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Evolution, Big Bang Polls Omitted From NSF Report
cremeglace writes "In an unusual last-minute edit that has drawn flak from the White House and science educators, a federal advisory committee omitted data on Americans' knowledge of evolution and the Big Bang from a key report. The data shows that Americans are far less likely than the rest of the world to accept that humans evolved from earlier species and that the universe began with a big bang."
Shame? It's a not bad starting point...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Yes, your post is primordial slime. It's not like it was intelligently designed.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
in the article.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The explanation doesn't appear to have soothed White House officials, who say that the edit—made after the White House had reviewed a draft—left them surprised and dismayed. "The Administration counts on the National Science Board to provide the fairest and most complete reporting of the facts they track," says Rick Weiss, a spokesperson and analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF), says it chose to leave the section out of the 2010 edition of the biennial Science and Engineering Indicators because the survey questions used to measure knowledge of the two topics force respondents to choose between factual knowledge and religious beliefs.
Slashdot is nearly as bad as mainstream media, constantly trying to sensationalize everything...
Talking about evolution or big bangs makes the baby Jesus cry!
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Wrong. They asked the questions and did not like the embarrassing answers America gave. Like our child mortality rate, our scientific literacy rate is not something to be proud of. The majority of American do not believe in the big bang or evolution. You may, but most do not, whereas in the rest of the first world, most people do believe in these things.
Where are you getting 'asshat within the White House' from? The National Science Foundation is not located in the White House. Why blame the President for this? This was not an editing error. The questions were asked, but the answers were deliberately omitted.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
When TFA says "data on Americans' knowledge of evolution and the big bang", that suggests it's a measurement of Americans' awareness level of the existence of the topics.
But when the TFA says "Americans are far less likely than the rest of the world to accept that humans evolved from earlier species and that the universe began with a big bang", that suggests it's a measurement of American's agreement level.
Awareness != Agreement != Acceptance
For example, while I might be FULLY AWARE of and understand the reasoning behind Christianity, that does NOT mean that I accept the notion as true.
TFA seems to be suggesting that if you disagree with some topic, that you simply do not understand the topic, which is a complete fallacy.
Big Bang is, well, Big Bang, and only some religious fundies would have issues since the rest of us don't really care one way or another.
Sharing ancestors with apes, well, bit less so.
Evolution: now this is different since it's a demonstrated fact.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I think you forgot to mention how Al Gore and the Internet made all of this possible. I'm sure Apple had something to do with it, too, but that's another thread entirely.
Let's face it, atoms do show up out of thin air. How else can you explain the weight I've put on lately? Damn new heavy elements. I sure wish those scientist types would stop discovering them.
From TFA:
That explains nothing.
And ...
So the guy pushing for the removal cannot maintain a consistent argument for that removal.
When it comes to this sort of polling, there's a little thing that slips by the people who comment on them.
When people from other countries take this sort of test, we get a solid mix of answers, taken seriously.
When people from the United States take them, a regular sample of about 33% hit the "funny answer button."
You get high school students who will, given the chance, answer "Who was Martin Luther King?" with "D. A famous dentist."
You get people on the Internet who answer "what is evolution?" with "D. A clever fiction thought up by some guy."
Yeah, we have more people who really do believe in some things, but we also have a massively higher number of folks who get handed a "no points toward your final grade" test, fill in "D" for all of the answers, and spend the next 45 minutes staring off into space, because the results DO NOT AFFECT THEIR LIVES IN ANY RATIONAL FASHION...
The majority of American do not believe in the big bang or evolution
Good. I don't either. I merely accept them as models that make useful predictions and which are subject to amendment in light of experimental evidence. Mind you, that might be because I'm a scientist and not a priest.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
To the average layman/Joe/Jane "knowledge" of the truth of the Big Bang and Evolution is really tantamount to believing that they are true (that is, valid explanations of our reality). If you go off of a high school education, what do teachers really tell you aside from a few weeks' lecture (at best) and showing some pictures in a book? How does that equate to knowledge of these things aside from "my teacher told me it was true". Perhaps we're just doing a horrible job of managing our credibility on topics such as these. People in all walks of life both deny and affirm the validity of these two theories, yet they seem to appear everywhere (and are wildly [un]successful at their pursuits). Widespread belief in the (in)validity of these two things does not denote the working value of a high school level education, if not even a higher education outside of the areas relevant to these theories. In my opinion, of course.
1. Galaxies all Red Shifted, Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. How does your theory account for these observations?
2. Evolution is the explanation for the variety of species that exist on Earth. It has nothing to do with life from non-life. Why is this so hard to understand?
3. Why am I feeding a troll?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
I've seen more than enough bad science and outright anti-scientific posts here at Slashdot; I can't imagine how depressed — and depressing — the numbers must be among the general populus.
Luckily it's Friday afternoon, and the bar is close by.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
"The prevailing theories in science might one day be overturned so why shouldn't I remain ignorant?"
These are the same people who will insist that using anything more abstract than C means you're not a real programmer.
At the end of the day, thinking for them is more about ego-defense than actual synthesis.
Sorry, these two theories are not on a level playing field. Evolution is a ridiculously strong theory, it's really hard for anyone to not "accept" it unless they do so based on entirely irrational beliefs.
I might think, if not say, someone who doesn't "believe" in evolution is an idiot. I would not say the same thing about the Big Bang for various reasons, among them the fact that the Big Bang does not explain the state of existence at T(Big Bang) - 1. It does not explain creation, and in fact creation is inherently inexplicable unless one resorts to "Magic" of one form or another.
See, this is why I like Electrical Engineering. Everything I work with is invisible, nobody can explain how it works (there aren't even any good theories*), and it can kill you if you forget to turn it off. Even if it doesn't kill you, it might give you cancer or muck up your offspring. The behaviour of any given device is erratic at best, taken for granted, or just plain whacky.
But for some reason, nobody comes up with a "God did it" explanation. Sure, we've got the magic smoke explanation, but nobody takes that seriously except the Rastafarians.
*No, really. Look at the quantum level, but try not to think about it or you'll go blind.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
No. Not in regards to scientific issues.
You can refuse to accept that the Earth is not the center of the Universe, but that DOES mean that you do not understand the SCIENCE behind it.
At least the scientists try to understand what actually happened. If they find out that the big bang didn't happen like they though, they will revise the theory, like most of the theories were revised as proof was found. Classical mechanics (you can accelerate up to infinite speed) -> relativity (actually, you can only accelerate up to c, but never reach it) -> quantum mechanics (electrons do not behave as tiny spheres with a charge after all, they behave as tiny spheres with a charge and waves at the same time) is one example.
On the other hand, religious people do not revise their holy books, they just say that whatever proof to the contrary exists, it must be false/created by devil/etc.
Also, I really like when religious people argue that their religion is the only true religion when using the same arguments as all the others - "It's written so in the book". For example, why are Christians right and Muslims/Scientologists/Ancient Greeks/FSM believers/etc wrong?
education.
under the guise of 'practicing our faith', innumerable religious sects and groups pump youth with bullshit.
this is just the opening stages though. just keep it that way for a few decades more, you may see even the most basic scientific rules and laws getting challenged.
Read radical news here
There was nothing in the universe. Not one deity. All of a sudden a tiny thing showed up (out of thin air) and exploded and gave birth to faith.
... religions popped up all over the place.
Who cares that the most basic laws of observation say that there is absolutely no possible way faith should be here. There should not be ONE SINGLE DEITY in the universe. But there they are.
Then
Yeah I feel sooo dumb for wondering why religion could not have just popped into place from thin air for no reason.
The faithful of this age are a wonderful irony. Elitist simpletons who simultaneously think they believe the absolute truth yet have no ability to think for them self.
I've never understood this, of all the people I've known closely, the only two that didn't believe in evolution, the origins of Man and the creation of the Universe were both radicals.
One is a radical Catholic who is a pharmacist. Not sure how someone who has to take a load of science classes can be so far off reality.
The other is a radical American Indian activist. Testing off the charts, brilliant guy, raised by AIM activists and just flat out refutes the evolution of man, migration across the Bering Straights Land Bridge or any other migration theories and evidence. He has a Ph.D in something from CU, he studied under Ward Churchill.
My mix of friends and family are either far-left, moderate or moderate right.
Thin air is made of atoms.
It's where plants get the carbon that they turn into, well, plant material. (Yep. Giant redwoods are mostly distilled air.)
So from the evidence you present, I deduce that you are a plant.
If your beliefs separate you from knowledge, then you lack knowledge. Their polls are about measuring knowledge. Removing it because some beliefs keep people intellectually backwards is a shame.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
The above is the most important point in the thread. Science is not about belief -- it's about evidence. And the another important difference between belief and science is that science can change based on evidence and beliefs do not. They act as filters on new information instead.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Why are we concerned if people, in general, accept the big bang theory or evolution? Why not worry about general relativity and quantum mechanics?
For the vast majority of people, it simply does not matter. Will it pay my mortgage or put food on my table if the sun revolves around the earth or the other way around? If not, then why should they care?
We're all (sometime I wonder though) nerds here, so we care, but most people don't. I know that the operation of my GPS navigator depends on both general relativity and quantum mechanics, but it works whether I believe them or not. How many other people know or care?
A better question would be to ask if they believe that the scientific method is a valid method of seeking the truth. Another question would be if the scientific method was the only valid method of seeking the truth.
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
Goddammit America - You used to be this shining beacon in the world of leadership, democracy and sensibility. Now you're just descending into some kind of nutbar crazy JesusLand. Every week there's another story like this one.
What the hell happened? I want my old America back... Can't you level-headed Americans (there must be *some* of you left...) do something about it?
But when we fielded some honest tube-thumpers, everyone said it was lame:
There was nothing in the universe. Not one atom. All of a sudden a tiny thing showed up (out of thin air) and exploded and gave birth to the physical universe.
Who cares that the most basic laws of physics say that there is absolutely no possible way the physical universe should be here. There should not be ONE SINGLE ATOM in the universe. But there they are.
Then ... life popped up all over the place.
Yeah I feel sooo dumb for wondering why the physical universe could not have just popped into place from thin air for no reason.
The atheists of this age are a wonderful irony. Elitist simpletons who simultaneously think they are genius yet have no ability to think for them self.
So you think the "invisible man in the sky" explanation is more credible than what science has come up with so far?
Let's not forget that it wasn't so long ago that our knowledge didn't even go back as far back as the Big Bang. As recently as the period leading up to the renaissance we weren't all that sure how the Earth fits into the neighbouring planets and the local star, to say nothing of how old or big the universe was. Just because science has frontiers now or because you don't understand the science (which you clearly don't) doesn't make it all bunk.
"Simpletons" indeed!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
nobody can explain how it works (there aren't even any good theories*)
Quantum electrodynamics produces results that agree with experiment to thirteen significant digits. It is probably the most accurate, successful theory ever devised.
Having a degree in Electrical Engineering and also a second major in applied physics and time in grad school for nuclear engineering and physics, let me illuminate this subject a bit.
Engineers don't really delve into the why of things. The learn the basics and then hammer on the practical applications. You get just enough theory to get by.
Physics is more or less the opposite. They work with lots of theory and theoretical models. The applications they leave to the engineers ...and the applied physicists. Applied physics tends to be in the middle; they test the models in the real world and they try to find useful applications for the data/model/results.
The point is, though, engineers aren't taught things like high-level theoretical models because they wouldn't really be useful for them. There are certainly theories and models that explain 99% of what goes on in EE.
If you're asking what are fundamental forces like electricity, magnetism, and gravity... Well, people are working on that too, although progress is slow.
You seem to imply there's an easy answer to the origins of this universe which "science" is just too stupid to conclude. What might that answer be? If your assertion is that it had to be created from "outside" then the latest physics is tending to agree with you. It has begun to see this universe as only one small bubble in a continuum which is much larger...
Science is nothing more than our closest and most carefully-recorded observations of the cosmos, and a set of methods for direct inquiry regarding the questions arising from our observations. The questions opened up by science extend into the philosophical, the ethical, and demonstrate the limits of inquiry by sensory observation.
Science may not be able to tell us how absolutely everything began, or why anything exists at all. By all appearances, it looks like the multiverse has always existed, and creating little finite universes like ours is just what it does by nature. Furthermore, science has proven that "things" don't really exist (per se) at all. Things seem to dissolve into merely potential things until they interact. To all appearances, it seems as though the substance of the universe is nothing more than pure information.
Science does nothing to preclude serious inquiry into the nature of the self and one's relationship to the eternal. And in fact, it strongly supports the psychological and social benefit of rituals, rites, and practices. Humans are socially wired to share stories, to teach wisdom, and to explore the dissolution of the personality.
Immanuel Kant and other philosophers perceived the limits of external experience as a way of knowing in regard to metaphysics or questions of self. Our knowledge about the interactions and relationships of composite things only puffs up our sense of world mastery and involves us in the requirements of survival. Inquiry into questions of selfhood, identity, the nature of the eternal, and so on, requires contemplation, meditation, and other methods inherent to the mind.
In the modern age, people increasingly reject the literal interpretation of ancient writings intended to instruct and guide. It is clear that there are no gods creating, intervening, or punishing. Our superstitions concerning demons, deities, and messiahs evolved from the mythology and imagery of tribal teaching. But in modern times we no longer need them. We are fully aware of what is beneficial or non-beneficial to us, and it is wholly in our own hands to choose the future we want. The way has been prepared.
Science doesn't exalt mankind, it's true. But it exalts creation and it exalts life. The mathematics show us how truly precious we are. The physics and biology shows us how truly blessed we are to be able to live in and explore this universe. Appending an "amen" does nothing to enhance the sentiment. Nature itself is luminous, energetic, and aware. Everything the sincere and serious seeker is looking for is right here, right now.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Like our child mortality rate
We count babies as "born" which most countries end up counting as "stillborn," which hits a different category in the stats. For that matter, we have premature births which end up with nice, healthy babies - that most countries can't even keep alive - or won't even try...
Some European countries don't count a baby death as "infant mortality" until the baby reaches three days (they don't issue birth certificates until then, and the infant mortality stats use birth certificates for generating that statistic).
Really? From the way it seems to be phrased, he said that they would not answer "No".
Not that they would not answer.
What are the specific "subtleties" here?
You seem to be trying to argue generalities in a very specific instance.
Failure to accept an assertion is not the same as failing to understand that an assertion has been made
Those are not, in any practical sense of the word, facts. Whether or not they are literally true, speculating about what might have happened millions of years ago is of little real importance to people living today.
Am I to believe that the scientific construct a used to make a scientific discovery is as important as the discovery itself? It isn't. Scientific constructs have no intrinsic value.
Religious dogma aside, this Big Bang theory seems dated. The idea that the Universe might be finite has been challenged and, frankly, seems less likely as more is learned about quantum gravity and string theory. I am of the mind that there may have been a bang, perhaps many, but not just one big one. As some are monotheistic and others are polytheistic, I rebuke one big bang and claim to believe in many bangs. Just like thinking we are the only ones in the Universe, I doubt if this vastness could only come from one, 15-billion-year-old bang. Way beyond 15 billion light years might be a fireworks of bigger and better bangs. Our perspective is much too small to rule it out this soon.
As for evolution, I have questions as to its accuracy. For example, I think it is more likely that apes ascended from man. Evolution does not necessarily lead out of the jungle and into a Burger King.
From the deleted.txt file:
In response to another group of questions on evolution asked by Gallup in 2008, 43% of Americans agreed with the statement that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so,” while the 52% agreed with either of two statements compatible with the theory of evolution: that human beings developed over millions of years either with or without God’s guidance in the process (figure 7-12). These views on the origin of human beings have remained virtually unchanged in nine surveys since the questions were first asked in 1982 (The Gallup Organization 2008c).
In other words, significantly more than half of Americans know very well that the Christian creation story is a fable, and this has been the case for nigh on 30 years, at least. Headline: Genesis believers are minority in US.
Enough with the incessant navel gazing about this; the widespread and growing religious fanaticism you use to rationalize your loathing for your culture is a fiction. Secularism is (thankfully) firmly in control of the governance of the US, has been for several generations and shows no sign of abating, despite what you're being told inside the hysteria filled echo chamber of your choice.
Really? So the entire basis of modern medicine and biology is based on "a few observations"?
Despite the exact predictions those scientists had made about the genome before they were able to decode it?
"the two topics force respondents to choose between factual knowledge and religious beliefs."
i.e. the respondents might belief X is false even though they know X is true. That's the best description I've seen of the stupidity of religion.
From a strictly scientific viewpoint, neither of those have been definitively proven.
From a strictly scientific standpoint, no scientific theory has ever been definitively proven, in the mathematical sense of the word. Scientific theories can be disproved (falsified), but not definitively proven. For some theories, the mountain of evidence supporting it can be so big that it is essentially considered proven by laymen, but the scientific standards of proof are much higher.
And the theory of evolution is one such theory with a large mountain of evidence in support.
Humans and apes share 96% of their DNA. I forget which comedian asks if you have sandwich that's 96% crap and 4% ham, would you still call it a ham sandwich?
That by itself doesn't prove we descended from apes, but sure would seem to lend it scientific plausibility. If you're faith leads you to a different conclusion, that's fine. But that doesn't mean the rest of us need to teach it in school or avoid teaching what science can measure.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
1) "there was nothing" - nobody ever said there was nothing before the big bang ... "tiny thing showed up out of thin air" - so you say there was nothing but there was air?
2) "not one atom" - atoms formed very late after the big bang began
3) "there was nothing"
4) "and exploded" - the big bang is an expansion (still taking place today), not an explosion
5) "the most basic laws of physics say that there is absolutely no possible way the physical universe should be here" - no, they don't say that
6) "life popped up" - it didn't pop up, it evolved
7) "Yeah I feel sooo dumb for wondering why the physical universe could not have just popped into place from thin air for no reason" - you should
8) "no ability to think for them self" - spelling fail: "no ability to think for themselves"
So, we have at least 8 critical mistakes in 10 sentences. No, wait, I see one more:
9) I smell a hasty generalization logical fallacy, since you don't mention agnostics (probably because you don't even know nor care that they exist).
What IS that smell?
10) "elistist simpletons" - yeah, this explains the smell of nonsense bullshit
There we go. 10 mistakes in 10 sentences.
Yes, it's sarcasm. Deal with it!
Thanks for that. :)
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Interesting, if true. Do you have a source?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I would guess your mix of family and friends are fairly well educated? Not a random sample then. There is a dangerous strain of anti-intellectualism loose in America these days. A belief that common sense beats book learning, too much of which will in turn kill common sense. It amounts to a pride in ignorance.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It is called denialism and there is a pretty entertaining book about it that came out recently.
Evolution and the Big Bang in the U.S.A. Slashdot must be celebrating International Troll Story Day
Your theory is testable and observable?
Well said! I cannot improve upon your summary.
I don't need to read no books, I got common sense.
Neither has gravity, or do you believe in intelligent falling?
The previous poster was going on about how UNDERSTANDING does not have to lead to AGREEMENT.
I pointed out how, in regards to SCIENCE, that was not possible.
Now you're claiming that NOT understanding, but agreeing anyway means that it is a religion.
Whatever. Since I never claimed that. You might want to look up "straw man".
I pity you - you have been brainwashed into feeling stupid when wondering about these things. The smartest people on the planet wonder about the origin of the universe, and have discovered many wondrous things, yet you idly dismiss them.
Your overconfident arrogance would be annoying if the tortured remains of your natural curiosity were not pitiful.
... the one-eyed man gets to play some *evil* practical jokes.
There's a book about that too. Check out "The Emperor's New Clothes" in your library's children's section.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Yeah, but it's still not a *good* theory. You can use a quantum level theory to get useful results in much the same way as you can use a hooker to get your rocks off. I doesn't mean you don't feel some degree of grubbiness afterwards.
While I agree that many Americans prefer to believe that the magic man in the sky is responsible for everything, I have to disagree with you a bit on bringing up the infant mortality rate. One of the most significant reasons (if not the primary reason) that the mortality rate is higher in the US that other countries is due to the number of premature births in this country. 12.5% of births in the US are premature, and a premature baby has a much higher incidence of mortality. Premature birth is the number 2 reason for infant mortality behind congenital defects. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/541368 The reasons for premature birth are many and varied, but in many cases in the US a couple/mother will opt to carry a child to term that is at significant risk for mortality that would otherwise be aborted in may other developed countries. Please note that this is not a statement in approval or disapproval. I believe that the numbers will show that if you control for the rates of premature birth (which are incredibly high in the US) you will see that the US is on par with most of Europe. Also remember that many countries count things differently. In many countries, for example, it is common to count a live birth that does not live for 24 hours, or is underweight, as still born, whereas in the US a live birth is counted immediately. For example:
Switzerland doesn’t count the death of very small babies, less than 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) in length, as a live birth, according to Nicholas Eberstadt http://www.aei.org/scholar/62, a former visiting fellow at Harvard’s Center for Population and Developmental Studies. So comparing the 1998 infant mortality rates for Switzerland and the U.S. (4.8 and 7.2,respectively, per 1,000 live births) is comparing apples and oranges.
In other countries, such as Italy, definitions vary depending on where you are in the country.
Eberstadt notes “underreporting also seems apparent in the proportion of infant deaths different countries report for the first 24 hours after birth. In Australia, Canada and the United States, over one-third of all infant deaths are reported to take place in the first day.”
The child mortality rate is too high, but I'm not sure what you are trying to imply? I don't think the issue is a simple or cut and dried and you seem to imply, and I don't see any relationship to the topic at hand.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
OK, finding an engineering diploma in your happy meal from McDonalds does not make you an electrical engineer.
Electricity is "invisible" in the same way air is "invisible". You're implying that it's "magical", which it isn't. There are good theories that explain electricity, just because YOU can't understand quantum mechanics (not a huge number of people can) doesn't mean that it's wrong or that it isn't a good theory. Electricity does not "magically give you cancer" if you don't turn it off. Certain EM radiation might cause changes in the chemical reactions regarding your DNA and cause problems that manifest as birth defects, but it ain't fucking magic. This effect is well documented in medical journals, chemistry and biology journals, physics journals, and has lots and lots of experimental evidence to back it up. We might not understand exactly how every single birth defect is caused, but we have a good idea of the mechanism that causes it to happen in the first place. Given time we will discover more.
"The behaviour of any given device is erratic at best, taken for granted, or just plain whacky."
Good god no. We don't just "take science for granted". It is, by definition, impossible to PROVE a scientific theory but this does not mean that we're just making random guesses and flying by the seat of our pants when it comes to science. We do experiments, we are methodical about the way we test things, the theories people come up with are generated from hypotheses generated from careful observation and theoretical study.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
"[W]hen people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was [perfectly] spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." - Isaac Asimov
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Not sure on sources for some of the stuff, but I do know that the CDC put out a report on the high number of premature viable babies born in this country far exceed those born in the average European or Asian country. A lot of this is attributed to health issues with mothers in the US where a doctor has to induce early to protect the baby, and also for other concerns about the mother. It is true that our ability to care for premature babies is much greater than that in a typical European country. We spend a lot more money researching medical techniques and drugs that allow for this. We also spend a lot more money and time training our doctors. Unfortunately, equally contributing to this factor is that we have a lot more unhealthy mothers with diabetes, high blood pressure, and other risk factors that could result in stillborn babies. So it's equal parts medical technology and medical necessity that results in the increase in premature births.
The same gap exists for the response to a second statement, "The universe began with a big explosion," with which only 33% of Americans agreed.
I wonder how many of the remaining 67% are people who accept that the big bang happened, but understand that it wasn't an explosion.
Technoli
I know, and the question they asked:
"The universe began with a big explosion" Agree/Disagree
If big means it filled the whole universe at the time, then I'll agree to the big, but if you mean larger than an atom, then I'll disagree.
Which still leaves them to define all the other terms like 'explosion': I mean it was the beginning of space-time as we know of, so it didn't really explode because it was already everywhere, but it was rather hot, like explosions I'm familiar with. Marginally agree? maybe?
'Began'...I don't know, heard that time was different then, not really sure what you mean there. And is Universe all matter we know of, I mean, we're not in some sort of black hole in the larger unobservable universe?
Well, in fact, we *do* "know [...] for a fact" that humans evolved from earlier species. Some relatively minor details may be subject to uncertainty but the basic fact is clear and incontrovertible.
But you are right, this doesnt rule out an ultimate creator. The teacher that got me really interested in evolution, in fact, was a pretty conservative and deeply religious southern baptist as well as a biologist. Scientific knowledge certainly rules out the naïve literalist reading of the bible that a few ignorant loudmouths reliably push, but even in conservative religious circles that isnt a respectable reading and probably never has been, and you dont need modern science to debunk it, it's untenable even on its own terms. Darwin was religious and most scientists historically have been - many people have and do pursue the natural sciences as disciplines which glorifies the creator by helping us to understand and appreciate his work and methods. From this point of view, evolution doesnt denigrate the creator, but reveals his sublime genius and foresight.
And in an eery mirror image to the fundamentalist religious idiots, we also have fundamentalist anti-religious idiots who add lots of heat but no light to the conversation by loudly proclaiming that evolution disproves theïsm - a position no more accurate than that of the most irrational bible thumpers who agree wholeheartedly with the false proposition that the two are fundamentally incompatible.
But while I believe I see and sympathise with your point here, and as devils advocate I will even postulate that the results *in part* reflect a healthy skepticism, a population which is less inclined to simply believe whatever someone who appears authoritative tells them and is more willing to reject assertions without proof and/or has some awareness that theories change over time and rarely if ever represent ultimate truth, experience also leads me to believe that the bulk of the difference is better explained by the abysmal state of science education in the US and a significant number of irational and ignorant "believers" who simply accept the pronunciations of the loudest and least authoritative religous authorities then refuse to consider anything else, unfortunately.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
See, this is why I like Electrical Engineering. Everything I work with is invisible, nobody can explain how it works (there aren't even any good theories*
*(snip)
But for some reason, nobody comes up with a "God did it" explanation. Sure, we've got the magic smoke explanation, but nobody takes that seriously except the Rastafarians.
and those who've ever driven a British sports car....
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You really need to watch The Business of Being Born. It will change your perspective on this.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
There is no "before" moment to the beginning of the universe. Time started at that moment.
Although this is the answer is more or less what a physicist would probably say to you it's also an answer given by Saint Augustine. You do not only fail in science but also in basic knowledge of theology.
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
"How much does it matter?"
Actually, I think that is a really insightful question even though I am about to disagree with everything else you said.
We really don't know any of this stuff for fact
As much as we can "know something for a fact", I think our scientific theories are pretty high up there.
Big Bang theory isn't set in stone
Of course not; it is mutable, but the overall cosmological model is hardly under question. However, the questions they asked in the article were rather stupid and I would have to disagree with at least the BB theory according to the questions from the article, while I am actually all for exploring the poorly named theory.
...One of the widely held theories by Big Bang theorists was that the universe would end in a "Big Crunch"...
Like your iff(primordial-soup) then evolution statement I examine below, your talk about related guesswork has little to do with the cosmological model that comes from the poorly named big bang theory.
I think the a high number of Christians accept that species have the ability to adapt and change in reaction to their surroundings through natural selection, which seems to fill a definition of evolution, even if it is not the one scientists want it to be
Scientists should want students to have the most accurate theory, not something "which seems to fill a definition of" the theory. I would say they are correct to insist on that. I would rather 0% of our youth say they accept evolution, but 100% understand it with accuracy than the other way around. I think most scientists would agree.
The "primordial soup" theory, one of the corner stones of evolution
I never heard that before. They aren't necessarily related. As far as evolution goes it really wouldn't matter if God came down and personally created the first single celled organisms. The primordial soup is really not necessary. I also skimmed your link which said basically: the conditions of the predicted primordial soup were different according to some scientists. Not really a disproof of evolution.
I got caught up arguing little things as I'm sure replies to me will, but In answer to your question:
I think it is rather important as it points out the ignorance that people have towards science. People seem to believe in evolution or the big bang not based on how they were raised, which is not how it should be. A good scientific minded person (brought out of a country with a good science education system) would take in the evidence and accept the theory that best fits the evidence and best allows us predict where we need to explore in the future. Though the article's survey was total crap and reasonable to dismiss, non-acceptance of old, well supported theories is evidence to me that our scientific education kinda sucks (or people are purposely very ignorant to it).
Suppose a woman becomes a biology professor. She spend her fertile years studying, either in a lab or out in some horrid part of the world. Does she reproduce?
Suppose a woman goes door to door trying to save people. (from science I guess!) She meets a lot of nice guys. She has no significant way to support herself. She thinks birth control encourages sin. Does she reproduce?
Given that mental traits are largely genetic, you can tell where humanity is going. The resulting creatures ("humans") will of course **KNOW** that it was God's will to strengthen people's faith.
until the baby reaches three days (they don't issue birth certificates until then,
Would you care to detail which countries? I live in Europe and the birth certificate can be issued immediately after birth in my country.
Nope. I'm from a reservation. 10% of my high school class went to college, and half of those dropped out. I'm the only one in my class and family with post-grad work.
Of my off-reservation friends, say half have a BS/BA or higher.
There was nothing in the universe. Not one atom. All of a sudden a magical space fairy showed up (out of thin air) and created the physical universe.
Who cares that the most basic laws of Physics say that there is absolutely no possible way this could have happened. There should not be one rock older than 6000 years. But there they are.
Then ... he sent a physical son to this universe he created.
Yeah I feel sooo dumb for wondering why a magical space fairy could not have just poofed a universe into existence from thin air for his own entertainment.
The theists of this age are a wonderful irony. Power-hungry simpletons who simultaneously think they have all the answers yet have no ability to think for themselves.
and i believe the universe is constant across time and space. that the expansion we see cosmologically is only local, where elsewhere it could be contracting. the universe is like the surface of the ocean on a windy day, forever and in all directions
i think the big bang theory is extrapolating too much from the data. and in fact, its very judeochristian: there really doesn't need to be a creation event you know. there is no god and the universe has simply been around forever and will be around forever and stretches infinitely everywhere
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I have no problems with evolution while also believing in Creationism. Creationism says how things started. Evolution says how things change.
God spoke to me.
It matters a lot. The question about knowledge of evolution or the big bang doesn't imply a perfection of belief as does "knowing" that God, the FSM, or whatever, created us. If one knows about the science, then one understands that our current state of understanding is imperfect and there's more work to be done to refine the theories. If one "knows" about a supreme being, then its all over. God cannot be understood, or questioned.
The answer to the question tells more about our abilities to grow intellectually as a nation than it does about something that we may never have to use in our daily life.
Have gnu, will travel.
That is exactly what I was about to say. If someone asked me if I "believed" in evolution, I'd answer "No", because I don't "believe" in it. I don't "believe" in anything, I don't have any kind of "believes". I am against "believing" things.
On the other hand, I understand that based on existing evidence, evolution is the the best theory we have. Off course, some things about evolution might be wrong, but you have to differentiate between 'evolution' and 'the theory of evolution'. Our understanding of how genetic mutation occurs changes constantly, and we prove ourselves wrong all the time. On the other hand, there is no doubt that genetic mutations occur throughout generations, and that living things evolve into other living things, and thats how we got here.
That's not the same as "believing" in evolution. Believing in evolution is as stupid as believing in god, or believing in anything else for that matter. Understand, comprehend, reach conclusions. Never, ever hold believes. it's time we get rid of that word.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I think you misunderstood Beardo the Bearded's post. He wasn't arguing that electricity is magic. He was pointing out that electricians don't think of electricity as magic, even though it behaves strangely.
Yes, very clever. Of course you and I both know that the poster did not use "believe" to mean "to take as a matter of faith" - but you get maximum smartarse points anyway.
The majority of American do not believe in the big bang or evolution
Good. I don't either. I merely accept them as models that make useful predictions and which are subject to amendment in light of experimental evidence.
Which means that you believe them... just, only tentatively, which is the right way to believe most things, since absolute certainty is very hard to come by.
Or do you think that only irrationally dogmatic opinions should count as "beliefs"?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Theory or hypothesis?
So many people throw the word theory around, apparently without a clue what it means.
Somehow I doubt that your personal "theory" is "every bit as good as any that Science has to offer"
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
I agree with the parent that the primary, or at least one of the primary motivations that caused the board members to actually act on this was that the survey results were embarrassing. However, that does not mean that their objections aren't valid.
It is unsurprising that this effort was spearheaded by a philosopher, attuned to the precision or lack thereof of language and its epistemological implications.
The first thing I noticed about this was that the questions are indeed imprecise: it would have been more appropriate, if the questionnaire is indeed meant to test knowledge to say something like "The biological theory for the origin of man most supported by the evidence is that [earlier question]." Testing belief separately is not a bad idea, though: otherwise we really are trying to ignore reality.
The second thing that occurred to me was that South Korea did second-worst on the evolution question. Apparently, ~30% of South Koreans identify as Christian.
Christians aside, there could very well have been a small minority of perfectly scientific individuals who still answered "no" to either of the questions because of their poor phrasing. Perhaps they prefer to say that the universe "expanded rapidly." I am much more familiar with evolution than astrophysics, and wonder what is really meant by "developed from earlier species of animals." More than one species? Do they mean that transitively, or are they asking about a radical horizontal transfer theory? We could also argue about the precise meaning of "developed from" and "earlier." Of course, I would still answer "yes" because I don't want to troll the NSB survey, but maybe if I were having a bad day...
The questions are blunt instruments to capture the public understanding of the topics. I don't have a problem with rewriting them and hopefully expanding them into more questions. In the end, though, even Bruer agrees that pedants trolling the survey is not a (statistically) significant issue.
The "primordial soup" theory, one of the corner stones of evolution has been largely rejected by scientists
The "primordial soup theory" isn't even a _part_ of Evolutionary Theory, let alone a "cornerstone" of it.
> ...which is measured differently than pretty much every other First World nation on the planet.
No it isn't. This claim is plucked out of thin air whenever someone mentions the US' relatively high child mortality rate. I must have seen this happen a dozen times now, and (unsurprisingly) there is never any substantiation given.
International medical studies always go to great lengths to identify and, where possible, eliminate bias due to differences in reporting methodology. A comparative study of child mortality does *not* simply use each nation's definition of what constitutes a live birth.
I have trouble believing in the evolution of species, because I'm not even sure what a species is. I might read an article once and a while to try to figure it out, but I never really get anywhere significant, and I other things to do as well. My conception of a species is as muddied as my conception of a breed, yet I'm told that a breed has no scientific basis. I'm not sure what the scientific basis for a species is. I've heard that it has something to do with groups of organisms which can breed together. A group which can breed together is a species, an organism that can't breed with members of this group is of a different species. I don't see how this applies to organisms which don't breed at all, however. And I've also heard that it is not if an organism _can't_ breed with some group which defines that organism as a different species, but that it _won't_ breed. So someone might be able to mechanically force the organism to breed with members of the group, but this would never happen naturally. This is just plain a different definition from the first. Which is the right one I have no idea, and so I have no idea what a species is, and so I have no idea what the evolution of species is.
With the big bang I have other problems. I don't know what primordial nucleosynthesis is really. But I'm told, if I remember correctly, that the relative abundances of certain elements in our universe is evidence that once our universe was so small and dense that this primordial nucleosynthesis occurred. This then is supposed to prove that the big bang occurred. But that primordial nucleosynthesis occurred is seems to me to only show that there was a certain density of the universe, but I don't why then the universe is supposed to have been even denser than that, as at the very start of the universe on the big bang model. Why couldn't the matter and energy have been moving in an overall inwards fashion before the time when primordial nucleosynthesis began? The universe was then less dense before primordial nucleosynthesis, became denser as the mass and energy generally moved in towards each other (because that was the path it all was travelling at before reaching this maximally dense point), and then it began to become less dense as the mass and energy continued on their trajectories. I would wager I'm just talking nonsense because all the astrophysicists seem to believe in the big bang, but I don't understand the issues and so this account I give here seems to match up with the evidence just as well as the big bang model does. Basically what I'm saying is that I lack resources to even conceive of what the big bang is and how our observations give evidence for it; so how can I believe in it?
It's also worth mentioning that the difference in infant mortality rates in developed countries is less than 1%. It's not like we're talking about massive differences, and the most likely causes for differences are more likely lifestyle related, such as pregnant drinking, or bad diet, or stress, or whatever else the woman does while she is pregnant. The infant mortality rate in all these countries is really low.
Qxe4
I can understand wanting to distinguish between what you believe and dogmatic, unshakable faith, but we do use the word "believe" to refer to psychological certainty, which is appropriate for one of the most well-supported theories in science.
I would say I believe in the big bang and evolution, and I believe that neither will be shown to be entirely wrong, only incrementally wrong. I justify that by example: The Earth is approximately flat, locally -- it's only at a large scale that this becomes inaccurate at best, but we can still pretend it's flat when we do landscaping, city planning, etc. The Earth is also not spherical, but pear-shaped, and so on. While the Earth does revolve around the sun, we still talk about sunrise and sunset, and for much of our lives, it works to think of the Sun as going around the Earth, and it's certainly more convenient to assume the ground beneath our feet is stationary, even when we know it's not.
It's possible that I could be shown to be entirely wrong, but that seems incredibly unlikely. So I could say I don't know with absolute certainty, but I can certainly say that I do know and believe with about as much certainty as it is possible to know or believe any physical fact.
So the question could've been worded better. Even so, if you want the word "belief" to have any meaning whatsoever, it might make sense to apply it to things you admit might one day be shown to be false. While "believe in" sounds stupid, irritating, and demeaning to science, I would still rather be counted in such a poll as believing in evolution, rather than not believing.
Semantic arguments are fun, but at a certain point, for expediency's sake, I might decide to adopt the terminology of my opponent so that we can move forward. I can bitch about the abuse of the word "hacking" as much as I want, but at this point, it's just easier to talk about "hacking" to mean cheating, cracking, or any number of other things.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
As usual, you can start with Wikipedia (Comparing infant mortality rates), and click on their sources to see if they're worth anything.
Yes. One day you may prove that evolution (the basis of modern medicine and biology) is wrong. And all the years of research that support it.
Or at least you believe that you might be able to do that.
And that is because you do not understand basic science.
Of course you would. Again, because you do not understand basic science.
All the supporting evidence for evolution ... just doesn't matter to you. You might be able to prove it wrong. Despite all the evidence and all the research that contradicts you.
To pick one data point Singapore is 2.31/1000, and the US is 6.3/1000: the US rate is 273% higher. See here. You seem to be basing your "less than 1%" difference on the fact that all of the developed countries have an infant mortality rate of less than 1%, but this is a ridiculous way to compare statistics for rare events.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
They agree on HOW to learn about those things. There's a huge gulf between empirical observations and explanatory theory. There are plenty of cosmologists around that do not accept the Big Bang theory even now - in fact, there are probably proportionately more now than 20 years ago. There are thousands of climatologists, geologists, meteorologists, and physicists who think that anthropogenic globe warming is crap. Few, if any, though disagree with the opposing theoreticians about the fundamental methods required to actually gain an understanding. What is interesting from an anthropology-of-science view point is that often these divisions between theory-based cliques lies along the divide between observation-based theory and theory-based observation. Theory-based observation expects observations to help verify theory, while observation-theorists often take any unexpected observation as grounds for new theory. The division that emerges is from the basic divide between mind sets that are convinced they have an explanation and mind sets that are convinced they have found a shortcoming the popular theory does not cover. Cliques tend to nucleate around issues and - ideally - new or modified theory emerges. The disagreement is not a bad thing necessarily, but occasionally it can devolve into what amounts to gang warfare.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Wow, way to use statistics to twist things the way you want to portray them. From your statistics, the US infant mortality rate is .63%. The Singapore infant mortality rate is .231%. Easily within 1% of each other. See what I mean? Now tell me, could you really not have figured that out? Either way it's pretty good.
As the GP mentioned, there are a lot of problems measuring infant mortality rates. Given the difficulties, it wouldn't be entirely surprising if the difference between Singapore and the US were entirely measurement error. Now, if you have reason to believe that the difference is entirely the healthcare system, I would be interested in hearing it. However, based on your kneejerk, pointless statistical argument, I would bet you don't actually have one.
Qxe4
People don't believe in evidence when it comes to things that really affect them, like vaccination, nutrition and global warming, so why should they for far more abstract concepts?
Bottom line, if it's facts against superstition, they have been told by their parents and Sunday school to trust superstition, not them durn scientists.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
which is measured differently than pretty much every other First World nation on the planet
Says in the Wikipedia article that UNICEF tries to compensate for such errors in their statistics. Sourced from here: http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=0&SeriesId=562
Statistics are always misleading however, being political tools and by their very nature of reducing large datasets into curves and numbers (a form of lossy compression one could say).
BITE YOUR TONGUE! Have you even tried?
Don't give in so easily! Go down fighting, seeing double, and puking on your own shoes!
Where's your sense of adventure, you piker?!!? You're not living unless you're waking up in a strange place, laying naked next to *insert random gender/ transgender/ pangender/ non-gender here* at least once a week!
I should have known you kids were getting soft when 'bar crawling' evolved into 'bar hopping'.
The tale of the tortoise and the hare comes to mind here....
Or, since you're a youngster, here's the modern version:
There were these two bulls looking over a pasture full of cows and heifers from a hilltop; a young bull, and an older bull.
The young bull said....
P.S. I agree with your point.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Look at the quantum level, but try not to think about it or you'll go blind.
Dude! This is Slashdot so I'd say thinking about the quantum level is the least likely cause of blindness amongst our readers!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
so when 26 species of animals (articulated [intact]), some natural predator/prey, all die in mud in a cave (articulated [intact]), and a Flood is never mentioned, is that theory changing or acting as a filter?
That's it. That's the proof I have been looking for all my life and I've finally seen the light. Oh Lord how could I have been so blind. An anonymous disciple has wiped the caked on mud of scientific evidence from my eyes and now I can finally see! All floods are caused by God and any flood of any reasonable size is proof of the biblical/global flood, and they are obviously to punish the unbelievers, er, and some undisclosed group of animals in some cave somewhere or other ...
No ... wait ... what's that smell ... is it goats? Maybe it's pigs ... no definitely cattle of some sort ...
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
Actually, you're the one twisting the stats, whether intentionall or not. If you'd said "less than 1% of all births" then what you said would still have been technically true, though it also is pretty meaningless given that all countries have less than a 1% infant mortality rate. Also how exactly does "measurement error" fit in here? Are people accidentally deciding babies are dead when in fact they're alive?
which is totally what she said
If the USA would be a country like Afganistan or Italy without nuclear weapons I wouldn't care and hope that some day they will understand that religion is not a good source to find out how the universe come into existence, but a possible good source for ethics and mental stability (as long as you do not become a fanatic). The real problem is that there are so many religios fanatics running around in the US believing in all kinds of things including Armageddon. And now think one of those crazy guys becomes president and pushes the button... This possibility frightens me most. Therefore it is very good to hear that the US is reducing their nuclear potential. Even though they will still be able to fry everyone on this planet. But at least not six times.
The other European country
It amounts to a pride in ignorance.
Which, ironically, they can afford to indulge in because other people (the ones that actually make the world work) don't. (Fitting that some guy's sig down the thread exhorts us to read Atlas Shrugged - tells us exactly where this foolish attitude leads).
And no, I am not saying that the universe was created by a god, that is silly and not even worthy of discussion. But we don't really know exactly how the universe got started. And a big explosion is a bit simplistic anyway, because for someone to explode in the conventional sense, there must be something there. But nothing exploded into something. That is not "possible" (well obviously it is possible) by the normal explanation of an explosion which is a very rapid burn. What fuels were there for the big bang? Unknown.
And no, I am not just nitpicking. Science is about answers, not assumptions. We can't just say "well the universe seems to be expanding there for it must have started very small and gone boom". That is fairytale thinking. WHAT HAPPENEND? In theory it might have been a hole that opened up and stuff streamed in from someplace else. Not a big bang, but a big drain. No proof whatsoever for it, but it fits the facts as well as the idea that nothing explodes. The idea of black and white holes.
Questionares like this are always full of holes and can be all to easily steered. I do not have to believe in the Big Bang theory AND be a religious nutter at the same time. But in a simple multiple choice that distinction can't be made. I do not believe in the Big Bang theory as it is explained on TV. Because something can't come from nothing. That would defy all natural laws of our universe. I do belief that real scientist are just working with what they got and partly making it up as they go along. Dark matter, dark energy. We are in the middle of the detective story and all kinds of theories are being flung around but we lack the vital bit of evidence or just haven't made all the connections yet.
That is science too. No real scientist claims the Big Bang is a fact. It is a theory. The best theory we have so far, but there are flaws within it. So the scientists keep looking.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The first thing I noticed about this was that the questions are indeed imprecise: it would have been more appropriate, if the questionnaire is indeed meant to test knowledge to say something like "The biological theory for the origin of man most supported by the evidence is that [earlier question]." Testing belief separately is not a bad idea, though: otherwise we really are trying to ignore reality.
That wouldn't change the poll results. Think about it. If you had 2 questions, one for knowledge and one for belief, and the respondent said that the evidence was in favor of evolution, how could he then say that he still did not believe in it? That would be facing the uncomfortable truth that evidence does not matter to him. Now, consider the result of this: if he wants to say that he does not believe in evolution, he would logically lay the foundation for this belief by refusing to believe (see how that creeps in yet again automatically?) that the evidence supports evolution. The very problems that such polls seek to pinpoint get in the way of accurate responses.
... I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader ;). It is a fundamental problem - the ability of human beings to hold contradictory pictures of reality in their minds. It is a wonderful tool for creative thinking, if only one remembers in the end to collapse the different pictures down into a single one and call it reality.
And yet, if you asked the guy if we should therefore switch from an evidence-based court system to a faith-based one in the event that he was arrested for murder, well
The question should be, if a sandwich is 96% ham and 4% crap, would you still call it a ham sandwich. And yes you would. A disgusting ham sandwich but a ham sandwich still.
And we are not descended from Apes, we share a common ancestor. And we share one with most life if indeed not all.
And faith shouldn't go against facts and be considered normal.
If my faith led me to believe gravity doesn't affect me, wouldn't I be considered normal if I jumped of a building? No, I would be called insane. If ignoring the theory of gravity is insanity, then so is ignoring the theory of evolution.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Americans are far more likely to be ignorant religious loonies who refuse to believe scientific fact in favour of archaic superstition and myth and profess to follow the word of a deity, meanwhile trying as hard as they can to ensure that the poor and sick don't get the help they need.
Can someone please explain why America is like this?
Stick Men
At some point we should be asking why the government would have any interest in skewing a report with this information. What is behind the supression of this kind of data? Who is behind it? Who does it benifit? WAKE UP PEOPLE!
These are not "fights over science." They are fights between high confidence viewpoints backed by strong, yet malleable theoretical underpinnings, and the viewpoints of ignorant, and/or gullible, and/or critical-thinking deficient and consequently superstitious low-functioning who subsist on a diet of dogma and wishful thinking; compounded enormously by our huge social error of putting religious delusion off-limits for serious public criticism at most levels, particularly in schools.
Our problem is a social problem brought on by the underlying theocratic disease we continue to allow our people to suffer from.
It isn't going to go away until/unless all currently popular religion is treated the way it should be - the same way we treat Odin and Zeus. As the imaginary creations of primitive societies. This should be done in school. As part of normal education. So kids have some chance of escaping the cycle of ignorance that religion uses to propagate itself. Kids should be exposed to the (many) falsehoods used as arguments for religion, from the loaded dice of Pascal's wager to the complete and utter intellectual bankruptcy of creationism.
Even then, I bet it takes a couple of generations to die down to the level of, say, astrology. We'll never eradicate it completely, or at least, not until we edit gullibility, stupidity, and the inability to think critically out of our own genome, and expose the underlying dogmatic thinking as part of a normal education.
Countdown before some poor utterly deluded person comes in here to "defend" some religion or other: 3, 2, 1...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The problem with common sense is that it does not always make sense.
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
Look at the quantum level, but try not to think about it or you'll go blind.
Dude! This is Slashdot so I'd say thinking about the quantum level is the least likely cause of blindness amongst our readers!
...says someone who's never heard of a nerdgasm.
I'm sure I'll get modded down for this
Perhaps not - but Dr Manhatten just made some quick points off you by posting a tangential famous quote ;)
Apparently you can't read. I did not say that I disagree with that statement, but I don't believe it. I think that statement reflects the best theories that we currently have about the origin of humanity, and the ones that give the best (i.e. most useful) predictions. I reserve the right to change my opinion should contradictory evidence, or a simpler theory that provides equally useful predictions, be presented.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Because they still are apes! *ba boom*
(Yeah yeah, I know none of us evolved from apes, its a joke you see - now hand me back my banana!)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
And you sir are absolutely correct. I am a Christian and everything I read and study is filtered through my belief system. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other on evolution. I studied it in school and I understand the theory. Whether or not things happened the way described by my teachers I Know that God was behind it all. I live in a secular world and have to function in it so knowledge of things like evolution is necessary. That doesn't mean I have to accept the general view that God doesn't exist.
Science is not about absolute Truth. It is about saying "This describes everything relevant we know today. If we assume that our description is correct, we can expect to see foo." In this case we can go and look for foo, and if we find it we can say "Well, that works OK, can we do something interesting with that idea." If we find something which contradicts foo, we know our theory was broken and can go away and look for an better one. Other time we find that our theory works, but only under certain assumptions (like, we are moving slowly, or we're looking at a large enough object).
The big bang theory (or rather the many theories which feature a big bang) describe the universe as we see it and offer interesting (to cosmologists) predictions about what we might see, and are the simplest solution which offers us useful, testable predictions. "God made the universe 6014 years ago, but made it so it looks like it does today" would lead to an accurate description of the universe, but it isn't testable because it fits any evidence we find no matter what, so it isn't science. It also doesn't provide any useful predictions (since God is being rather passive at the moment), so it is utterly unhelpful in terms of advancing the boundaries of our knowledge.
They're not surprising findings, but the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF), says it chose to leave the section out of the 2010 edition of the biennial Science and Engineering Indicators because the survey questions used to measure knowledge of the two topics force respondents to choose between factual knowledge and religious beliefs.
IMHO religion has no place in a scientific report. That's not to say that the two sides can't coexist. In fact they must coexist or our country will end up like Afghanistan under Taliban rule. I think fundamentalist's see science as the enemy instead of man's attempt to understand the workings of god.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
"You can use a quantum level theory to get useful results"
Therfore it's a "good" theory in the same way that if the hooker gets your rocks off then she is a "good" hooker. Just be carefull not to fall in love with your theories or hookers.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Nope. Disagreeing with evolution shows "a lack of understanding of basic science".
Possibly. But that indicates an inability to comprehend basic English. That, "hypothetical", "lesser theory" is not what is under discussion. Nor has the other poster identified it. If he wants to fight a straw man, that's up to him. I'm talking about evolution.
And, further delving into science, the problem with the other poster's statement is that not only would have have to disprove evolution, he'd also have to provide a TESTABLE AND FALSIFIABLE theory that accounts for all of the evidence supporting evolution that has been gathered over the years.
Same to you.
The smartest people on the planet wonder about the origin of the universe, discovered many wondrous things, and yet they still have no clue why things happened as it did.
Your overconfident arrogance would be annoying if the tortured remains of your natural curiosity were not pitiful.
Disclaimer: I am not religious and I don't believe that "God" created the universe.
Don't quote me on this.
The majority of American do not believe in the big bang or evolution
Good. I don't either. I merely accept them as models that make useful predictions and which are subject to amendment in light of experimental evidence. Mind you, that might be because I'm a scientist and not a priest.
EXACTLY... Although this is a disturbing story, I gotta wonder if there's a hint of a legitimate concern here by the folks wanting to split out these questions. For example, when Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe"... would he have answered "no" to a similarly phrased question about quantum mechanics? There is a difference between understanding the current theory and believing that that theory is the final explanation.
From the article, the NSF asked:
Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.
If this were rephrased as
The best interpretation of evidence gathered to date is that human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.
I would expect that most creationists would answer false to both but people with legitimate concerns and especially (perhaps) high schoolers who genuinely want to "learn the controversy" might answer False to the first but True to the second.
Also how exactly does "measurement error" fit in here? Are people accidentally deciding babies are dead when in fact they're alive?
There are two options here, you are either incredibly dumb, or very lazy. You don't seem particularly dumb, but your research skills are really lacking, especially when I gave you a link talking about this subject. The measurement error comes in because of differences in how reports are made, for example,
France, the Czech Republic, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Poland do not report all live births of babies under 500 g and/or 22 weeks of gestation
Another difference in reporting was in Russia:
Historically, until the 1990s Russia and the Soviet Union did not count as a live birth or as an infant death extremely premature infants (less than 1,000 g, less than 28 weeks gestational age, or less than 35 cm in length) that were born alive (breathed, had a heartbeat, or exhibited voluntary muscle movement) but failed to survive for at least seven days.[11] Although such extremely premature infants typically accounted for only about 0.005 of all live-born children, their exclusion from both the numerator and the denominator in the reported IMR led to an estimated 22%-25% lower reported IMR
Of course, that is not really a problem anymore, but there is still a known problem with reporting in a lot of Asian countries:
dubiously high ratios of reported stillbirths to infant deaths in Hong Kong and Japan in the first 24 hours after birth, a pattern that is consistent with the high recorded sex ratios at birth in those countries and suggests not only that many female infants who die in the first 24 hours are misreported as stillbirths rather than infant deaths but also that those countries do not follow WHO recommendations for the reporting of live births and infant deaths.
As you can see, there is a lot of room for measurement error. I expect the numbers for Singapore are actually a lot closer to the numbers in Europe.
However, since talking to you last, I did some more checking, and it seems that a large portion of the difference can also be attributed to high rates of diabetes and hypertension. These is especially common among African Americans. I haven't found anything that indicates what differences the healthcare system (between US and Europe, or Asia) might make, but I would be interested in hearing it.
Qxe4
I just don't think those should be called "measurement errors", possibly something like "sampling error" or "sampling bias" due to the way things are done differently in different countries. There was another post around here saying that they do take these differences into account when doing international mortality rate studies, but I suppose that in some cases it may be impossible to create a cohesive set of data depending on the quality of logging that the source countries do.
which is totally what she said
And yet, after 1951 years (or so) the Bible is just as relevant today as it was then.
The first part of that hearkens back to Isa. 29:14 written around 750 B.C., so really, the more things change....
The data shows that Americans are far less likely than the rest of the world to accept that humans evolved from earlier species and that the universe began with a big bang.
It's an important distinction, at some point you accept that Santa Claus was your parents. You believe or you don't that Christmas morning was the happiest part of your childhood.
While I agree that evolution is the only scenario that stands up to scrutiny, that's not the point. If I were to be asked such a leading question, I'd intentionally give the answer that goes against the grain.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
No, again, and this kind of fallacy has already been discussed. _Everything_ in science is a theory. Taking your own analogy, disagreeing with a theory means you don't understand it. With that kind of logic, everyone who doesn't "believe" in string theory doesn't understand it.
Scientific "fact" does not exist; you just point out something most scientists believe to be true but is still, in fact, just theory.
I can read, in fact I used the text the article said they used in the damn question - you know the one you said "Good, I don't either" too.
Obviously in science when you say "I believe X" you mean "X has the most evidence and is currently the best understanding we have".
So basically you have no point, other than that you choose to assign different meanings to words than the rest of us.
What tribe? One side of my family is from Oklahoma. But not originally...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What, you have a theory that's testable and observable?
And is that the standard we should be using?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Ah, Lucas -- the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I disagree with Augustine creation theory, specifically that he taught that God created everything instantaneously, though that does correspond well with our physical sciences. But Augustine did propose understanding Creation as a practical event, and so taught that the story in Genesis could be understood as a framework, not a literal story.
And the problem is, once you take plain scriptural statements and treat them as 'framework', or suggestion, well, you can manipulate scripture into pretty much whatever you want. Some scripture is well-known as figurative or illustrative, much of Revelation fitting that mold. Christ's words quoted in the New Testament, not so much, but to be taken as His literal word.
Don't assume I agree entirely with Augustine.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Well, I've got a B.Eng, and I spent a lot of time studying device behaviour and the quantum physics of semiconductors. Not quite Happy Meal level, I admit, but I did once have a burrito during a lecture.
One thing that you'll find useful in your career is a sense of humour. Despite what you're going to hear at school, Engineering is about 50% social interaction, 25% shopping and vendor relations, 20% drawing pretty pictures, and 5% actual technical work. So yes, 75% of the time is talking to other people. Get a sense of humour and learn to relate to other people. FOr example, my post is not accurate. It is, however, geared for the Greater Internet Audience. It's funny. It's insightful. It's readable, Mr. tl;dr.
As for EM causing cancer, birth defects, and in some cases instant death -- I assure you that it can and does happen. Yes, I am aware that the ionization can cause RNA sequencing to behave in unpredictable ways. Unlike, say, radioactive material, which does the same thing via a different physical operation, there aren't any EM counters that are parallels to a Geiger counter.
And if you think devices behave as intended, you have to get your head out of your ass and your body out of the lab. Try using an RF device outside for once and see what happens.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Ordinarily, I don't respond to ACs, but you have good points, and your stand is rational and sound.
If you don't believe in God, then you will obviously be reluctant to consider a supernatural eternal being. God solves the question of 'before' the Big Bang, but not satisfactorily to you, and I understand that.
But I do not attempt to discredit Science, far from it, Science is in large part indebted to Religion, for many religious people asked 'why?', and Science is the result of those questions.
I just ask greater questions, I think. A 'before' the Big Bang is a legitimate question. ATime for us may have started at the moment of the Big Bang, but I can't yet conceive of a nothing before. And I know, I am limited, both by a lack of scientific knowledge to frame the question, and by human experience.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Can you tell me how current creates a magnetic field? I know that it does, we can all agree that the right-hand-rule is valid, and it's a fact. If I'm not mistaken, it's classified as a Law.
But how the FUCK does it do that?
It just does, right?
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
God is not invisible, though He only showed himself directly to one man, and that a long time ago. But I see His work, and have seen His effect.
Of course, if you're claiming Jesus did not live and say what He said, and did not die and rise again, well, there is ample evidence to support that He did. Just not enough for you, apparently.
I would not follow an invisible God. I trust you will find solace in Science.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Pfft.
I haven't passed a class in six years.
So, can you tell me why an electrical current flowing in a wire creates a magnetic field? I know that it does, and don't bring out a cross-product and think that saying "oh look B" but tell me how the forces of electricity create a magnet. It just does, right?
You should be able to answer this in twenty words or less, unless you got your degrees in a Happy Meal.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
"I have a question for all of the "The Big Bang is a lie because it doesn't account for T(universe) 0" folks."
- I do not and did not intend to state that the Big Bang theory is unworkable and false. In fact, I can tolerate it as the method God used. At the very least, it could be what we can percieve of His creation effort. But it works. I just ask about before.
"`I have a question for this theory. Where did God come from? If God has always been, then why can you not say the same of the Universe?"
God says He has always been. Not me. But to your point, it is Science that states there was a Big Bang. Ask them where the Big Bang came from.
"How can you know that the universe is NOT eternal?"
I dunno. Ask Science. I am stuck with God declaring He is our Creator. This would imply two things:
1- God existed before our Universe.
2- Our Universe was created, so at one time it did not exist.
If I do not accept Genesis as God's word, I can discard all of His word. Well, I just don't.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
By saying "why things happened" is begging the question. You're implying that there has to be a REASON for it to happen.
Compare these two questions:
"Why do apples accelerate toward the ground?" - Because of an attractive force that exists between everything with mass. The earth pulls on the apples, so they fall downward.
"Why does gravity pull at all?" - Begging the question, it assumes gravity has a motivation for doing so, instead of it just being what it is.
If there IS a *why* you should ask a philosopher, not a scientist. Science stops at the why, because you can't test why. Well, you can't test the SECOND kind of why.
Learn something new.
I'm Prairie Band Potawatomi but grew up with the Minnecojou, Sans Arc, Blackfoot and Two Kettle tribes of the Sioux.
Somebody should mod you up.
Anyway, this is an intelligent and very interesting post (I actually read all of it). And I have to agree with you, on most parts. Yes, "Religious" and "Intelligent" are not mutually exclusive. However, the loudest are the religious+stupid people whom I described, and you mention. They hang on whatever they read or a priest told them and won't budge even if you show that the earth is older than 6k years.
I too, do not state that there is no possibility for a god to exist, however, as of now, there is no proof and as such, I choose to believe that there is no god, but this can be changed some time in the future).
An average Cristian believes that:
1.A very powerful being created the universe and personally designed humans.
2.Said powerful being has access to this universe and can influence it even after creation.
3.He can see hear everything that happens in this universe, including what people are thinking (so, maybe he can measure the speed and position of every particle).
4.He cares about what people think and has devised a reward/punishment system for them. Said system usually activates only when a person dies and in rare cases when the person still lives.
5.He wants people to behave like it is written in the bible.
And I can't say that I can disprove any of these claims, however:
1.The universe could just happen to come to being without any intervention.
1a.A powerful being could have created a universe, but this could have been an accident.
1b.This could be a computer simulation or something where the creator just set our universal constants and let it roll. Humans evolved without any intervention at all.
2.The creator could not have access to this universe. It was created, took some other dimension and now the creator cannot come here.
2a.The creator has access to this universe, but is bound by its laws of physics, so he can influence it, but not all of it at the same time.
2b.This is a computer simulation and the creator could change the parameters on the fly, but has to refrain from doing so, otherwise his results will not be valid.
2c.The creator has an equivalent of the prime directive in Star Trek just because.
3.If this is a computer simulation, then the creator could measure every particle of our universe, but it may be a lot of work to him, so he does it only for debugging purposes.
3a.The creator can access this universe, but is bound by its laws of physics, so he cannot be everywhere at one for example.
4.The creator might simply not care what we think and have no reward/punishment system after we die. ./universe.3341 -set G = G * 1.03 )
4a.He might care, but may not be able to do anything about it.
4b.He might care, but just passively (hmm, universe 3341 came out like this... I wonder if I increase the gravitational constant by a few %, maybe the humans will evolve to be less violent. create-universe -config
5.The Christians may be right up until this point. But the god may have created out universe for entertainment and he wants to watch humans fighting and killing each other. He might even reward people after death based of how many they killed.
All these alternative theories are no more and no less valid than what is written in the bible.
As for my definition of soul... I think that what people call soul is just the software running in out brains. Our brains being like the old style computers where you needed to rewire it to make another program, so can the neuron connections in the brain be software that is inseparable from the hardware and when the hardware fails, the connections break down irreparably.
My Dineh friends here in Albuquerque believe the theory of evolution and the big bang. Two are atheists and the rest are Christian. I wonder how accurate these polls really are? Nobody I know doubts these things.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"The international ranking of the United States improves somewhat when these alternative measures [controlling for varying stillborn assessments] are used but it is still relatively low and appears to be deteriorating."
The CBO report doesn't exactly support the grandparent.
"there aren't any EM counters that are parallels to a Geiger counter."
Absolute nonsense. There are meters that can measure magnetic and electric fields. Just as a Geiger counter can measure radioactive decay.
"And if you think devices behave as intended"
If you can tell me where I said that devices always behave as intended then I'll give you a cookie. You're making a (very poor) straw man argument because your own point is indefensible.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Could the fact that all pregnant women have access to good health care in the EU vs. many in the US not having that sort of access have something to do with the higher rate of premature births in the US?
So, will Science become some kind of secret, underground guild in the US?
How then they plan to maintain their position of global bully and thus their standard of living?
Because with a lot of manufacturing (and more recently also some R&D) being moved out of US, what else can they use to maintain their status?
hany
The question is "did humans evolve from an earlier species" and so far we haven't found the missing link.
And there will always be "missing links", trust me. Because when we find the next missing link, the anti-evolutionists will find the next absent link and claim that evolution (or evolution of humans in this case) has no evidence because we don't have all the "missing links".
To find every "missing link" between any random human of today, and our primate ancestors, we would need to find each and every ancestor from every generation between now and then, and that isn't really possible, in practice. Fossilization requires a specific narrow set of circumstances to occur, and most generations will be missing as a result. Finding every "missing link" is thus effectively impossible (it is theoretically possible, if by some freak statistical accident every ancestor of every generation would in fact have been fossilized, but the statistical probability for this is really infinitesimal).
But this is really outside the scope of my original post, because I just wanted to rectify the misconception that scientific theories by some point in time become "proven".
Has living under socialism instead of freedom really been that great? Don't you miss having, I dunno, freedoms? I almost wish I were as ignorant as you so I could be happy in bondage also. Palin-Bachmann 2012! USA! USA!
PS -- when our Kenyan-born terrorist president starts nuking our own cities, don't say I didn't warn you!!!!11!1!!!1!oneone
[/TEABAGGER]
So, because the evidence all points at one thing, and not your favorite fairy tale, everyone who decides to take the evidence seriously is claiming to "know everything"? Just because you willfully choose ignorance over evidence does not make everyone as addle-headed as you are.