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Did Humans Evolve? No, Say Americans
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Aug 15, 2006 03:32 PM
from the i-do-not-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means dept.
from the i-do-not-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means dept.
Stern Thinker writes "In a 2005 poll covering 33 countries, Americans are the least likely (except for Turkish respondents) to assert that 'humans developed ... from earlier species of animals.' Iceland, meanwhile, has an 85% acceptance rating for evolution." The blurb on the site for Science magazine is less circumspect about the findings: "The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States."
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Equal Time For Creationism 3451 comments
Brian Berns writes "Many news sources reported on
President Bush's recent semi-endorsement of 'intelligent
design', the politically correct version of
creationism that is currently in vogue among groups of conservative
Christians in the U.S.. While Mr. Bush was reportedly reluctant to make news on
this topic, he apparently felt it was an issue he could not duck. Most of those
same news sources, however, missed the
recent condemnation of Darwinian evolution by the Catholic cardinal
archbishop of Vienna. This NY Times op-ed appears to mark a deliberate attempt
to reverse the late Pope John Paul II's acceptance of evolution as 'more than
just a hypothesis'."
[+]
Britons Unconvinced on Evolution 2035 comments
pryonic writes "The BBC is reporting that more than half of Britons do not believe in evolution, with a further 40% advocating that creationism or intelligent design should be taught in school science classes. I'm a Brit myself, and I thought most people over here thought these views were outdated and lacked substance. None of my close friends give any credit to creationism or ID, but we're all well educated athiests so I guess that's to be expected. Maybe I've been blind to the views of the majority in this proudly secular country?"
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The Perceived Threat of Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Jim
http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] -- Exercise for the rest of us.
Re:The Perceived Threat of Science (Score:5, Funny)
On a related note, did you hear that the Bush administration now says that bird flu is nothing to worry about? More to the point, for bird flu to be a threat to humans, it would have to evolve, and everyone knows evolution is just a theory!
Parent
Re:The Perceived Threat of Science (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:The Perceived Threat of Science (Score:5, Insightful)
"Science threatens their faith"
You say it as if it doesn't, but it does. Science inherently threatens any form of ill-founded blind belief, and seeks to find support and evidence for all ideas. While I say this is not inherently incompatible with faith in general, it seems to be incompatible with most people's faith.
Parent
Re:The Perceived Threat of Science (Score:5, Insightful)
And if science threatens your faith, perhaps you ought to re-examine your beliefs. Science and religion don't have to be mutually exclusive things. It's really just a handful of overly-dogmatic religious sects (read: fundies) that need science to be wrong on evolution (and a number of other things, for that matter), in order for their religious beliefs to be right.
Parent
Re:The Perceived Threat of Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The Perceived Threat of Science (Score:5, Interesting)
Your average non-scientist citizen is not likely to go and check all the sources to verify that, yes indeed, evolution is the most likely explanation for the diversity of species. So, to demand that this average citizen believe in evolution is to demand the same leap of faith as for that citizen to believe in creation. Either way, some "expert" is telling this citizen what to think about something s/he doesn't understand.
Why don't these polls include an "I don't know, I don't have time to check the facts, and it really doesn't matter in my everyday life" option? I think that would be the best response for a thinking non-scientist.
Parent
Re:The Perceived Threat of Science (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad that most Christians base their faith on The Bible and not the teachings of Christ. This is the same problem Fundamentalist Muslims are suffering from...they confuse the Qur'an(and subsequent mistranslations and commentaries) with the spiritual message of Mohammed. Both Mohammed and Jesus promoted love, tolerance, forgiveness, and understanding. None of which is in conflict with science(the pursuit of truth).
If the direct teachings of these prophets were the focus of religious organizations(instead of using scriptures to control their followers through fear), science would be embraced by the world religions rather than shunned by it.
Parent
Note that is hopefully obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd hope that would be obvious to most people. The figures are mostly unchanged for decades, so the assertion that this is because of "widespread fundamentalism" and the "politicization of science" seems to be somewhat of a politically motivated assertion in itself.
Note that about one third of Americans reject the concept of evolution. It's unfortunate that even if people do want to have a religious or spiritual belief, they can't reconcile it with fairly firmly established scientific truth.
Further note that "fundamentalist religions", as the study refers to them as, are also not new in the United States. A lot of people would like to think that these people have sprouted up from nowhere in the last 6 years, but that's simply not the case.
Re:Note that is hopefully obvious... (Score:5, Interesting)
One little-regarded fact is that the Pilgrims got to North America after the Jamestown colony started. The Pilgrims were such a pain in the gluteus that even the Dutch, the Dutch mind you, kicked them out. At the people of time Jamestown were leading a near subsistence living; the markets for cotton and tobacco would become important later. And here came a ship of fools whose beliefs were basically intolerant communists and religious radicals, bringing nothing to help the colony economically, and would expect to be fed. Oddly enough, when the Jamestown colonists heard this, they bribed the Mayflower captain to dump them off where all the cod fishing was going on up north.
(For the record, I am descended from some of those Jamestown colonists.)
And let's not forget the grand European tradition of sending their religious loons to North America; the results of this should be obvious.
Parent
Re:Note that is hopefully obvious... (Score:5, Informative)
Changes of species over time is a fact, in the sense that we've observed it. Explanations for how this occurs and what paths it has taken in the past are theory, and a very well established and emperically backed theory at that. Still, I'll accept this as a useful instance of pedantry.
Parent
Note that the poll only covered Japan and Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Praytell! (Score:5, Funny)
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't get it. What is the deal with people never changing their minds, or letting in new information? Most people aren't stupid...I'm sure the average person in Iceland isn't any smarter than the average american (Kansas excluded). It could just be the religious thing; a lot of european social democracies are much less religious than we are. I mean, I understand we're not a pro-intellectual country, but there is a huge difference between not rhapsodising about your elite scientific tradition, and being completely averse to new knowledge.
You can't even blame it on modern schools...We have a tradition of this type of mental blindness going back more than a century.
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Informative)
I just don't get it. What is the deal with people never changing their minds, or letting in new information?
Do you remember back in elementary school and then high school when you were taught critical thinking, logic, problem solving, and the scientific method as applied to making everyday decisions?
Yeah, nobody else was taught any of that either. Instead we were all subjected to mindlessly memorizing facts by rote, day after day, year after year.
You can't even blame it on modern schools...We have a tradition of this type of mental blindness going back more than a century.
Public schools in this country were based upon the model of mental institutions, with a healthy dose of military brainwashing techniques. I can certainly blame them.
Parent
Rants (Score:5, Informative)
The article is about the US, Japan and a whole swack of European countries (presuming that I can include Turkey as European). Okay, but what about the rest of the world?
Where is the "OK, this is lame" selection?
What's with Slashdot and Evolution anyway? (Score:5, Interesting)
And according to this study 64% [cnn.com] of respondents believed that aliens have contacted humans.
Many, many people all of the world do not 'get' science. It has nothing to do with religion. This happens all over the world.
Proof (Score:5, Funny)
Arrrgg...please don't lump me in with zealots (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm against the idea of abortion but think it should be legal. I don't like flag burning, but I think an amendment against it is a silly idea. I don't care about gay marraige, it shouldn't be banned, but before we allow it, we need to take a careful look at all the societal and economic consequences.
All that said, I am also decidedly NON religious and think that Creationism and Intelligent Design are fairy tales for children. PLEASE do not color me and all the other conservative red stater's in with the religious right. They're not connecting with reality, and I feel bad for those people who continue to blindly follow the paths of organized religion (which has done OH SOOOO much good for the world over the last several years). <sp<sp>We don't ALL live in Je$u$land (perhaps geographically, but not mentally), and some of us choose to follow science, watch the Discovery Channel instead of Pat Robert$on, and sleep in on $unday morning rather than gathering to worship at the altar of Chri$t.
Thus endeth my rant. Thanks for listening. Go Darwin.
Re:Well...a little of both? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe you should think a little more.
Parent
Re:Well...a little of both? (Score:5, Informative)
humans did not evolve from apes. humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor.
apes are just as evolved as humans. evolution does not have a goal. apes are not trying to become human. everyone is just trying to survive in their environment as best as they can.
Parent
Re:Well...a little of both? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Well...a little of both? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Well...a little of both? (Score:5, Informative)
A "daughter species" doesn't necessarily kick the parent species out of its niche. That's common when the environment changes but doesn't eliminate the old environment, or when the old environment splits into to different parts. Humans evolved from tree-dwelling apes who ventured out into the encroaching grassland. That selected for apes which walked on their hind legs at the expense of prehensile feet, but the trees were still there and apes live in them to this day.
Go into an ape's niche and you'll find yourself massively out-competed. You'd make a lousy chimpanzee.
Sometimes a daughter species does compete with, and outcompete, the parent species, and drives it into extinction. We appear to be working on that pretty vigorously. In a century or so the answer to the question "Why are there still apes?" may be "There aren't." But it doesn't really change the answer: new species come all the time without destroying the old ones.
Remember that from the evolutionary point of view, humans aren't "better" than apes, any more than apes are "better" than fish or fish are "better" than amoebas. Each one fits into a niche without driving out the older species. It's only our bias that puts us on the top of an evolutionary ladder.
It's not really survival of the fittest. In fact, that which survives, survives. And when the environment changes, it stops surviving.
Parent
Re:ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent