Great comment by James Watson on belief in evolution

Pharyngula posts a fascinating video: a Charlie Rose interview on evolution with famed biologists E. O. Wilson and James Watson.

There's a great off-hand comment in there that places an important perspective on what we can take away from opinion polls. Wilson notes that 51% of American respondents in a CNN public opinion poll discount Darwinian evolution entirely; another 34% accept the idea, but believe the process was directed by God.

That's a total 85% of people rejecting non-supernatural evolution. A number which Watson sagely puts in its place: "85% haven't thought about it at all... It doesn't mean much."

That's a great truth to keep in mind when people try to infer correctness from big survey numbers. A survey response can indicate an informed decision based on evidence and careful study of alternatives – or can indicate an unthinking default to the easiest answer.

Now, on the mystery of life's diversity, which do you think represents the easy, unthinking default: the painstaking construction of a theory through clues unearthed by biology, chemistry, and geology; or "Goddidit"?