CBS Poll: Creationism Trumps Evolution

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Agathon
"In St. Louis, it's illegal to sit on the curb of any city street and drink beer from a bucket."

Awwwww, Dang!

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Sava
uhmmm... young people are more liberal... we are the only age group that the majority voted Kerry...

The thing is Kerry is a moderate.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by nostromo
They don't seem to be aware that the synthetic theory of evolution is not compatible with communism on certain issues. For example, the URSS rejected mendelian genetics.

Don't confuse the USSR with communism.

[Nostromo]

Don't confuse the USSR with communism.

I'm not. But you have to admit that there was a particularly large concentration of communists in the USSR at the time. And Lysenko and his lackeys rejected medelian genetics because they thought it conflicted with the communist world view.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by nostromo
I don't think people who believe in God are all stupid.

Not everyone who is religious is a Creationist.

[Uncle Sparky]

Isn't there a Fox poll that sais 99% of the smartest Americans voted Republican and believe in God and creationism ?

[TheStinger]

Any right wing politician in the UK who said they believed in creatioism would never be seen as credible

[Urban Ranger]

Com'on, not even Newsmax says that.

[Whaleboy]

Someone said earlier that evolution is a basic fact of the universe. I'm not convinced about that, to me, evolution is a theory, in the same vein as that which holds that the Earth goes round the sun or quantum mechanics that allows me to use a computer for instance. As such, it is subject to both the doubt and the benefits of empirical observation, so one need not believe in evolution, or even have faith in it, since it's so easy to rationalise it. In my mind, faith and reason to a given end are inversely proportional, to have faith in something is demonstrative of it's subjectivity and lack of reason, to be able to reason in something undermines the potetial for faith.

Which makes the idea that most American's don't concur with evolution something even more ridiculous!

I read a similar figure in this months National Geographic *Whaleboy places paperbag over head*. 12% of Americans hold the view of practically every scientist and intellectual (evolution, big bang, universe is 12-14B years old), 37% believe God started it all and created life but allowed evolution to play a part (the view of teh Catholic church) and 45% of Americans believe in creationism and that the Earth and Universe were created sometime in the last 10'000 years by God. It was a telephone poll so I assume there were a good number of "I'm too dumb and busy voting Republican to even know what you're talking about" answers.

The NG article gives numerous possible reasons for it, before thoroughly pwning creationism in one of the best evolution articles I've read in a long time. Those reasons include willfull ignorance, lack of awareness thanks to the fact that a great many Americans haven't sat a biology course that taught evolution to a significant degree, the effect of fundies campaigning against the education system, which results in such information for people coming from, at best, the odd nature documentary, and at worst popular religion, the media, word of mouth and vocal preachers.

I'd be interested to see what Shrub thinks of this...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

you forget, shrub doesnt think

[Whaleboy]

Then I'd be interested to see what Karl Rove thinks of this!

[Whaleboy]

Re: CBS Poll: Creationism Trumps Evolution

Originally posted by Mr. Nice Guy
Support for evolution is more heavily concentrated among those with more education and among those who attend religious services rarely or not at all.

It really does say it all doesn't it? I love the way creationists find themselves unable to refute evolution.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Someone said earlier that evolution is a basic fact of the universe.

Someone, eh?

Originally posted by Whaleboy
I'm not convinced about that, to me, evolution is a theory, in the same vein as that which holds that the Earth goes round the sun or quantum mechanics that allows me to use a computer for instance.

The existence of multi-resistant bacteria should be sufficient to convince you.

To be more specific, you can reasonably sure to hold that there are two parts to evolution: it is both a fact and a theory. Just like gravity. It is a fact that because there are numerous observations of speciations. So evolution does happen, no if's or but's.

The theory part is to explain how evolution happens, and that's the part where disagreement within the scientific community lie.

Originally posted by Whaleboy
The NG article gives numerous possible reasons for it, before thoroughly pwning creationism in one of the best evolution articles I've read in a long time.

Creationism is extremely easy to refute - just ask them to frame a theory against the backdrop of the sciences. The Creationists can't, they don't have a theory.

People hold on to an idea thoroughly rebuked dozens if not hundreds of times not for logical or scientific reasons. One of the biggest shock to many is evolution put humans on the same level as any other lifeforms -- there's nothing special about us. We weren't made specifically. The earth wasn't created for us. And so on, and so forth.

[dannubis]

the scary thing is not that a large portion of the americans choose to believe in a dogmatic postulate rather than scientific evidence.

it is that those people have influenced the public school system to actually teach this crap to their children.

[Whaleboy]

The existence of multi-resistant bacteria should be sufficient to convince you.

To be more specific, you can reasonably sure to hold that there are two parts to evolution: it is both a fact and a theory. Just like gravity. It is a fact that because there are numerous observations of speciations. So evolution does happen, no if's or but's.

Just as the Earth goes round the sun. It's a scientific fact, but it's not a universal "truth" because science is unable to provide essentially irrefutable theories. But that's not a bad thing, it's a basic description of scientific method, the consequence of which undermines creationists even more.

That you have provided an example sufficient to convince (and you're preaching to the choir here) is demonstrative of that.

The Creationists can't, they don't have a theory.

They do have a theory. You won't help the debate by flaming, which is unnecessary because it's an extremely weak theory. Scientific theories are supposed to make predictions, the most obvious in this case is that life does not evolve, yet we have observed evolution. Creationism is thus obsolete.

People hold on to an idea thoroughly rebuked dozens if not hundreds of times not for logical or scientific reasons. One of the biggest shock to many is evolution put humans on the same level as any other lifeforms -- there's nothing special about us. We weren't made specifically. The earth wasn't created for us. And so on, and so forth.

I agree, there's a great deal of egoism and egocentric self-assurance among the religious/ignorant. People have a psychological attachment to certain ideas and will go to desperate lengths to attack or suppress opposing views, for example, the most ridiculous ad hoc creationist arguments (holding about as much water as a sieve but won't bother with them until someone presents them) or silencing evolutionists in education.

That they are so religious about it is part of the problem. Or perhaps the problem itself .