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Did Humans Evolve? No, Say Americans

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."

38 of 2,155 comments (clear)

  1. In an unrealted poll.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...Americans reported least evolved humans on planet.

    Funny how that worked.

  2. Note that the poll only covered Japan and Europe by bunions · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't believe I'm trying to defend America's honor by pointing out that we may still be better than Burma or Pakistan. :(

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  3. Praytell! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Some claim politization. I say Americans are simply observant. Take a look around in America lately, would you believe evolution?

  4. Ob Snipe by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 1, Funny

    Given that evolution suggests selective improvement through change over time, I'd says that the grammatical skills of the Slashdot editors are evidence against that theory...

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    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  5. Perhaps they're right! by greenguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    I, for one, consider George W evidence that we some of us have evolved very little from monkeys.

    --
    What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
    1. Re:Perhaps they're right! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
      I, for one, consider George W evidence that we some of us have evolved very little from monkeys


      Dear sir,

      As a monkey, I find the suggestion that we might have common roots with such a disgusting creature deeply offensive.
  6. Re:Well...a little of both? by bunions · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I guess I often think of something I heard someone say: "If humans evolved from apes...why are there still apes?"

    Maybe you should think a little more.

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  7. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by rackhamh · · Score: 4, Funny

    Science threatens their faith.

    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!

  8. Re:Sigh by diodeus · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, the last to accept the Metric system too. Nyah!

  9. Re:Well...a little of both? by polyomninym · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's called a fork in development. Consider OpenBSD and FreeBSD.

  10. Re:Sigh by mantissa128 · · Score: 2, Funny

    You think YOU have it bad. Canada's not even in the list. So tiresome to be left out, as usual, from a list of countries... sigh.

  11. Proof by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 4, Funny

    The roughly third percent of the US population who do not believe in the evolution of humans cited themselves as proof...

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  12. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by rackhamh · · Score: 4, Funny

    Worrying about Bird Flu is so 2005. ... but that whoooshing sound of a joke flying over someone's head NEVER gets old!

  13. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by MrSquirrel · · Score: 4, Funny

    Those Icelanders have NO sense of decency. Why, once one was visiting my parents in Arizona on a cold day and he was wearing shorts! It was a freezing 60 degrees and he had the indecency to wear very revealing shorts (I could see his knees!). Them and their... ice festivals... and... beastiality (I read it on the internet -- Icelanders are notorious for polar bear rape). Go America, these colors don't run!

    --
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  14. Re:Bad example. by sith · · Score: 3, Funny

    I know it's going totally off topic, but come now. Do you have to recite that to yourself each night, to make sure you keep believing it?

    So, all along in the run up to the war, you thought we'd find 500 discarded (in quantities of one or two) pre-first-Gulf-War weapons that couldn't have been fired even if someone wanted to? You were really hoping that we could launch a war resulting in the deaths of more than 2500 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, in order to find what our own defense officials say no longer qualified as weapons of mass destruction? That's really what you were expecting? Man, I wish someone had clued me in...

  15. I believe by Phoenix666 · · Score: 5, Funny

    in evolution because I personally evolved from a lower life form--I used to be a Republican.

    --
    Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
  16. I don't really.. by Tracer_Bullet82 · · Score: 4, Funny

    mind people rejecting evolution.

    as long as they're consistent.

    In the event of a bird flu outbreak in humans, they should not ever take a vaccine or medicine for it.

    There win-win.

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  17. Welcome! by GungaDan · · Score: 2, Funny

    To the Methodist Church... the Scientific Methodist Church.

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    Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
  18. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by thing12 · · Score: 4, Funny
    If our government is run by people who think Evolution is false, they can make laws to outlaw it in schools

    "Miss Crabtree - call the feds! I think Johnny's evolving!"

  19. Re:Not quite.... by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 4, Funny

    And in other news....

    Global warming doesn't exist
    The earth is flat
    Microsoft Vista is out and universally loved by all
    The check is in the mail

    --
    "But this one goes to 11!"
  20. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by hmccabe · · Score: 4, Funny

    You must be new here.

  21. Faith In the U.S. by hiroller · · Score: 1, Funny

    Reminds me of my freshman year on college. I went to a Christian college (soccer scholarship) and got in a huge debate with half of my class over the merits of Evolution vs Creationism. Until that point in time, I never knew that there existed people who didn't believe in the theory of evolution not to mention so damn many of them. I posed two questions for them, which I still ask: 1) How can anyone totally dismiss Evolution with the amount of supporting evidence? Not saying it is the answer to our ancestry, but it's the most probable answer that we have right now. 2) How can anyone not think that the story of Genesis might not be merely metaphorical? No one could read or write before Genesis was written and most historical information was passed through the generations as stories(Iliad). Why then is Genesis taken so literally?

  22. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by Sirfrummel · · Score: 5, Funny

    I concur, the only wooshing sound that happened in this circumstance was the other poster falling back in his chair.

  23. Way to stereotype by durnurd · · Score: 2, Funny

    Way to go, stereotyping a nation to look stupid. I think the title could've been less offensive if, perhaps, it said, "America kills Jesus!" Of course, that doesn't have much to do with the article, but you get my drift.

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    --Edward Dassmesser
  24. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Funny

    I just heard the voice of Odin in my head commanding me to help you pagans get your scary insults right.

    "Superstitious".

    DO NOT CHALLENGE MIGHTY ODIN!

    Now excuse me, I have a date with the Tooth Fairy. Since you've never seen her, you don't know that she doesn't exist.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  25. Shenanigans by adavies42 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I call shenanigans on the Times, Science, and the pandering academics who performed this study. The graph (actual numbers have been conveniently withheld) clearly shows that an absolute majority of Americans do believe in evolution. Worse, the "best case", Iceland, has only an 85% uptake rate--it'd be one thing if it was 99% there, but a difference of less than 35% hardly strikes me as a crisis, at least not in the sense the Times clearly thinks it is. If it shows anything, it shows that people everywhere are still bound to irrational, primitive ideas. As long as even the uber-modern Scandanavians have 10% of their populations believeing in pre-rational nonsense, stop picking on America.

    --
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    -kfg
  26. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by H0p313ss · · Score: 2, Funny
    I thought most Americans were smarter than that.

    That's an interesting theory but do you have any evidence to back it up?

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  27. Americans did not evolve by franksands · · Score: 2, Funny
    Did Humans Evolve? Not Us, Say Americans

    Of course *they* didn't evolved, they elected George W. Bush as President! :P

  28. Heh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "The tooth fairy is a mythical creature, like Santa Clause....and Charles Darwin."

  29. No evolution here by ubergeek65536 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's understandable why many Americans don't believe in evolution -- It's because evolution only happens outside of the US.

  30. Re:Not quite.... by ottothecow · · Score: 2, Funny
    Everything else is money-making hooplah.

    God, I love it how telling people the world is flat scores me fat wads of cash

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    Bottles.
  31. Why not LOTS of Intelligent Designers? by Nick+Gisburne · · Score: 2, Funny

    What I don't get about all the Intelligent Design crap is that they say that there is evidence of a designer, but they only believe in the one god. The universe is so vast and complex that surely it would take at least a dozen or so REALLY brainy god-dudes to come up with all this stuff. So why aren't the god-squadders advocating a belief system based on lots of gods, all with their specific departments? They argue that there is evidence for an intelligent designer, but I've yet to see anyone put forward a case that there weren't a load of em. In fact at the moment they probably outsourced some of the work to 'gods of other religions' which leaves a lot of em unemployed, and pretty much explains why the weather's getting worse - damned out-of-work ID types too much time to play with their tornado and earthquake powers. At least Ganesh is able to scratch his own arse while he juggles - handy having all those arms, you never get bored.

    --
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  32. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by Ian+Bell · · Score: 3, Funny
    So, if God made us just the way we are, how come he built us out of spare chimp parts?

    Maybe God is a programmer. Code reuse is sure what I'd call an Intelligent Design.
  33. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by Thangodin · · Score: 5, Funny
    Yeah, but you usually fix the bugs. Our eyes are built inside out, the birth canal should not go through the pelvis (the opening is too small for our huge human head, requiring babies to be born with immature brains and women to have problematically wide hips), the size of our brains has squashed our sinuses and pushed our jaws out of alignment, etc, etc.

    Can you imagine the comments in the code?

    // I'm not happy with this but it *seems* to work...

    // HACK HACK HACK HACK HACK

    // Old generic mammal code, needs to be replaced!

    // Required by large brain code--refactor if time permits

    // Copied from chimp project--doesn't really work well there either.

    // FIX ME!!!

    I wouldn't want him working on my project...

  34. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Thats all fine and dandy, but who do you think created evolution?

  35. God's evaluation from HR by alienmole · · Score: 3, Funny

    According to a leaked memo from the HR department, during his annual evaluation God was found to be a huge control freak, who doesn't work well in teams, doesn't always communicate clearly, can be a bit too harsh when meting out punishment, and perhaps worst of all, has a serious God complex. They had to let him go.

  36. Re:The Perceived Threat of Science by arminw · · Score: 2, Funny

    ......A literal read of the bible and a belief in science are impossible to reconcile.....

    Only the interpretations of the facts of science are in conflict with the Bible. Evolution is one interpretation and this interpretation does indeed conflict with the Bible. The reason for this is simply that the foundation and purpose of evolution is to try to explain the facts and laws of science by the denial of God. It is a futile, intellectual sounding, yet desperate attempt replace Him and our accountability toward Him with chance or other impersonal mechanisms. You WILL DIE and then face Him as your judge. Then you will get what you DESERVE, as will every other human. Right now however you may accept His grace through FAITH in Jesus and NOT get what you deserve when you have to appear in the supreme court of the Universe. Those who refuse grace and mercy will nevertheless receive perfect justice.

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    All theory is gray
  37. Re:Look at the evidence by TeknoHog · · Score: 2, Funny

    Bush has evolved from apes???? WTF?

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