Department of Social Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Public Underst Sci. 2011 Jul;20(4):558-73. doi: 10.1177/0963662509358502.
In this paper we analyse the media debate in Finland that began after the publication in Science of a survey on the public acceptance of evolution. According to the results Finland ranked 17th among 34 countries. This was unexpected in a secular high tech nation with a consistent top performance in international comparative surveys on public education. We trace the main arguments in this debate in relation to previous studies on the public understanding of science and argue that newspaper claims of declining acceptance of evolutionism in Finland were based on rather ambivalent data. Furthermore, in the debate, evolutionary theory became a metonymy for science in society. The results published in Science provided a platform for a critique of religion and alternative movements, something quite uncommon in Finnish media. Finally, the debate was taken as an opportunity to promote evolutionary psychology as a legitimate social science.
在本文中，我们分析了芬兰的媒体辩论，该辩论始于《科学》杂志发表的一项关于公众对进化论接受程度的调查之后。根据调查结果，芬兰在 34 个国家中排名第 17 位。这在一个世俗的高科技国家中是出乎意料的，因为芬兰在国际公众教育比较调查中一直表现出色。我们追踪了这场辩论中的主要论点，这些论点与之前关于公众对科学理解的研究有关，并认为芬兰报纸声称公众对进化论的接受程度下降的说法是基于相当矛盾的数据。此外，在这场辩论中，进化论成为了社会科学的代名词。《科学》杂志上发表的结果为批判宗教和替代运动提供了平台，这在芬兰媒体中是相当罕见的。最后，这场辩论被视为推广进化心理学作为一门合法社会科学的机会。
