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It is well established that the internet population is very signifigantly skewed in IQ representation. If you want to be a pain in the ass about it I'm sure I can Google up documentation of that obvious fact. At a very minimum it is obvious that the illiterate and the barely literate are going to be almost completely absent, and in fact he representation skew extends all the way up the scale. Genious IQs, while rare, are substantially over represented on the internet.

So on that measure alone one can pretty well say that the Slashdot population has above average IQ. And while I have no explicit documentation, I find it hard to beleive that anyone would seriously argue that the Slashdot population was not itself further skewed towards higher IQ representation than the internet population at large.

And as for "elitist", where exactly is the line between someone being obnoxious about their IQ score or whatnot, and someone saying heay... I *want* my president to have genius intelligence and to be "educated elite"? saying I *want* the federal reserve chairman guiding our national economic policy to have genius IQ and to be "educated elite".

I'm seeing a very VERY disturbing anti-intelligence and anti-education streak in our society. Excuse me, but when the heck did it become a bad thing to be smart or intellectual or to have a good education? One of the things that made the United States a global superpower was that we WERE educated elite as a population. That we did have the many of the best colledges and that we did provide our children excellent educations.

I am absolutely sickened every time I hear somebody use "educated elite" as if it were some sort of insult. When people talk as if "intellectual" is somehow a slur.

And this evolution battle is a peculiarly American anti-science anti-education anti-reason phenomena. The United States is the *ONLY* First-World nation with any signifigant conflict. The only nation with any signifigant group of people with the rediculous notion that evolution somehow conflicts with God. People trying to push the rediculous idea that you have to pick evolution or God. No different than the Galileo solarsystem conflict, as if you have to pick between a God and the sun centered solarsystem. There is no conflict. It is all a false choice.

People attacking evolution who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. People who themselves had no highschool education in the subject, or who had an abysmally bad education in the subject, and thinking they are properly equipped to critique the field. As if people who have never taken a chemistry class were properly equipped to criticize chemistry. People who's understanding of evolution amounts to little more than that they've casually picked up through bad hollywood movies and TV shows. People who are not only ignorant in the field, but who remain deliberately ignorant in the field. Peopel who are not familiar with the moutains of evidence supporting evolution, and who actively do not want to learn about it.

When people have no proper education and understanding of a subject then any attacks they make are generally going to be embarrassingly flawed attacks, and they are generally going to be based on a misunderstanding of what the science actually says. Chemistry says water contains oxygen and that we can breath water and *I KNOW* we cannot breath water, therefore I proved chemistry wrong! And of course the problem is that chemistry does not say we can breath water. And when someone points out that their attack was rediculous and based on ignorance of chemistry, well that person is not only an elitist intellectual they are an atheist scientist oppressing them forcing Godless chemistry on their children.

Yep, those chemists are all atheists. Chemistry says there is no God. No one has any evidence for chemistry. There is tons of evidence for chemistry but it is all fabricated. Chemistry is a vast conspiracy to exterminate God. Chemistry is a vast conspiracy to turn your children into Satan Worshippers.

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I live in a fairly Liberal area (nothern delaware) and we were told at the start of biology that evolution is a scientific therory and therefore what was tought in science class. Personaly beliefs were OK and that many people believe that evolution is guided by a higher power, but that is irrelevent so will not be a basis of any teching. There was no mention of ID (as it was a new buzzword at the time). That seamed perfectly acceptable to me, and to my fundelmentalist friends.

Honestly, the class that really posed the bigest problem for the fundementalists was earth scince.

I think the big fear, based on fact, is that people are pushing ID as a religious idea, and a way to bring religion into the Goddless science room.

The reason people are up in arms about ID is because school boards are trying to skirt the constitution by introducing a predominantly theological idea into public schools (there is a district in PA (I think) that has notes from board members basically being like, well we have to tech this Godless evolution, now lets use ID to bring him back in).

I am personally an athiest, and think that even though things are extraordinary, there was a lot of time for it to happen. I do think if there is any higher power that has any (even minor) interest in us obviously ID is a reality through at least minor guiding of mutations. To me the idea of a belief in God requires the belief that, at the very least, evolution is guided by ID. But that doesn't mean it should be in a science class. From what I am seeing ID could be its own class.

The extreme atheists (those who believe that anyone who has faith is an idiot) cast ID-proponents as blathering morons who are out to corrupt our youth into believing a lie. And the extreme ID-proponents cast atheists as people trying to corrupt our youth into being godless heathens.

Thing is, they're kind of right.

The extremem ID-proponents are trying to have kids taught their view as fact, which from the extreme atheists' point of view is corrupting the youth into believing a lie. The extreme atheists want everyone to cease believing in any god, which from the point of view of the ID-ers is corrupting the youth into godless heathens (by definition).

Unfortunately both extremes lump everyone on the other side in together, rather than only considering the opposite extreme, which is where their fears actually hold some validity.

So please, don't cast us atheists into the mold of the few outspoken idiots who haven't carefully considered their position, just as I refrain from casting conservative Christians into the mold of the "Christian Right Warrior" who would ignore the rights of everyone else to further their version of the truth. The respect must run both ways.

Thank you.

I'm not sure that there is a growing number of atheists in the world, but even if it were true, it doesn't make them right.

Sure, we don't know what happened before life to cause life (there was no time before the big bang, so...) but this does not mean GOD exists.

No, it doesn't mean God exists. But it means we at least need to recognize that science hasn't been able to answer that fundamental question. Until it does, it is absolutely foolish to discount the explanations that do exist based solely on what you believe based on the information we have now.

If science somedays explains how it all started, great, you'll have a point then. Until then, we have no explanation of how life started and it is not unscientific to at least present those explanations to get people (future scientists, theologians, and philosophers) thinking about options.

Let's put it this way, hypothetically speaking: Let's assume for a moment that God does exist, He did create heaven and earth, and that His work basically consisted of putting all the building blocks where they needed to be (which might even be the Big Bang) and letting everything unfold according to His rules (which we now call physics). Being all-knowing, He did this knowing what would happen and that one day humans would come to be--but He did it in such a way that we would live in a universe that we could grow to understand up to the point of recognition that He started it all.

If the above is true (and you are in no position to claim that it isn't, we simply do not know), science does not help us get any closer to the truth and is, in fact, an obstacle to the understanding truth when used by people as an excuse to ridicule and discard religious explanations. On the other hand, science can be a useful tool that may one day cause the human race to conclude "There is no scientifically viable explanation for the origin of life and/or the origin of the universe." Or perhaps science will one day be able to replicate the Big Bang and we can witness life start all by itself just like it supposedly did billions of years ago. Creationism is falsifiable--just show me a Big Bang and life just happening all by itself. Can't do that? Then it seems that belief in a Godless Big Bang is just a much a leap of faith as religion.

So why is it acceptable to present a "scientific article of faith" in science but not present a similar "religious article of faith" that endeavors explains the same thing?

Ok. As I said earlier, it seems to me that this is not a statistically useful subset of the classification of "smart people." Most smart people aren't scientists let alone "eminent scientists." I almost wonder if the results are absolutely extreme because some extremely smart people literally get what is known as a "God complex" which could effect the way they answer that question.

Another study mentioned in Scientific American, September 1999, did a study that gave different numbers for people with B.S. degrees and those considered to be "eminent" scientists. It gave 40% of people with B.S. in sciences are religious and 10% of eminent scientists are religious.

Again, that just seems extreme. This article mention that 83% of Americans believe in the virgin birth of Jesus which (apparently) is three times more than the number that believe in evolution, 28% (I'm suspicious of that 28% number, but whatever). It even says that 47% of non-Christians in the U.S. believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Then there's this article from just last month that says 51% of Americans believe in creationism, 30% seem to believe in what could be considered ID, and only 15% believe that Godless evolution is correct. Interestingly, someone here suggested that it's not surprising that "most people" disagree with me--it turns out, that same article suggests that most Americans do agree with me: 67% believe it is possible to believe in God and evolution at the same time. It seems the person that took issue with me and tried to depict as being in the minority is, in fact, in the minority himself.

Anyway, with such overwhelming numbers I have a hard time believing surveys that suggest that only 40% of B.S.'s are religious (although if they define "religious" as "going to church at least 3 times a month" then, sure, that's a different story). Although I guess a popular elitist position that some people at Slashdot would probably take is that "Well, 90% of Americans are as dumb as a rock" so it's entirely possible that 83% of Americans believe in the virgin birth of Jesus but only 40% with degrees believe the same thing. I think a lot of Americans are apathetic in general but I don't think that they're necessarily as stupid as would be required for the 83% figure and 40% figure to both be right.

As for 93% being too high of a number, I agree that even I am a little skeptical of that number. But while I too know quite a few people from college that I consider scientists, none are on the caliber of even being nominated for the National Academy of Sciences. So any anecdotal evidence that I have would have no bearing on the caliber of people that this study used.

Like I said, it would be inaccurate to draw conclusions about the beliefs of "smart people" based on such a select group as the NAS which is not at all representative of "smart people" in general. The B.S. survey you mention is closer to what we need, but I'd still need to see the methodology to accept the 40% figure.

A few other studies include one done George Gallup in 1995. In this gallup poll it shows that 53% of people who have attended college believe that religion is important in their life while 63% of people with no college feel the same way.

Going to college doesn't make you smarter, it makes you more knowledgeable. It also tends to make you more liberal and more atheist, at least temporarily. That's why I would want to see the same results broken down by age to see how much of that 10% difference "bounces back" after a few years out of college.

Also 48% of people who make $50

Yes, apparently Catholics are really worshipping Isis, Horus and Seb and are in the service of the Satan, so their acceptance of science and reason is yet another confirmation that they aren't really Americans and should be burned at the stake so they can't persecute anyone like they did during the Inquistition to people that didn't think that bread could be turned into meat, because judging people is up to God alone and you shouldn't judge people unless they are themselves judging people. And what are those foolish Catholics going to do next, pledge allegiance to the flag of science like they pledge allegiance to the Vatican (aka Satan) every morning before eating their Bagels which were invented by Jesus killing Jews?

Of course real Christians are all just worshipping Zeus by another name, since like Hercules, Jesus was the bastard son of a god who had an illicit affair with a woman out of wedlock. But Zeus could kick Isis' ass in an alligator wrestle, so that would probably be okay with the Baptists who know that the Mormon's are the ones that really have it right and that Jesus did come to America so he could tell the godless Indians that he would be coming back to Arkansas after he went to outer space. Jesus being a Buddhist himself, well minus the self part, would have probably thought this was all horse shit and then contemplated what is was like to be the horse shit, the fly and the horse it came from and that the essential meaning of the whole was the nothingness of its parts.

Then again Jesus probably would have gotten his ass kicked by hercules, so the Baptists wouldn't like that part, unless of course he multiplied the fish until hercules became smothered, but that would have required a lot of fish.

Your comments show me how there are few to no consistent atheists. If God doesn't exist, who cares?

I do, if people insist on teaching the next generation that God does exist as though it were unassailable fact.

The core problem with discussions of this nature is that the extremes on both sides characterize each other as monsters, as is wont to happen with any emotionally intense debate. The extreme atheists (those who believe that anyone who has faith is an idiot) cast ID-proponents as blathering morons who are out to corrupt our youth into believing a lie. And the extreme ID-proponents cast atheists as people trying to corrupt our youth into being godless heathens.

The reality, of course, is that many ID-proponents are either misinformed or blind to their biases -- that doesn't make them stupid or evil (though, as with any sufficiently large group of people, there are many outspoken fools). Of course, the percentage of outspoken idiots in the Atheist camp would have you believe that religion and science cannot share proponents.

And, of course, most atheists are confused about why Christian conservatives think something like a lack of belief can be forced on anyone, and think faith is something personal and should be taught at home, not in public school. Of course, the percentage of outspoken idiots in the Conservative Christian camp (some of the most vocal ID supporters) would have you believe that relegating religious instruction to the privacy of the home is somehow "encouraging atheism".

So please, don't cast us atheists into the mold of the few outspoken idiots who haven't carefully considered their position, just as I refrain from casting conservative Christians into the mold of the "Christian Right Warrior" who would ignore the rights of everyone else to further their version of the truth. The respect must run both ways.

ID is creationism that has been repackaged to try and be constitutional.

Anti-evolution folk believe that evolutionary theory makes us nothing but animals and that we are not different then the apes and that this theory must be stopped.

If that is true than there is no need for rigid religeous laws or a belief in god and this march toward societal destruction must be stopped. If humans are nothing buy animals, society will crumble with legalized murder and child eating etc.

ID and creation supporters want to stop the slow movement towards godlessness of society.

This, of course, is crazy. We ARE related to apes and ARE capable of not murdering each other.

If survival of the fittest is not true, why do we bother doing scientific research.

Would it not make more more sense to pray for a vacinne for Avian Flu.

All of this money we are wasting on scientific research could be used for a cure for Gayness or swearing or something else that is destroying society.

If these backward folks have their way we would strip all rational thought from the public school biology in favor of myth.

ID and all of it future versions need to be stopped before they get their foot in the door, they are dangerous theories that should not be taught to schools.

Here is some reading that proves my point:

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution .html
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/sciencespecia l2/

Some things you seem to be confused about.

You realize that al-quada was based in afghanistan and not iraq right? Iraq was a secular socialist state and was hated by osama. Osama refered to Saddam as "the communist" which is a supreme insult to an arab because the communists are godless and they invaded afghanistan.

Ansar al islam did not attack the US.

You saw a sattelite picture of some land. Someone told you it was a terrorist training camp. You nodded your head and said "OK".

Indeed. It's also abundantly clear from a careful reading of your bible that it's impossible for the moon to orbit the earth in the way promoted by godless "scientists".

Several passages on the bible refer to Jesus standing at a point and being able to see all four corners of the earth. Since it's impossible to stand in any position that allows you to see the entire surface area of a sphere, the earth cannot be spherical, and the "moon" cannot orbit it in the way "science" claims.

Instead, the "moon" clearly moves over our (flat) earth in a complicated pattern dictated by God, which merely makes it look exactly as if it's a spherical body orbiting another spherical body on which we stand. Looks very like, in fact. Very very like.

Regardless, it's proven in the bible that a spherical earth is impossible, and the astonishing superabundance of "evidence" given to us by "science" is clearly only there to test our faith, as we all know the moon is merely shifted by the hand of God exactly to replicate the apparent relative movements of two spheres in orbit around each other.

We call this scientific theory "Intelligent Moving" to differentiate it from the mere theory of "Physics", and it will be taught in your secondary schools in the next academic year - watch your curriculum.

In the mean-time we'll be starting a court battle to ban globes from the classroom, and have "Warning: Only A Theory" stickers slapped on Stephen Hawking, as well as Einstein and Newton's tombs.

"No, your argument is a misrepresentation of what I said. I'm not claiming that ID is acceptable because macro-evolution isn't verifiable, I'm claiming that neither should be taught as fact."

The problem is that there is no scientific theory that can absolutly proven true. That fact doesn't mean that all theories are equally valid or useful.

It's ironic that although ID is clearly being pushed by religious people, it could be 100% true in a godless universe with highly advanced aliens (Tom Cruise take note).

In addition, if evolution were proven 100% false it wouldn't be evidence that ID were true.

It seems fitting to me that those that are willing to accept a theory entirely without evidence are doing so under the flawed logic that it would prove their religious beliefs to be true.

Gods are called supernatural precisely because they are beyond natural law.

I guess faith is no longer enough, scientific support is required these days. Or perhaps I'm wrong on this last point, St. Thomas had to have proof too.

Yay, even though I am but a Godless (well, actually I have a fair number, but hey) Heathen, the simple elogance and beauty of this post has moved me to offer up prayer to the christian god; "Dear Most Mighty and Humble Lord God, whose vestaments are fear, uncertainty, and doubt, please; DEFEND ME FROM YOUR FUCKED UP WORSHIPPERS!! AMEN"

A good atheist can kill tens, if not hundreds of millions when he gets the urge.

The 44% of the US population that don't believe in evolution of any form believe there's a God who's idea of a good time is toss dinosaur bones around the world making them look millions of years older than our 4000 or 5000 year old Earth. As if his time couldn't be better spent smiting creationists or something.

Apparently, you are also without the knowledge of the meaning of satire.

Screw the foreigners. Most of them live in a police state. England doesn't let "give Ireland back to the Irish" play on the radio. France is a joke with a government controlled media. Freedom was invented in America. The rest of the world needs to start thinking like us! We have 5% of the population and use 25% of the resources!!! Kick out your dictators and rise up against tiny cars that drive on the wrong side of the road, rise up against sky high taxes, rise up against Godless hippies and join America by creating your own copy where you live. Remember, the power comes from the people to the government - not the other way around!!! America was the first to solve world problems with nukes and I hope we never forget how to. ClaudeVMS

I agreed with this until I got the the "Godless hippies" part. I don't know of any Godless hippies, though I do know some hippies and consider myself one. As for me, I'm agnostic, "a" without and "gnosys" knowledge. I am without knowledge of the existence of any supreme diety, soul, or spirit. I used to believe but lost my beliefs after an accident. Now, I'm jealous of those who have faith.

Screw the foreigners. Most of them live in a police state. England doesn't let "give Ireland back to the Irish" play on the radio. France is a joke with a government controlled media. Freedom was invented in America. The rest of the world needs to start thinking like us! We have 5% of the population and use 25% of the resources!!! Kick out your dictators and rise up against tiny cars that drive on the wrong side of the road, rise up against sky high taxes, rise up against Godless hippies and join America by creating your own copy where you live. Remember, the power comes from the people to the government - not the other way around!!! America was the first to solve world problems with nukes and I hope we never forget how to. ClaudeVMS

No, those facts don't directly support the argument.

The space race was a lot more than just the rocket engines. Just launching a rocket doesn't get it to its destination. And just manufacturing some rockets doesn't make an industry.

The space race was part of the R&D for the rest of the program.

And even more important, the space race was propaganda for Americans to accept the $billions spent on building a Federal rocket/aerospace industry, most of which was going into ICBMs and other Cold War tech to be used in a hot war.

Again, how does this oppose religion/existance of God?
Evolution is a religion in itself used to try and justify a Godless existance, in some vain hope that you will not be personably answerable to your creator.

Science does not say that god exists, nor does it say go ddoesn't exist, it simply says 'there's no way to prove or disprove it so its out of scope'. Its the religious world that is trying to distort science in the public's mind to include stuff about god (even though this is incompatible with the very definition of science). In short science is the innocent victim here, being attacked by a desperate fundamentalist movement in organised religion.

I think I have heard this type of argument before. . . OH YEAH that was it when slave owners told their slaves that they were better off being slaves in the US than being godless in Africa. My point is that one should not have to be "glad" that they are getting a cost of living increase in pay. Convincing people that they should be happy in a bad situation isn't doing anyone any good. In the long run you are correct that people will have to look for different jobs to get the money they need just to maintain their standard of living which will hurt the employer. Similarly switching jobs like this plays havic with many retirment plans which will hurt the employee in the long run. Just because it is the way it is doesn't mean anyone should be happy about it.