I ran into This Link today, and part of it was a wake-up call to me.
Polls for many years have shown that a majority of Americans are at odds with key scientific theory. For example, as CBS poll this month found that 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in their present form by God. A further 30 percent said their creation was guided by God. Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years.
Other polls show that only around a third of American adults accept the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, even though the concept is virtually uncontested by scientists worldwide.
“When we ask people what they know about science, just under 20 percent turn out to be scientifically literate,” said Jon Miller, director of the center for biomedical communication at Northwestern University.
Yes, that’s right. The majority of people believe that evolution is totally a lie and that we are God’s perfect creations, with no room for improvement at all. That’s a full 51% of people who insist that the bible be taken perfectly literally.
The concept of the creation of the universe, the history of the entire universe, of which the universe to this day continues to sing for anyone who has the ears to hear it, is totally wrong according to that same majority. The universe isn’t changing, fossil fuels aren’t finite, humans can’t change the ecosystem of the planet itself, and everything is God’s perfect plan.
Yes, that’s right. 4 in 5 people neither comprehend nor condone science.
This isn’t the world I want to live in, I think. I wonder how I can change it to be the world I want, though.
October 29th, 2005 at 6:26 am
Oh noes! People may believe that a god caused he universe to form! And on top of that, they believe we didnt evolve from mokeys who throw shit at eachother! Seriously, get over yourself. Getting off on thinking you are superior to others because you think your logic and reason is somehow amazingly above them is just as retarded as people who say that youre going to hell for not thinking the world was created in 6 days. You dont like the fact people believe what you dont? Tough cheese.
October 29th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Way to go, “Cynic”…
It’s not that reason is above anyone, and I don’t claim that it is. In fact, I believe the opposite: that logic and reason are fundamentally accessible to everyone born with a functioning brain. Which is why it bothers me so much that so many people — the majority, according to this survey — wholesale reject the very concepts of “reason” and “evaluation”, and yet that so many people in that boat insist at the same time that they’re right, and fervently defend the positions they haven’t even begun to survey.
You may not have noticed, but the title at the top of the page says “complacence is the enemy”. Blind faith is the very essence of complacence, whether it’s blind faith in what the preacher in front of the church says, or blind faith in what the media says, or blind faith in what the science textbook says.
But, as you say, “people who say that you’re going to hell for not thinking the world was created in 6 days” are “retarded”.
Believing in things that fall apart under the slightest reasonable examination is the distilled essence of complacence.
You come across as conflicted about whether you agree with me that the majority believing in a literal interpretation of the Biblical creation story (I think you called them “YECs”) is a bad thing, or disagree with me saying that the very process of reasoning and examination is necessary to be of any intellectual value, or maybe it’s that you just don’t think that “science” in the context of the pile of corporatized and heavily biased crap that the scientific community is today is of any value (which is a whole other discussion).
But please don’t put words into my mouth… it’s not the dissenting belief that I have a problem with. What I have a problem with is the explicit rejection of every value I have, with such fervor, such venom as to invoke the belief that the things I have continue to value (reason, exploration, freedom, human decency) will never be values shared by our irrational, complacent, heartless society.
Maybe you consider them in the same boat: that my values are ultimately just beliefs, just like whatever I think about the creation of the world, but I think they’re different: one is endorsement or rejection of a theory, and the other is endorsement or rejection of the only evaluative framework we have that isn’t strictly emotional.
October 29th, 2005 at 11:28 pm
Not to make too light of the subject, but this is what my little brother had to say:
genericAIMname (11:24:58 PM): and only old people watch cbs, meaning god is king among oldies
genericAIMname (11:25:08 PM): which we all knew
But in all fairness, I think that that number, if tracked over a period of 200 years or so, is an improvement. It would be interesting to track that number over the next 100 years and see where it goes.
In other words dude, I personally think the noise created by the fire and brimstone crowd is only getting attention because the media is focusing on the bottom 35% of the bell curve. Don’t fret too much over it.
“…and everything about him was ripe for the harvest.” Become a teacher and you will have the ability to touch the lives of countless. But it would have to be a young enough age … like high school kids. By college most people have formed their opinions on this matter. IBM is paying it’s professionals to basically become teachers, something about ensuring the future of the nation’s technological prowess. One avenue would be to get hired by IBM then become a teacher.
Which I think you’d be a cool one if you could put up with the childishness of the audience =P.