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Britons Unconvinced on Evolution
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 I'm a Brit myself, and I thought most people over here thought these views were outdated and lacked substance.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?"
I think The Economist said it best:
"Intelligent Design is something Britons read about with a smirk before they turn to the Horoscope section"
(from memory, but very close)
Proof that Americans don't have a monopoly on ignorance!
steampunk web design
What's even stranger they're one of the only first world countries that still believe that someone's bloodline can grant them some sort of economic, political and social status.
Wow. Fantastic deduction.
Nothing like denying education to the poor and middle to exacerbate the existing social divisions.
Heck, with all that money we save we could bring back debtor's prisons as well. Everybody wins!
Try Cuba, the weather is nice, great cigars, and beautiful women. It really is a nice place...well...except for that one guy.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Damn spaghetti monster? BLASPHEMY!!!!
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Lol, you're right their. I was a stupid typo. Thing is I get really annoyed when people make spelling mistake in stories. Talk about hypocracy!
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
You're a complete, myopic idiot to think this in the first place. This "the USA is the only place with stupid people in the world" is astonishing in its hypocrisy. You have whole nations out there with government based on radical, fundamental theology from top to bottom. Or other ones based on outdated theories and economic systems that have been repeatedly demonstrated to be broken.
On the other hand, however, I'm seriously troubled by this. I guess I was kinda counting on the rest of the world to bitchslap America back to sanity sooner or later, but now it appears that we can't count on the global community saving the day for rationality.
Where does this come from? This sort of talk just makes you sound the like the most ignorant fool of all. What makes you and your ilk live this delusion that the world outside the USA is somehow magically enlightened and rational? Have you ever BEEN anywhere? I've been to every continent (visited Antarctica thanks to Linblad Expeditions) multiple times for my job, and the USA is a rank amateur when it comes to irrationality.
HUMANITY is irrational.
You're right there. Same with Plate Tectonics. I mean, sure, we've found the mid-Atlantic ridge and measured how it's spreading a tiny amount each year, I don't disagree with Micro-Continental-Drift. It's only Macro-Continental-Drift I disagree with. Pangaea? Rubbish. And all the magnetic reversal patterns and matching rock formations on separate continents that the scientists come up with are IMO really weak.
And don't get me started on Macro-Addition. I mean, we know 1+1=2, we can test that by counting things, but AFAIK nobody in the world has ever seen more than a few million of anything at one time. And yet these scientists tell us about billions of this and trillions of that, and then they even make up a new way of writing numbers that doesn't even use names! Exponential notation is only a theory, and IMO, a weak one at that.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Your faith gives me heart.
May you be touched by His noodley appendage.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris has allowed to live....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I think you forgot the first adjective: "smug".
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
THta's wha tpreveiw si for...
RAMEN!
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
Having seen the movie, "Underworld: Evolution", I'm starting to believe that the concept of evolution needs to be banished, if for no other reason than to prevent entertainment companies from coming up with these ideas.
Underworld: Evolution (movie)
Evolution (movie)
King of Fighters Evolution (video game)
Turok: Evolution (video game)
Gah!
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
A very well-reasoned post, and your conclusions are inescapable--except for one thing. Intelligent Design is falsifiable, thus is science, and thus should be taught in the classroom.
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
OK, then; falsify it for us, so we can all forget about it and move on.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Being brittish qualifies me to talk about this, I asked a few friends and some collegues at work and all of them believed in evolution ... even the christian who goes to church every weekend thinks that there was a form of evolution.
I'm not sure where/how they got a cross section of the population of this 'survey' but as far as I can see it's not very true.
I take offense at your slandering of His Noodleyness with your implied comparisons to ID.
Heathen.
A B A C A B B
something else to add to the list of "Bad things we have imported from the USA", along with McDonalds and (c)rap-music.
You would think that while posting about education I would find it wise to run a spell checker before hitting post. Please, excuse my typo's.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Q. Do you feel that one-way systems often impede easy traffic flow?
Q. Do you think that the education of the designers is to blame?
Q. Should Inteligent Design be taught in schools?
James P. Barrett
Actually, I think it is closer to 80%.
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.
None of my close friends like eating pork, but we're all well educated jewish rabbis so I guess that's to be expected.
Dont you know ?! The Earth is a supercomputer built by a bunch of mice ? to know the ultimate question for the answer 42...
Grab 2000 random statistics off of ...
Random? Hilarious! You should all read the fine print:
Over 2000 participants took part in the survey. All of the participants were surveyed outside churches on sunday afternoons.
Could be a robotic SPAM duck decoy...
Oh Wait! You said it tastes good...
Never mind....
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
We have evidence that we have evolved from "lesser" mammals, and they evolved from fish/reptiles, and they evolved from (initially) single celled lifeforms.
Ergo, god is an amoeba.
Because when one reasons about the physical sciences one uses inductive reasoning. If this bacterium is susceptable to penicillin and that bacterium is susceptable to penicillin and the other bacterium is susceptable to penicillin, maybe all bacteria are susceptable to penicillin. On the other hand, maybe they were susceptible to the alcohol used to suspend the penicillin and drowned. (I'm sorry. I'm no expert in the biological sciences, so maybe bacteria aren't susceptible to alcohol. It's not germain to the argument I present.) It's only in the mathematical sciences that we can prove, given certain axioms and methods of inference, that for examle there is no largest prime number.
Believers in ID did not become so by looking at the strong and weak nuclear forces.
So you believe that a statement is true or false depending on how the proponents of the statement came to examine it? If I could give you one example of a person who believes Intelligent Design by examining the strong and weak nuclear forces, would you then come to believe Intelligent Design?
The suggestion that a single development (in an area of physics that most of these people don't even know about) could change their minds is either naive or dishonest.
Who has made such a suggestion?
The only way to disprove ID is to solve all of the unknowns in science, to such a degree that ID believers can no longer quibble over the definition of the word "theory". Personally I don't believe that's possible.
I note that the way Newtonian physics was disproved was through Einstein's theory of relativity (The General one, I think, but I'm not certain.) I note that scores of physicists are trying to disprove the theory of relativity at this moment. Would you similarly claim that the only way to disprove Einstein's general theory of relativity is to solve all the unknowns in science to such a degree that ToR believers can no longer quibble over the definition of the word "theory?" If not, why not?
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
"Grab 2000 of any random population off the streets of any city"
err, that wouldn't be followed by shady flights across European airspace, detention without trial and torture would it?
oops, my bad........wrong country
You're right, Karl _was_ the funniest Marx Brother ...
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Bull.
If you actually knew what you were talking about, you would know that Jesus wasn't "sharing" one peice of bread with many, nor was he demonstrating his power. The lesson has nothing to do with "good will towards your fellow man."
The people were all bitching and moaning that Jesus was a bit of a windbag and they were hungry, so Jesus grabs this kid who has a loaf of bread and (miraculously) gives everyone a peice. The people stick around to hear one more dissertation because there is now free food.
The lesson he was trying to teach was that if your going to demand everyone show up at your meeting, you sure as hell better bring donuts.
...and knowing the British, the phrase they missed out of the original article was "of the 3% who bothered to answer our questions ...."