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New Study Shows One-Third of Americans Don't Believe In Evolution
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Reuters reports that thirty-three percent of Americans reject the idea of evolution and believe that 'humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time' rather than evolving gradually through a process of natural selection, as described by Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago. Although this percentage remained steady since 2009, the last time Pew asked the question, there was a growing partisan gap on whether humans evolved. The poll showed 43 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats say humans have evolved over time, compared with 54 percent and 64 percent respectively four years ago. 'The gap is coming from the Republicans, where fewer are now saying that humans have evolved over time,' says Cary Funk. Among religious groups, white evangelical Protestants topped the list of those rejecting evolution, with 64 percent of those polled saying they believe humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."
Is anyone actually surprised by these poll results?
Republicans are such a perverted facsimile of what used to be a very reasonable party. If 6 years of Obama has taught us anything, it's that the empty can gets the grease. USA Politics desperately needs the GOP to fork into two factions - there are enough independents currently voting "D" to jump over to make a center-right candidate feasible. Center-right by US Standards, that is.
At least 33% of Americans are fucking morons, so why should this be any sort of surprise?
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Most of the really smart people are aware God ... [isn't] real
Do you have a cite for your assertion that most "really smart people" are atheists?
Obviously both Democrats and Republicans are devolving at an alarming rate.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
it's self-evident. if you believe in unprovable things your brain is defective.
I think you're defining things in such a way that everybody's brains can be considered defective.
Neither did Richard Feynman and James Crick.
About a quarter claim to believe in evolution, but say it is divinely controlled. The whole point of the theory of evolution is that speciation and adaptation result from natural selection rather than design. So "divinely controlled evolution" is really a longer way of saying "creationism".
No, it is not. It is a model that fits the observable facts pretty well and far better than all other serious competing models, and hence it is promoted from a hypothesis to a theory (also called a "standard model"). A theory is by no means a fact. Here is a competing hypothesis, that could well be true: All this evidence was planted as an intelligence test for the human race by some aliens. As that hypothesis has zero supporting evidence, it does not get to be a "theory". It could be the truth though.
What Science does here is to use Occam's Razor: If you have a well-supported theory and no serious competitor, assume the theory is likely the truth as basis for further scientific study. As such, assuming Evolution is right is just a way to allocate research resources rationally and efficiently. As long as the Scientific Method is in continued use down that path, it will either find more supporting evidence (a win for Science) or it will eventually find enough contradictory evidence that allows the formation of a new theory that is consistent with all known evidence (a win for Science as well). The thing about Science is that it works, no matter how bizarre the circumstances. Sometimes, it seems to indulge in runaway complexity though, see, for example, Quantum Theory. Whether that one is a good model of reality seems to be highly doubtful to me. Still the best one we have at this time.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yes. because degenerate primitive theocracies have ALWAYS been very nice places to live.
Yah and we are all going to be paying the price for the stupid they are perpetuating on their children for a very long time. On the one had we have an Everest of irrefutable evidence in support of the theory of evolution and on the other hand.... Well we have a text written by a very, VERY small number of middle eastern men a few thousand years ago and "edited" and "interpreted" to suit the "needs" of the various religious groups in power along the way. Oh and lets not forget the countless translations from one language to another etc. So now I pose the questions thusly. Do you believe that the text is the result of some divine spirit that chose those very same men above from one particular part of the planet, and only them, to reveal his grand plan to? Or is it the results of voices in the heads of a few like minded crazies? Taken that you are in the minority, do you actually believe that "God" would only chose this very few "men" from this very specific geographic area of the planet he "created"? Why not tell these very same stories to others in say South and North America, Australia and New Zealand, and Africa and Asia for instance? If you take the above to be true as well, then how is it that "we" are all "Gods" children if he favors one very specific group from one very specific geographic area above all others? Isn't he suppose to love all "His children" equally? I am really glad that I made the choice to not reproduce. I would not want my children to be raised in the dark future that they are going to have to navigate. I personally find it impossible to get my head up may ass to see things from the perspective of the religious believer and I feel sorry for the children being indoctrinated to feed the greedy and self aggrandizing heads of modern churches.
thinking god isn't real and being an atheist isn't the same thing.
Uh... yes, they are.
Someone might follow a faith for the moral story and community, while not believing that the deity actually exists.
Then they are an atheist who agrees with the morality of a given religion and to be part of the community.
They could also be agnostic/non-religious, which isn't the same thing as atheism.
If they are agnostic they "don't think god isn't real" so they are outside the scope of your argument.
If they are non-religious, that tells us nothing about whether or not they believe in god or not, so it too falls outside the scope.
But if they "think god isn't real", then they are an atheist.
This is a sad reflection on our education system.
This has absolutely zero to do with our education system. It has only to do with people who want to believe a certain thing leveraging typical human traits like confirmation bias and a disinterest in critical thinking to arrive at the desired conclusion. You can subject someone to three years of advanced biology classes and if they don't want to believe in evolution, they won't. I'd like to think that critical thinking skills can be taught, but - as reading Slashdot reminds me so frequently - people who pride themselves on their critical thinking skills about one topic (e.g. evolution) can throw those same critical thinking skills out the window when it comes to a different topic they want to believe in (e.g. conspiracy theories).
The bottom line is that all the education in the world won't do any good for someone that does not want to believe in what is being taught. If this is a failure of anything, it's a failure of humans in general to be willing to listen to reason when it interferes with their biases - something which has remained more or less constant over time.
"95% of all Slashdot
Nope. It's about testability vs non-testability. We don't understand everything there is to know about evolution or gravity or electromagnetic fields. Doesn't matter, because those things are testable. As opposed to an invisible sky man, which is no more testable than Last Thursdayism, and never will be.
Some very smart people are known for not being very good at standardized tests.
And a whole lot of dumb people.
No, I can not test if my brain is merely living in a vat. Which is why I do not believe that my brain is living in a vat.