Ben Carson, Science and Seventh-Day Adventists

P residential candidate Ben Carsonâ??s scientific views might seem out of place for a renowned neurosurgeon. He is uncertain on global warming, opining to Bloomberg: â??We may be warming. We may be cooling.â? He is strangely agnostic about the age of the earth, but believes it was created in six days and life is recent. In 2011, he told a Seventh-day Adventist audience that he was not â??a hard and fast person who says the earth is only six thousand years old. But I do believe in the six day creation.â? He added that â??the earth could have been here for a long timeâ? before God started creating. On evolution he does not mince words: Darwinâ??s theory â??was encouraged by the adversary,â? meaning the Devil, as he told another Seventh-day Adventist group in 2012. Carson isnâ??t alone. According to the Pew Research Center, a sizable chunk of the U.S. agrees, with 31 percent rejecting evolution entirely. Even among doctors, typically equated with scientists in the public mind, 22 percent reject evolution, according to a survey from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Regardless of oneâ??s employment, opposition to evolution is driven by religion, and usually by certain readings of the first chapters of Genesis; the fact is, there just arenâ??t a whole lot of atheists who reject evolution, because the science is so overwhelming. In an earlier study, Pew found that 87 percent of atheists and agnostics agreed with the statement that, â??evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life.â? The same study showed that 58 percent of Catholics, 77 percent of Jews, and only 35 percent of Protestants agreed. Clearly, religious belief is not an impossible barrier to acceptance of evolution.