy, were convinced about the existence of alien life, held conviction in Evolution and Big Bang theories and were skeptical about Creationism, geocentrism and deluge myths. In comparison with results of other studies, my results depicted that in general, there are more Maltese Evolutionists and fewer Maltese Creationists. Also these comparisons have showed that the Maltese might have had a more positive attitude towards Evolution, anti-Evolution, an expanding Universe and Geocentrism, a more negative attitude towards a deluge myth, a midway attitude between countries towards Creationism and roughly the same attitude as in other countries towards belief in alien life.