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Americans' Evolution Knowledge Isn't That Bad, If You Ask About Elephants (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: In 2014, a poll showed that just 49% of Americans agreed with the statement: "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." But it's difficult to tell whether those numbers measure ignorance about science, because belief in human evolution is closely tied to religious belief, especially in the United States. Yesterday, researchers at the annual meeting of AAAS, previewed data from a recent poll showing that when the word "human" is replaced with "elephant" in the evolution question, 75% of Americans agree — about 25 percentage points higher than before. Plus, the new elephant question does a better job of predicting general science knowledge than the human question, especially among those who say they don't believe in evolution. So it seems that America's dismal performance on past evolution polls can be blamed at least partially on this disbelief, rather than a lack of knowledge.
It is obvious to anyone that elephants evolved form wooly mammoths
It might be obvious, but it's wrong. They both have a common ancestor, one did not evolve from the other. The same thing goes for humans and other extant apes.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Trolling? That guy is just saying what many think, especially in the scientific community or with higher education levels.
Don't be an idiot. Can you name a single element of "atheist philosophy" (whatever that is) that supports anybody's murder?
I'm guessing you include Hitler and Stalin as murderers of record numbers of people. And murderers they are. However, they were not atheists.
Hitler said this: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God. Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school. He also had all his soldiers wear belt buckles that said "Gott mit uns". That means "God is with US".
To claim that Stalin was an atheist is overly simplistic. As the de facto ruler of the USSR, he initiated many purges. Many clergy were killed and this is often cited as Stalin's anti-christian mark. However, he did not simply remove clergy, he replaced them. He established a new national church of Russia, which of course answered to him. He considered the church very important to extending control from Moscow to the satellite nations. Stalin's church was called the Russian Orthodox Church or The Moscow Patriarchate; and the suppressed church was called the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. They have a bitter history. Also, look to the resurgence of the church in the USSR during WWII.
You would be more correct by saying "Men with mustaches pretty much hold the record for murdering the most people."
evolution science makes up a minuscule part of the sciences but seems to cause a reaction way out of proportion to its practical significance
Not disagreeing with the rest of your post, but evolution is definitely *not* a miniscule part of the sciences. David Deutsch makes a compelling argument that the same processes that underlie evolution are responsible for all observable knowledge creation -- including science itself. You should really read a more comprehensive treatment, because my attempt to summarize will certainly butcher it, but in a nutshell the idea is that all knowledge is created via processes of variation and selection. In the case of scientific thought, the process begins in the human mind, which comes up with various ideas for potential explanations and then subjects them to critical analysis, selecting against ideas that either don't fit observed facts or don't have elegance, explanatory reach or other useful qualities. After a hypothesis survives this internal gauntlet of selection pressure, it's exposed to criticism from other people, and from experimental testing. Scientific theories that are fit enough to survive go on to spread. Similar analysis shows that all memes behave similarly... as do all other forms of self-organizing knowledge which achieve "universality" (I won't even attempt to summarize the idea of universality).
Further, within the life sciences, evolution isn't a minor sub-topic, it pretty much drives everything. Effectively all our understanding of the physical structure and behavior of living creatures is understood within a framework of evolutionary ideas. Evolution is pervasive and incredibly powerful. It's arguably the single most powerful explanatory idea in all of science, and the most thoroughly validated.
Evolutionary ideas are also applied all over every other branch of science: psychology, behavioral science, computer science, economics... and even in physics and astrophysics. For an example of the application of evolutionary theory to astrophysics, consider cosmological descriptions of the formation of the universe, which postulate formation of many different constructs of energy/matter and analyze which we expect to survive and which will be annihilated, then compare the projected results of this variation-and-selection process against the observable universe.
Evolution isn't "miniscule". To a first approximation, evolution is science.
Perhaps what you meant to say is that the application of evolution to the creation of humans is a miniscule part of science, since that's the part that many religious people have a hard time with (personally, I don't see the problem. Why couldn't God use evolutionary processes? The great thing about variation-and-selection from a creator's perspective is it provides lots of ways to tweak outcomes). I suppose that is a miniscule part of science because the origin of humanity is a miniscule part of science.
I actually find it somewhat odd that so many people get hung up on the conflict between evolutionary speciation and religion, and not on cosmology and religion. The big bang seems much tougher to reconcile with Biblical creation.
I haven't seen many 'society of atheists' running soup kitchens, or micro finance banks, or free surgery ships, or child sponsorship programs, or crisis counseling centers, or refugee support programs.
That's because atheism is not a religion. If you cared, I'm sure you would find no lack of secular associations doing that.
As an example, in France, we have Les Restaurants du Coeur.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Your absurd lack of understanding about biology - and the fact that you obviously haven't put much effort into trying to understand it - is a fine example of the very point you are attempting to argue against. Thank you for demonstrating so clearly the danger of thinking you have the answer, rather than actually studying the topic in question and continuing to research it until your theory lets you make predictions consistent with future findings.
A small sampling of the ways in which you are completely wrong:
1) Mutations can be passed down from either parent; it is not necessary that the other parent have some "compatible" mutation.
2) Mutations do not need to be related to the sex chromosomes in order to be passed along, they merely need to be present in the DNA of the gametes.
3) Speciation (that is, one or more mutations which make a creature reproductively incompatible with its population of origin) does not need to occur in one generation; it's entirely possible for an intermediate species to be compatible with two species that are not compatible with each other, and that intermediate species often die out some time after breeding populations of the divergent (and better-adapted) species have become established.
For somebody who doesn't appear to even understand the most basic concepts of Mandelian inheritance, you sure seem to *think* you know a lot about evolution, though. Perhaps your science teachers and/or classroom materials were selected more for ideological compliance than for accurate scientific knowledge?
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Don't be an idiot. Can you name a single element of "atheist philosophy" (whatever that is) that supports anybody's murder?
I'm guessing you include Hitler and Stalin as murderers of record numbers of people. And murderers they are. However, they were not atheists.
Hitler said this: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the Bible's God.
There are many proofs that he didn't believe in the Bible, that he didn't like Christianity etc. When he talked in spiritual and religious terms it wasn't the Christian nor the Abrahamic God that was referred to - it was a more basic representation of nature and (even though he was not a believer) the idea of Germany, nature and blood from esoteric sects that had been influential in the creation of National socialism. He didn't believe in following any rules nor in a judgement of ones actions - something integral to Abrahamic religions.
Hint: don't read popular literature that tries to prove something specific if you want to learn - go to the source.
Raised as Catholic he went to a monastery school. He also had all his soldiers wear belt buckles that said "Gott mit uns". That means "God is with US".
So even before he got power (or was even born) he could magically influence the design of belt buckles? Hint: the phrase have a long history and was e.g. used also in WW I, http://gottmituns.net/about-2/ .
But even IF it was Hitler that had made the decision to use the phrase it wouldn't be relevant.
To claim that Stalin was an atheist is overly simplistic. As the de facto ruler of the USSR, he initiated many purges. Many clergy were killed and this is often cited as Stalin's anti-christian mark. However, he did not simply remove clergy, he replaced them. He established a new national church of Russia, which of course answered to him. He considered the church very important to extending control from Moscow to the satellite nations. Stalin's church was called the Russian Orthodox Church or The Moscow Patriarchate; and the suppressed church was called the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. They have a bitter history. Also, look to the resurgence of the church in the USSR during WWII.
And that means what? If you answer is "nothing" you'd be correct. Religion and its use by rulers that didn't believe it well know throughout history.
You would be more correct by saying "Men with mustaches pretty much hold the record for murdering the most people."
Bullshit.