“The Numb vs. The Dumb” Integral Framing-Analysis of the Online Creation-Evolution Controversy Tim Stevens (2012) Date: August, 2012 Tim Stevens MSc Thesis MDR (Development and Rural Innovation) COM-80430 MSc Thesis Communication and Innovation Studies Under supervision of Prof. Dr. Noelle Aarts Second examiner: Dr. Ir. Gerard Verschoor, Rural Development Sociology Group Acknowledgements This research was driven by my personal interest and took more than two years’ time. I could not wish for a better supervisor than Prof. Dr. Noelle Aarts. She provided me with the freedom and the trust that allowed me to do this challenging research. Foreword It is hard writing this foreword. The foreword usually describes how the research originated and how the writer, in person, brought about the research and the writing. I do not know exactly how or when this research originated. My mother would say that it all started twenty years ago when I started to ask difficult questions. My supervisor Prof. Dr. Noelle Aarts would say that it started two years ago when the proposal was approved. I remain in doubt. Yet, I am confident that these doubts instigated the inspiration for doing this research, enhanced the impartiality of the process, and augmented the quality of the results. As an interpretive researcher who sneaked on the web and freely quoted disputants to deconstruct their perspectives on the issue, I think it is fair to share my perspectives on the issue, so that you can interpret mine. For me, evolution theory is the most precious theory for humankind. I have no doubts that evolution theory accurately describes how this colourful world came about: Increasingly complex structures of matter turned into life; a world that was made from matter, yet much more than that. Then, increasingly complex organisms developed consciousness; a world created by organisms, but again of a very different kind. And now, here we are, reflecting on this whole process. Life has become conscious of itself. I am grateful to live, right now, yet at the ever-present startling and creative edge of evolution. The creation-evolution discussion is not about the past, it is about the origin of any-thing ever-present. It is about ‘creation’ in general, about a first push, an uncaused cause, about emergence, something that acts rather than reacts. In the past, people used to belief that the source of all was God. God created the world, and God had omnipotent powers to change people’s destiny. Nowadays, people do not belief in God and predetermination, but belief in themselves and self-determination. Although these views seem opposite, they are both ‘creationist’ in some sense. It used to be a taboo to question God’s will. Nowadays the greatest taboo is to question free will. Yet, I am not sure that ‘I have free will’, because I am not sure how to define myself or ‘I’. Sometimes I feel ‘I am doing it’, other times I feel ‘it is doing me’. What I think it all comes down to is that whenever we define anything, this thing is already the result of the perspective that we have taken; the line that we have drawn. In reality there are no separate things, just one big happening. A thing is a think, a unit of thought. It is a cognitive demarcation or conceptual line that distinguishes an inside from an outside in space and time. In order to see, say or know any ‘thing’ at all, you have to draw the line somewhere. We generally explain ‘things’ by pointing at its causes. And so ‘why it is?’ is answered by ‘because that was’. This is basically what science does. Science always says: this is, because that was. ‘That’ is always something prior and/or outside of ‘it’ – it is temporally and/or spatially outside the thing we have defined to explain, whether ‘this thing’ is mental or material. But this is only different from that if we draw a line in-between. The whole game of science starts only after drawing the line, which separates points in time and/or space. We can then argue whether it is either neurological activity causing the thought, or the thought causing neurological activity. But of course every this can be a that and every that can be a this, depending from what side of the line you take a perspective. Anytime we say this is, because that was, we take ‘that’ as a starting point, an uncaused cause. But what is ‘that’ really? Summary This study provides an insight into the ideological and social dimension of the online creation-evolution controversy. We conduct an issue-framing analysis, an identity-framing analysis and a situational framing analysis on Google Discussion Groups, of which the convergence of results engenders an understanding of 1) the ideological dimension, 2) the social dimension, 3) the relation between ideas and identities and 4) the role of social identity in the online controversy. This thesis consists of two parts. Part one ‘Integral Methodological Framework’, provides a theoretical and methodological framework for the framing-analysis of the creation-evolution controversy. Part two presents the methods and results of the actual ‘Framing-Analysis’. Although part 1 serves the actual framing-analysis, it comprises a new trans-disciplinary approach to framing that is of interest to a broad field of science, and is therefore presented apart from the actual framing-analysis in part 2, allowing for it to be read independently. The integral methodological framework of part 1 provides a conceptualization of framing based on Integral Theory (Wilber, K. 2007). We define framing trans-metaphysically in terms of perspectives. A frame is a perspective, and framing is perspective-taking. Perspectives are apparent in the exterior world in the form of language (language can be conceptualized as a system of perspectives), but also build the interior world (perspectives precede perceptions, and a world-view can be mapped by trans- metaphysical perspectives). Both in language and in our minds we have a range of perspectives to choose from to represent or understand the world, and the selection of a perspective is an act of framing. This conceptualization of ‘framing’ is used because it 1) allows language to be studied as a holistic phenomenon (instead of interpreting ‘frames’ already as passive/active, individual/social, cognitive/interactive, etc.), and 2) allows for a conceptual distinction that is significant to understand this case’s dynamics: ideology and identity. In part 1, we use integral theory to show how opposing metaphysical world-views in the creation-evolution controversy can be integrated in a clear and neutral framework, and how these different world-views (different perspectives on the issue or identity), transpire in language. This framework is used in part 2 ‘Framing-analysis’, comprising an issue-, identity- and situational- framing analysis. The issue-framing analysis identifies the various ways disputants discuss ‘what’s at issue’, resulting in seven issue-frames. A disputant does not use a single issue-frame but a combination of issue-frames. Based on the correlation of issue-frames on CE-Groups we identify four ideological-categories: Objective Evolutionists, Interpretive Evolutionists, Interpretive Creationists, Correct Creationists. Although the creation-evolution controversy is framed as a two-sided conflict over ‘One Objective Truth’, the discussion hosts multiple perspectives on multiple issues that make up four coherent ideological-categories. The identity-framing analysis reveals that of the four ideological-categories, only two groups are identified by disputants: creationists and evolutionists. The communication on online creation-evolution discussion groups is influenced by group-bias because disputants group each other based on minimal cues into referential categories before there is interpersonal communication. Disputants use referent- frames (‘social categories’) mostly for out-groups, indicating out-group homogeneity bias. Moreover, the identity-groups use distinct identity-frames to make sense of identity, indicating positive distinctiveness. The situational-framing analysis makes clear that the two identity-groups use different frames within intergroup and intragroup discussions. In comparison to the intergroup discussion, the intragroup discussions of both creationists and evolutionists show more interpersonal communication (less social categorization, more feedback, and include multiple subjective realties). The online creation-evolution controversy is an identity-conflict because the use of issue-frames and identity-frames corresponds to two conflicting social-groups and is dependent on in-group and out-group discussions of these groups. Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. 3 Foreword ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 13 Report Structure ............................................................................................................................... 14 Background .....................................................................................................................................