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This is almost as retarded as when that one group of Christian idiots put together a list of something like 700 scientists who don't believe in evolution.

Yeah, but how many fo them are named Steve ?

But gravity, it's only a theory !

Teach the controversy!

#IntelligentFalling

---

(Sorry couldn't resist to make the joke)

The "they" in my post referred to the Slashdot users, not the Saudis, but thanks for cramming in the off-topic religious opinion of a random Muslim cleric. As if we don't have Christians in the good ol' USA claiming pretty much the exact same thing?

I base it on being an American and looking at the people around me. This place is full of fundies. Just go to any "non-denominational" Christian megachurch and listen to what they preach about.

So? According to this only 18% of them are young earth creationists:

http://ncse.com/rncse/30/3/ame...

Secondly, look at who we elect. The GOP controls most state governments plus Congress. One of its more popular candidates is a young-earth Creationist (and many of the others are likely Creationists too).

Just for perspective, in the last election in France, 28% of the vote typically goes to the official Fascist party, (Front National, source) which is quite higher than the confirmed number of young earth creationists in the US. Denmark also pushes similar numbers, and about 10 other European countries sit somewhere around 18%. That's JUST the fascist party, and doesn't include any other right leaning groups, or even the strong Muslim population out there which tends to be even more fundamentalist than US Christians. Seriously, you can repeat your comment with one word substituted and say about Europe "this place is full of fascists" and it would be more accurate.

That said, all of the hoopla you hear about the US being far right compared to Europe isn't exactly true, as in fact, a big portion of Europe is much further right. (And as a side note, in spite of Europeans constantly accusing the US of being the most racist country in the world, they actually have known racist people holding political office, and the US can't even claim that.)

The fact is, you have your own personal bubble (everybody does) where you typically only get exposed to the views that you want to acknowledge, and that includes views that you want to acknowledge in a negative way. It doesn't necessarily mean that represents the overall population.

That said, much like the EU, there are different demographics depending on the region you go to, and in the case of the internet, the websites you visit and your social media circle. Maybe there are megachurches where you live, however there aren't any (or at least, I'm not aware of any) in the particular region I live in, which is pretty well populated.

Evolution is *predictive*? Really?

Yes Really
http://ncse.com/rncse/17/4/pre...

And Newtonian mechanics falls apart with more than two bodies!

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs7...

Really, Earth, Moon, Apollo 11 that sounds like more than 2

For the general 3 body problem

http://news.sciencemag.org/phy...

Is Ignorance your bliss ?

Mod parent up. Here is a discussion of the various definitions of "species"; also, it's worth clicking through to this list.

Polluting Americans' precious bodily fluids.

http://ncse.com/news/2010/06/c...

That is what I was thinking of when I made the comment, cf http://www.nature.com/hdy/jour...
http://ncse.com/files/pub/evol...

I thought the science was reasonably settled on this, apparently /. commenters beg to differ. :)

In order to preserve their cherished notions about the "origin of mankind", creationists screw up pretty much everything about science. That's the "issue" you're not seeing.

First read the bills slate.com gives as evidence.
http://ncse.com/files/pub/lega...
http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bill...

Now, show me where it says, "teach creationism".

I'm not saying they are wrong, and that LA/TN aren't teach creationism; but those laws seem to protect teachers from getting fired for teaching [locally controversial] science the way I read them (as long as they don't explicitly say, "you're religion is wrong").

Teach that the vast overwhelming majority of the world's scientists support the theory of evolution by natural selection, ...

This brings to mind Project Steve.

"Project Steve pokes fun at this practice [of Creationists listing scientists who stand opposed to evolution] and, because "Steves" are only about 1% of scientists, it also makes the point that tens of thousands of scientists support evolution. And it honors the late Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary biologist, NCSE supporter, and friend."

Don't forget to teach [existential origin] myths from all world religions; Hindu, Buddhist, and Other.

We may have been crafted by the Great Chocolate Chip to plant cocoa seeds far and wide, and make cookies in accordance with Its divine Will, mmmmm mmmmm. In the beginning there was an eternal, boundless chocolate chip, which we are merely a particle within, our entire universe floats within the warm melty midst of R'Ler D'Oh'Chippezzeh (mmmm mmmm) just as a grain of sand on Earth is surrounded on all sides by the universe. This universe we believe we perceive may be one of many dreams within the physical mind of the One True Chip, each and every aspect specifically thought into being by the metaphysical mystery which Is; the uncaused creator, the filler of Nothing with Everything (plus chocolate). And of course, nobody could just make this stuff up -- a non-empty subset of scientists agree!! Teach the Controversy.

'"It's Big Brother, sort of, but with a good intent,"

...it's called grading the students on what they have learned. And I can't believe such an inane comment came from a dean. Of course, it is Texas, land of the dumbed-down and incorrect textbooks, so maybe we shouldn't be that surprised....

This prize has been 'offered' for over a decade, but for some reason has recently made the news. Occasionally someone bites, just to see what reaction they get, but trying to find mutually acceptable terms for a 'trial' is like arguing with the Timecube guy:

http://ncse.com/rncse/25/5-6/life-science-prize

Here's the prize page on Mastropaolo's site:

http://www.josephmastropaolo.com/prize.html

("All of these experiences confirm that evolution is the inverted fantasy based on the ancient Greek Gaea vitalism religion of 2,500 years ago that was disproven by the experiments, never overturned, of Dr. Francesco Redi in 1668.")

Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as “true.” Truth in science, however, is never final and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.
Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.

Congratulations though, you have attained that which you thought would be very difficult. You have become more wrong, in fact, than I was.

Currently, there is a war on science, scientific method, evolution and facts in general. As a geek, I'd like to contribute to charities that work to counter this very disturbing effort.

We are wasting way too much time fighting battles that in reality have already been decided in the factual world. So, to counter those whose battle cry is (insert fingers in ears) 'LA LA LA LA LA LA LA', we need to back those who believe that scientific method works (because it does). We need well funded advocates for rational thought. The nuts are clearly outspending us.

I'd have to research to find organizations to which I would donate. This organization came up in a brief search NCSE (National Center for Science Education). But, I'd have to do more investigating before I would donate.

I'm sure they'll do the same thing the Creationists did with Evolution; admit to some very small degree that the theory is correct, but insist that theory only explains minor phenomena.

Global micro-warming! Lol.

Um, the UK has a massive number of evolution deniers.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/01/evolution-darwin-survey-creationism?cat=science&type=article

The rest of the world is a mixed bag as well.

Even the most evolutionist heavy regions still have 20% or more who are not 100% in agreement with evolution.

http://ncse.com/news/2011/04/polling-creationism-evolution-around-world-006634

I recall reading about these sort of opinions before with regard to both climate change and evolution, and the common thread seems to be the amount of attention given by the American news media. Differences of opinion, although common in every field, don't quite seem to get that kind of attention unless someone conveniently benefits from giving them press. Would be interesting to find out years later, if this latest opinion-piece was somehow published in response to the recent interest by the NCSE to start educating people about climate change, also explained further here.

There is an emerging new site dedicated to addressing climate change denial. It can be found at: http://ncse.com/climate

They discuss the three pillars of climate science denial and note they are extremely similar to the three pillars denying evolution.

A) He is an astronomer. Don't take his flip comment as if he is an expert.
The experts have consensus AGW is real.

http://ncse.com/climate

The trend is longer the 10 years.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/upsDownsGlobalWarming.html
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/388674main_portal2Huge.jpg

To answer you question:

There are normal cycles. I know a lot of ignorant people like to spout off their mouth and say climatologist don't account for normal cycles, but they do.

While it is trending upward, there will be years that are flatter then others.
Notice, it was still hotter then normal cycle would predicts. It's not like the temperature return no normal cycle temperatures.

yes, one 10 year blip is not a trend. No expert claims that. They may use a decade to illustrate a point.

Again he isn't a troll, he is just a non expert making a flip remark.
Saying there was no warming in that 10 year period isn't really correct. 1998 was warm, then the the years to 05 area\n't as warm, stil part of the overall trend. 06

Here is the temperature from 98 - 10
  Year Global Land Ocean
1998 - 0.5984 0.8320 0.5090
1999 - 0.4210 0.6759 0.3240
2000 - 0.3899 0.5174 0.3409
2001 - 0.5188 0.7207 0.4419
2002 - 0.5762 0.8318 0.4798
2003 - 0.5832 0.7735 0.5108
2004 - 0.5441 0.7115 0.4819
2005 - 0.6183 0.9593 0.4896
2006 - 0.5623 0.8158 0.4669
2007 - 0.5509 0.9852 0.3900
2008 - 0.4842 0.7801 0.3745
2009 - 0.5591 0.7595 0.4848
2010 - 0.6171 0.9642 0.4885

People who claim there 10 year cooling are really just grabbing two peaks and saying because there is a small valley between them that it isn't warming, or that it stopped.
Its kinds of like 'God of the gaps' logical fallacy.

many of us are. Sadly the media love to stir up controversy where their isn't any, people in power don't understand science, some large corporation spreads money to people who claim it isn't so. SO people don't think it's real.

The temperatures are above normal cycles, and it is well beyond statistical blip.

It's like all the argument that where shown wrong in the 80s just wont die. It's not like the issue you have brought up haven't been investigated.

And if too much carbon gets into the air, the earth can become a heat trap. We are releasing almost all the carbon from all of history into the air.
http://ncse.com/climate

Idiot.
While an astronomer is not someone to go to for climate change science, not his specialty, but consensus among people who ARE climatologist is the AGW is real.

http://ncse.com/climate/denial/climate-change-is-good-science

"There's a bunch of charts and data to indicate that this might be the earth's natural cycling
no, there is not. we passed that 15 year ago.

I like when people invoke solar activity with out actually thinking.
There are sever types of deniers:
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/climate-change-is-good-science

who deny that significant climate change is occurring
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring, but deny that human activity is significantly responsible
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring and that human activity is significantly responsible, but deny the scientific evidence about its significant effects on the world and our society
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring, that human activity is significantly responsible, and that it will have a significant effect on the world and our society, but who deny that humans can take significant actions to reduce or mitigate its impact

also:

http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101/how-much-human-responsibility-for-climate-change

"There's a bunch of charts and data to indicate that this might be the earth's natural cycling
no, there is not. we passed that 15 year ago.

I like when people invoke solar activity with out actually thinking.
There are sever types of deniers:
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/climate-change-is-good-science

who deny that significant climate change is occurring
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring, but deny that human activity is significantly responsible
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring and that human activity is significantly responsible, but deny the scientific evidence about its significant effects on the world and our society
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring, that human activity is significantly responsible, and that it will have a significant effect on the world and our society, but who deny that humans can take significant actions to reduce or mitigate its impact

also:

http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101/how-much-human-responsibility-for-climate-change

so many uneducated fools going on like there ignorance should hold the same value as an experts.

For those people saying 'there will be a benefit because of more [whatever]. You might want to wonder why you think after there is more arable land, or warmer Canada, the temperature wont continue to rise?
What the cap are gone, are only buffer will be gone. Right not, they are acting as a heat sink. SO all the new land continue to with :
a) get get hotter and then drier, or
b) so much cloud cover appears plant find it difficult to grow.

Oh, and there is less sunshine hitting the ground, and it has started to impact plant growth. granted a tine amount, so far.

read up on why you are wrong:
http://ncse.com/climate

No, it is not improbably, in fact, it's likely.

I would like to point out that many model predict an increase in ran; however that's not the end.

"...eed to induce fear to motivate funding"
err, no. Facts are causing fear.

" to justify the additional bureaucratic power that they crave."
and there we fucking go with THAT canard. HINT JACKASS: looking at AGW global warming does not mean addition bureaucratic power. That is a policy issue, not a science issue. Insurance companies and actual rials are already making the needed changes in their industries, addition bureaucratic power not needed.
Companies that are impacting everyone and wont change? yes, bureaucratic power will be need, but I don't see why we can't do it with the current systems.

Fucking philosopher waste. Don't bother to understand science, and when you don't like something you just say it ain't so without bothering to learn. This is why modern philosophy is a dead end. You can gather knowledge, but you can never achieve anything or learn how to think about it.

Why do you, someone not educated in the field, someone who is pretty ignorant about advance science, someone who chose to get a degree that adds nothing to the world, why do YOU think you have the mental tools to claim the consensus of experts in a field are wrong?

This is literally like me telling you Plato never existed.

http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

No, it is not improbably, in fact, it's likely.

I would like to point out that many model predict an increase in ran; however that's not the end.

"...eed to induce fear to motivate funding"
err, no. Facts are causing fear.

" to justify the additional bureaucratic power that they crave."
and there we fucking go with THAT canard. HINT JACKASS: looking at AGW global warming does not mean addition bureaucratic power. That is a policy issue, not a science issue. Insurance companies and actual rials are already making the needed changes in their industries, addition bureaucratic power not needed.
Companies that are impacting everyone and wont change? yes, bureaucratic power will be need, but I don't see why we can't do it with the current systems.

Fucking philosopher waste. Don't bother to understand science, and when you don't like something you just say it ain't so without bothering to learn. This is why modern philosophy is a dead end. You can gather knowledge, but you can never achieve anything or learn how to think about it.

Why do you, someone not educated in the field, someone who is pretty ignorant about advance science, someone who chose to get a degree that adds nothing to the world, why do YOU think you have the mental tools to claim the consensus of experts in a field are wrong?

This is literally like me telling you Plato never existed.

http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

No, it is not improbably, in fact, it's likely.

I would like to point out that many model predict an increase in ran; however that's not the end.

"...eed to induce fear to motivate funding"
err, no. Facts are causing fear.

" to justify the additional bureaucratic power that they crave."
and there we fucking go with THAT canard. HINT JACKASS: looking at AGW global warming does not mean addition bureaucratic power. That is a policy issue, not a science issue. Insurance companies and actual rials are already making the needed changes in their industries, addition bureaucratic power not needed.
Companies that are impacting everyone and wont change? yes, bureaucratic power will be need, but I don't see why we can't do it with the current systems.

Fucking philosopher waste. Don't bother to understand science, and when you don't like something you just say it ain't so without bothering to learn. This is why modern philosophy is a dead end. You can gather knowledge, but you can never achieve anything or learn how to think about it.

Why do you, someone not educated in the field, someone who is pretty ignorant about advance science, someone who chose to get a degree that adds nothing to the world, why do YOU think you have the mental tools to claim the consensus of experts in a field are wrong?

This is literally like me telling you Plato never existed.

http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

No, it is not improbably, in fact, it's likely.

I would like to point out that many model predict an increase in ran; however that's not the end.

"...eed to induce fear to motivate funding"
err, no. Facts are causing fear.

" to justify the additional bureaucratic power that they crave."
and there we fucking go with THAT canard. HINT JACKASS: looking at AGW global warming does not mean addition bureaucratic power. That is a policy issue, not a science issue. Insurance companies and actual rials are already making the needed changes in their industries, addition bureaucratic power not needed.
Companies that are impacting everyone and wont change? yes, bureaucratic power will be need, but I don't see why we can't do it with the current systems.

Fucking philosopher waste. Don't bother to understand science, and when you don't like something you just say it ain't so without bothering to learn. This is why modern philosophy is a dead end. You can gather knowledge, but you can never achieve anything or learn how to think about it.

Why do you, someone not educated in the field, someone who is pretty ignorant about advance science, someone who chose to get a degree that adds nothing to the world, why do YOU think you have the mental tools to claim the consensus of experts in a field are wrong?

This is literally like me telling you Plato never existed.

http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

Are you stupid? dodged an ice age? It's not long a meteor hurling towards us, but the missed, so now everything is ok.
It's going to keep getting warmer... and warmer.
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

Shills? Stop being an ass.

There is no other explanation for what is happening.

http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/why-is-it-called-denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

Shills? Stop being an ass.

There is no other explanation for what is happening.

http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/why-is-it-called-denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

Shills? Stop being an ass.

There is no other explanation for what is happening.

http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/why-is-it-called-denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

Shills? Stop being an ass.

There is no other explanation for what is happening.

http://ncse.com/climate
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/why-is-it-called-denial
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/pillars

The problem is that the NCSE doesn't just want to teach about the science of climate change. They want to push specific policy proposals as "The Solution" to the problem:

http://ncse.com/climate/teaching/humans-can-reduce-climate-change

What I think is hilarious is that I've never, not once, heard anyone actually say that "six days" was exact

Good for you. But I've met plenty of fundamentalists with that view. They're typically called "Young Earth Creationists". And they're common -- the linked poll claims that 40% of Americans believe that the Earth is less than 10K years old. It was the basis of the Scopes Trial, and has been in an issue in a number of court decisions since then. This is very much an ongoing issue.

Creationism is not a new idea and was much more prevalent and politically pandered to in the past.

Actually creationism as a force in American politics and education is VERY new, along with most other aspects of American Christian fundamentalism. Creationism was a direct response to the rise of Darwinian evolution as the key basis for 20th-century biology education. If species are shown to descend from earlier forms by means of natural selection, and if such phenomena can be shown to apply to hominids, then original sin -- the keystone of Christian theology -- is completely discredited.

The Catholic Church tends to shy away from the fight, having a long history of losing arguments with science-talking guys, but the American Protestant sects have no such history to learn from. They treat evolution as a threat to the survival of their faith, and rightly so.

From the perspective of virtually every right-of-center American politician, religion gets votes, so it has to be preserved at all costs. Spreading FUD about evolution is a tactic that the thumpers cannot afford to pass up.

You can help stop them.

Popper's objection to it was based on a strawman understanding of evolution, which he admitted to being wrong about and hence corrected himself. Counterexample fail.

Meanwhile, the number of scientists expressing significant issues with that '95% confidence level' continues to swell

Meanwhile, the number of scientists called Steve continues to swell...

As with climate change, the few real scientists who are skeptical seem to be from fields which have nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand.

Even so, I would like to point out Project Steve to anyone who wants to claim there's a scientific controversy surrounding evolution.

You will always find a few crackpots or frauds like Wakefield who happen to have PhD or MD beside their names who will say absurd things and maintain positions not borne out by the evidence. The Discovery Institute has managed to put together an impressive list of ostensibly well-educated people (even biologists) who deny evolution. This does not mean this even remotely represents any scientific consensus. Project Steve is NCSE's satirical response to DI's lame list, a counter list of scientists who endorse evolution all named Steve (or some close variant).

The people who "knew" about a vaccine/autism link were similarly way out on the fringe. The literature you speak of is sparse, with low quality studies and/or tiny sample sizes, and the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly against any such causal connection, and has been for a long time now. Initial reaction to preliminary studies like Wakefield's is always met with skepticism, and then it trends toward a position as the data comes in -- in this case, the position that there is no link whatsoever.

You're right, I do also see a lot of similarities here with climate change.

I'd have to recommend a different book: "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters" by Donald R. Prothero. It's been favorably reviewed by the NCSE. It's more recent (2009 vs 1995) and is broader in scope, starting back before the Cambrian Explosion (explaining why it wasn't an explosion) and going up through more recent events like hominid evolution. He also is not afraid to tell it like it is about the creationists and associated cranks.

I've been reading about and participating in debating evolution/creationism for nearly 20 years. I've got a small collection of creationist books, I've read what the public library has, and have spent a lot of time reading the various major creationists group's online articles. In my spare time I've also earned a B.S. Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Chemistry. So somehow despite being trained in science, being employed as a biochemist for the last 12 years, having read copious amounts of creationist literature, I've never found one single scrap of a scientific idea that wasn't already disproven as soon as the ink dried--and usually decades earlier given creationist proclivities to recycling.

You want to know why creationists don't publish creation research in scientific journals? I'll tell you: they don't do research. Behe is the only creationist (and he admits a staggering amount of evolution as true) author who managed to get an actual creationist research paper in an actual journal, Protein Science. I read it, and it was crap: It was obviously, monstrously wrong, and somehow slipped by the editors. It was quickly and thoroughly debunked both on line and within the pages of the journal itself, which I'll leave for you as an exercise in google-fu (Behe and Snoke).

Again most creationists don't do research and try to submit to real journals, see talk.origins. Creationists' own "journals" are pretty much moribund. Look for example at "Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design." The last issue of the flagship journal of Intelligent Design is from 2005! Or how about straight-up old fashioned creationism? The biggest YEC group Answers in Genesis has a journal called "Answers Research Journal" which manages to crank out a whopping dozen (plus or minus a half dozen) articles a year. A real journal has at least that many articles a month, and there are hundreds of journals dedicated to evolutionary research, and thousands more that are related subject matter.

It's not just quantity, quality too is on the side of science. Just compare any article in any mainstream journal to the high-school level rubbish in "Answers Research Journal." Also look at those creationist articles and note the rarity, to the point of non-existence, of actual original research as opposed to a weirdly distorted, selective, highly limited literature review. Peer review is the same: when I submit an article to a mainstream journal, it's reviewed by people who are at least my equal: Ph.D.s with years to decades worth of knowledge and expertise on the relevant subject matter. Creationists on the other hand have to grab whoever is available with any sort of degree. When you look at lists like "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" that is people who might be likely to review articles for "Answers Research Journal" you get a handful of biologists, and high percentage of other people with un- or peripherally-related expertise, like MDs, dentists, and engineers. You can then compare this to it's parody, Project Steve, which is larger, consists of a much higher percentage of biologists, with a much greater number of more prestigious scientists, all of whom are named "Steve" or similar.

Creationism has been judged on it's merits. It failed. It continues to be judged on its merits by masochists like me. It continues to fail. Of course, it might be nice if you guys would actually try, but then you'd quickly dump creationism just like science did 150 years ago.

In modern times, the term evolution is widely used, but the terms evolutionism and evolutionist are not used in the scientific community to refer to the biological discipline as the term is considered both redundant and anachronistic

- wikipedia: most reliable source on the internet (source of citation connected to quoted text)

Modern biology is built upon the concept that evolution is correct. It has become the foundation of enough of the fields understanding that it cannot be removed without finding new reasoning for much of what is currently being done in the field. Also it implies a false dichotomy between evolution and christian creation theory.

Physics existed before we discovered quantum physics but quantum physics is now an irremovable part of the field. Geology existed before we knew... well pretty much everything we do now about geology but that doesn't mean you can hold up flat earth theory as legitimate geological science anymore.

I'm not saying that "evolutionist" doesn't technically describe the people they want it to. I'm saying that by accepting it as a valid term you're inadvertently giving credence to the legitimacy of their position.

You're assuming that everyone who has an opinion about this will actually be informed, will take the time to look through those proofs, reproduce those experiments, etc.

Read this.

In particular, look at that graph. Are you frightened yet?

Evolution is one of the crowing triumphs of modern science. It has more evidence than any other theory I know of, from many branches of science -- the "tree of life" is repeated, exactly, in genetics, in the fossil record, in the geologic record, everywhere we care to look for it. It informs pretty much all of modern medicine and biology, and it is a humbling look at our origins and our true status with respect to other life on the planet. It is beautiful, important, and solidly supported by fact.

Even the Catholic Church has officially embraced evolution, and the big bang theory, as truth.

And a third of Americans reject evolution outright. These aren't people who just aren't sure -- they say it is definitely false.

Want to guess why?

Because they feel it threatens their religion. Because if evolution is true, the Earth (and certainly the Universe) cannot be six thousand years old, and they must accept that they are descended from apes -- or that, by any honest classification, humans are still a species of ape. Because they cannot accept the fact that at least some part of that religion is a fairy tale, or at least a metaphor.

The problem is, in order to reject evolution, they find they have to doubt just about every legitimate scientist who has an opinion on the subject, and keep themselves willfully ignorant. Furthermore, in order to believe the earth is six thousand years old, they pretty nearly have to stick their fingers in their ear and go "la la la la" in order to avoid pretty much every branch of science that has anything to say about the subject.

That is, if they are right, even the most basic grade-school cosmology must be wrong -- there are objects more than six thousand light years away from us. Geology must also be wrong -- not merely carbon-dating (which is already quite rigorous), but the kind of time scales modern geology suggests. And of course, modern medicine must be wrong -- our understanding of things like antibiotics relies on evolution to work.

And yet, they will feel qualified to address these issues, to challenge real scientists with such arguments as, "That's microevolution. Show me one 'kind' turning into another, and I'll believe it." When this fails to get them anywhere, they again close their eyes, ears, and minds, and ultimately turn to the very simplistic, reassuring, and ultimately wrong words of Ken Ham: "Who should you believe -- God or the scientists?"

The problem here is not just the validity of evolution. It is that in order to believe what the creationist wants to believe, they have to reject huge chunks of modern science. In order to continue to be relevant, they have consistently attempted to get their strange ideas taught in school -- not just as a philosophy, or a class in its own right, but as part of science.

And it's not just america -- 22% of Canadians are creationists. Something like a third of Americans are.

So, the short answer is, yes, laypeople absolutely will doubt whatever they feel they have a problem with. If they doubt evolution, cosmology, Einsteinian relativity, geology, archeology, paleontology, etc, just so they can believe a certain way, it's certainly not a stretch that they would doubt anything that conflicts with their actual (polluting, wasteful) lifestyle.

And unfortunately, even when 99.9% of scientists agree on something, it doesn't help if they can't convince the public -- because laypeople are also voters.

We need another Carl Sagan.

Also, is this list supposed to impress anyone? I mean c'mon, how many of them are named Steve?!"

You'll need more than just a short list of arguments from authority if you want anyone to take you seriously or even care about what you think.