Mere Third of Americans Believe in Evolution Theory — This is just plain ridiculous.
The poll shows that almost half of the U.S. population believes that human beings did not evolve, but instead were created by God — as stated in the Bible — essentially in their current form about 10,000 years ago:
Thi situation just gets worse by the minute as Americans believe less and less in the idea of scientific proof and the notion of progress.
I blame academia for all this. Nobody ever addresses these zealots and instead ignores them thinking that it will blow over. This is exactly what happens with right-wing talk radio. They are ignored as if they are inconsequential. They are not!! Now look what we have.
Now if people are going to claim that the Bible is literal and must be obeyed without question, then how long will it be before we, like some Muslims, re-institute public stoning? I’d like to know.
From the summary: A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.
I wouldn’t mind if that third of our population took the kind, compassionate part of the Bible literally – and modeled their lives on Jesus’ teachings. It is the ones who seem to focus on the “you’ll burn in hell for all eternity” parts of the Bible, who worry me.
John,
“Bagan” 10,000 years ago?
The scientific evidence that humans are descendent from apes is very thorough. Though some doubts remain regarding specific branches in the evolution, few remain that homo sapiens (not gays!) was not a offshoot from early primate bipeds.
So, why is this not a commonly known fact in the US? Because no one ever made a joke about it on Stienfeld? The Today Show never had an eminent archeologist interviewed who mentioned the fact in terms most Americans at breakfast could understand? No quiz show ever asked a pointed question (for a million bucks) the answer for which would have told spectators the facts?
Who knows? Because most Americans get factual information not from their schools and not from newspapers, but from the TV. The boob tube is the font of knowledge for millions upon millions of Americans, which is a fairly good indication why so many of them haven’t the foggiest notion about the development of the human species.
Still, there is hope. They have figured out how to procreate without television so one must assume that they will get around one day, towards the end of this century, to understanding that apelike behaviour is well, kinda natural for us … and vice-versa.
It’s is so funny to me, as an outsider.
The US fights relgious zealots in other countries and even goes so far as to claim an “axis of evil”, all the while they become more and more like religous zealots themselves in their own country.
They can’t see the forest for the trees. They are making the same mistake that many countries (and civilazations) have made before them: they think their secular way of thinking is the only right way in the world. And because of this, they want indoctornate not only all of their country with this nonsense, but the whole world. They through off science and proof in the name of faith and call anyone who won’t go along with them “anti-American”.
It reminds of the crusades, and we all know how well that went.
It’s beyond ridiculous – this is why the US is going to eventually implode. Bush was able to prove that if you repeat a lie long enough, people will eventually believe it. No reason you can’t use that same tactic against science…
This of course presumes that you believe in George Gallup. 🙂
Apparently a Public School Science Teacher is one of the worst science jobs around: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,20967,713436,00.html
You’ve gotta understand that the Evolutionary Theory is just that… a theory. There are many scientists out there who do not agree with this theory, stating that their are too many things wrong with it and that it’s just too improbable. So while you may consider some religious zealots, I’d like to know the research you’ve done on the matter. I guarantee you most of these “zealots” have studied much deeper into their belief of a God-created universe than you have of an Evolution-created universe. So before you go bad-mouthing “half of the U.S. population,” make sure you have somethiong to back yourself up.
As for the “claim that the Bible is literal,” you’ve gotta understand that any reading of any material is a interpretation no matter what. You reading what I am writing here may give you a different impression than that of another person reading this. And more than that, most people do not read the bible in its original language. So, no, I don’t believe that people take the Bible “literally” in the strictist sense of the word. Not to mention that your statements are tenuous. Please give me a reference in the New Testament where they say that stoning should be instituted to solve problems. And if you are confused with why I request a reference from the New Testament then you really need to look into what the Bible is all about.
You say that like public stoning would be such a bad thing. I’m sure we can all think of criminals we’d love to lob some stones at…
“how long will it be before we, like some Muslims, re-institute public stoning?”
Judging from the current state of things, probably not that long. I think our society has always tended to be cyclical in nature. We swing from conservative to liberal and back again. This is the worst swing I have seen so far. WIth any luck we will start going in the other direction before too long. That’s just a hope though….
I’m one of the ignorant masses who believe that man was, indeed, created in his present form thousands, rather than millions, of years ago by a creator. I am quite tolerant of the beliefs of others, including those who believe that man and mold ascended from the same source.
What annoys me is that a large percentage of evolutionists, probably a majority, are incredibly self-righteous about THEIR “religious” beliefs. They persist in lumping those who have accepted the Bible’s logical explanation of the events of creation with those who think God whipped out the universe in a week. I don’t personally believe that, but, once again, if someone else wants to, that’s fine. The result is that anyone who sees the hand of a designer in the universe is considered an ignorant, slack-jawed moron.
The Bible explains that life reproduces “according to its kind,” making room for evolutionary changes along family lines. Is that less credible that being told that a blue whale and a fern came from the same prototypical first cell?
I might take evolutionists’ stand more seriously if I could get an answer to this question: Assuming that all amino acids necessary for life DID arise on their own, from whence came the cell wall that had to enclose these primordial seeds of life before they could reproduce?
I don’t want some teacher telling my kids how God created man. That’s MY job. But, at the same time, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that evolution, i.e. the idea that life spontaneously arose on its own, be expressed by teachers to students as a THEORY, not a fact.
It doesn’t really worry me that half of Americans believe that the world began 10,000 years ago. The world has been full of stupid people for a long time. I also don’t see how for the average American, believing in evolution or creationism really matters. I’m much more worried by the lack of economic knowledge by the average American. It is sad that some people need to construct glass houses around their religious beliefs, and any crack in that house causes their whole belief structure to fall down. Why can’t these religious types say “well you got me on that one, but we got a lot of good stuff over here”. Another thing, how come we hear the christians talking about stoning people, how come not the Jewish people? The old testament is the Jewish people’s book.
And we must always have at least one person in comments who misinterprets the meaning of the word “theory” as though it was just a Sunday guess by some pointy nosed nut. Yeah, it’s a theory as is the theory of gravity or relativity. Scientists use the word theory to mean “a framework of ideas or principles to explain phenomena” i.e. an explanation. Not as the other Wesley used it above, as a synynom for “hypothesis”. Now this explanation, this “theory of evolution” has been tested and retested and retested again and again, and it stands up to the criticisms levied against it. This is a close to a gold standard for proof as you are going to get. The people on the other end of this debate… the creationists and the intellegent designers, simply play on this misinterpretation of the word, plus misinterpretation on the discussion on the fringes about the finer points of evolution to confuse people into thinking that there are serious questions against evolution. There are not.
According to the comment on stoning, our present cultural bias towards letting criminals roam the streets and prey on innocent people is more humane and civilized than stoning. Unless you’ve had your 17 year old daughter raped and then killed, you have no business even commenting on whether or not stoning certain types of criminals would be appropriate. When you have suffered the loss of a loved one at the hands of a criminal, then come back and comment on the subject.
As far as evolution vs. creation goes, who cares. You can believe whatever you want and it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever since nobody can prove their theory. What does matter is your attitude. Don’t be so dogmatic that you think your way is the only way and give the benefit of the doubt to others. It’s the folks that get bent out of shape when somebody disagrees with them that cause the problems. And a good example is the attitide of Mr. Dvorak in this blog.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the claim that man is only a couple of thousand years old. None. Nadda. Zip. Zero. In other words, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support any variation of an intelligent designer hypothesis.
However, there are mountains of evidence that man and this planet are millions of years old. People that say “it’s a theory” are categorically blind to how science works. They haven’t the foggiest clue as to what criterion is necessary for scientists to elevate a hypothesis to a theory. This is serious Dark Ages stuff. Some of the theories that support the earth being millions of years old are ones that were used to develop nuclear weapons (which, I would think, everyone agrees work). Claiming that the planet and/or Homo Sapiens are thousands of years old is equivalent to saying the world is flat (which the bible does I might add).
Whether Bush is to blame for this state of stupidity is another matter. I think that Bush’s election is more symptomatic of a general conservative movement in this country rather than causal of that movement.
People can believe that the moon is made of green cheese. I just don’t like policy makers believing it. As for the 10,000 years since the creation of the universe assertion, this notion presupposes that all the stars shining light from millions of light years away were put in place with their light beams in some sort of limbo and in place to account for the speed of light whcih would have otherwise taken eons to arrive on earth. But apparently this is some sort of hoax along with sedemtary layers, petrification and other things that should have taken over 10,000 years but were all put in place to trick us. It’s just silly. Sorry. This to me is not much different than people thinking we’re in the Matrix. But like I said I don’t care if you think the moon is made of green cheese. I just don’t want to hear in school that the “jury is out” on whether the moon is made of green cheese or not.
Hear! Hear! Agreed. So why can’t we find a candidate or more specifically a party that believes in the market system but doesn’t have their head up their religious rear-end?
PS. My apologies. Must have missed an end tag in my previous post.
If we evolved from monkeys and apes, why are there still monkeys and apes?
The ID people want you to argue with them, it gives the legitimacy. They need to believe ID to feel complete, I don’t think evolution people have that problem, they believe darwin because it makes sense. At school when the Jesus freaks start spouting forth, I don’t bother talking to them, I talk to the rest of the people in the crowd. I don’t bother hoping or trying to convince the speaker that he is wrong.
Well, Anonymously (can I call you Anon?), I did, in fact look at your links, and I was struck by one thing: It takes faith for a man to believe what he believes. It takes just as much faith to say the original cell wall was stone as it does to say a creator made it all. It takes faith to explain away impossible numbers by saying that it just happened, so the math must be innacurate. And it certainly takes faith to say that cats, corn, cocker spaniels, crayfish, cacti, cocci, codfish, and Californians all came from the same original cell.
So, rather than trying to convince you of my beliefs, or you trying to convince me of yours, let me just say thanks, Anon, for confirming my original point that many, possibly a majority, of those who believe in evolution are quite self-righteous about it, and intolerant about the beliefs of those who disagree.
I prefer the guillotine. Especially for crooked CEO’s who finally are caught.
mikes says: “If we evolved from monkeys and apes, why are there still monkeys and apes?”
You’re kidding, right?
Science does not work by committee or consensus. It does not work by vote or by faith. Regardless of how much or how many people believe in something makes it no more true to science that if no one accepted it. Scientific theories have a very rigid set of rules by which truth is derived. For the same reason we would be alarmed if 2/3 of Americans believed the world was flat, so should we be concerned that they do not understand evolution. Although I disagree that Bush is to blame, I entirely agree with John that this is an indictment on our education system that we have High School students that cannot read and adults that think that evolution is “theory not a fact.”
For M. Marvinski
Unless you’ve had your 17 year old daughter raped and then killed, you have no business even commenting on whether or not stoning certain types of criminals would be appropriate.
I disagree. If it happens in the country in which I am a citizen, it is my business.
Don’t be so dogmatic that you think your way is the only way and give the benefit of the doubt to others. It’s the folks that get bent out of shape when somebody disagrees with them that cause the problems.
Couldn’t have said it better, myself.
[Mike]
If we evolved from monkeys and apes, why are there still monkeys and apes?
[John C. Dvorak]
You’re kidding, right?
[Roy]
See, that’s exactly why many people are religious. Ignorance! Whether Mike was sarcastic or not, some people would actually say that.
I wonder if the half of people who don’t belive in evolution explicitly believe creationism. The people arguing here obviously are aware of both sides of the issue and have come a conclusion after at least some contemplation. People believing creationism as a knee jerk because they never heard much about evolution makes them ignorant. Believing creationism after carefully considering evolution is another matter. The former speaks to a poor education system.
I guess you could compare it to people’s knowledge of a flat earth in the 16th century. I’m sure the educated aristocracy had heard of Columbus’s explorations, but I doubt many of the uneducated peasants had. Or if they had, they didn’t believe them. Their ignorance didn’t make them stupid, just ignorant.
Either way it didn’t affect the world all that much since they weren’t the ones designing ships or funding explorations. Some of their kids may not have joined in on the explorations or colonization but not a huge loss. The biggest loss I see us suffering from people not believing creationism is less biologists.
I am sorry to pinpoint that Bush is not guilty. This is a bigger stack.
I went to Med School here in Romania, and we were required to know a lot of organic chemistry before admission. Our schools, still in their structure from communism, offer courses where chemistry and biology was underlined, but a 4 hour per week attendance in those special courses during the whole 4 years of high school wasn’t enough. Almost any high-school graduate in science fieds knew at least Bohr’s model of atom and how an organic molecule is linked. But we had to study more than thelarest curriculum. If you were unlucky and you didn’t study in high school chemistry, biology and physics, usually you fail the admission exam and had to stay home for a year, paying for teachers willing to take hours over their school time. (The med school admission comes at the age of 18, right after high school)
In my first year I met for the first time an American. Her parents were Romanian immigrants and she thought that it will be easy and cheap to study medicine here. When the biochemistry started, the professors assumed that everyone knew almost anything about organic chemistry and, of course, how molecules work. Unfortunately, the American girl had a very thin idea about what an atom is and nothing about molecular structure. Here she was, sporting a brand new car, but being the laughter of tens of smart Romanian teens.
Later on, she bribed her teachers, because her pocket money were a lot more than their incomes. She learned by heart the symptoms and syndromes and other stuff that didn’t required a good scientific education.
I bet that, at this moment, she is a creationst.
A child here know more than an American kiddo, and this goes along until masters courses, where high tech makes the difference. On highly specialized studies, we usually read a lot, but don’t get to practice as an American.
I am studying ionic channels of the cell membrane and we are impressed by the 30 years old findings that show a relation of similarity between different pores or diffeerent ionic gates. We won’t even talk about this, if we were to be creationists. We don’t use evolution as a premise, it doesn’t help us (yet), but daily we learn about new proofs of it.
This is all because we study biology and we don’t study bowling in high-school. No university here will put on its flyers or website as an attraction the sport teams or the music band.
The private system there in USA forces the universities to struggle for the richer kids. And this display of scientists Nobel laureates as teachers goes together with the cheerleaders, the extra-curricular activities, the international students chosen not as the best in the world, but handpicked from each continent and country, in order to resemble a Babel Tower.
The evolutionists are the creation of the JFK-Nixon-Carter years, during which the religious guys got to study. They weren’t thought to believe in God, but their science education was (as it still is) highly limited to their domain of expertise, where they perform pretty good (given the Americano disease of lusting for success). I don’t know if they had filled schedules or they just didn’t have any interest outside their thin domain.
We haven’t evolved from apes, we do have common ancestors. Putting it another way… If chicken evolve from eggs, how come you can still eat eggs?
I don’t think you all interpreted my statement correctly. I never said a theory was a “hypothesis” or that it was untested. I said that the evolutionary theory was a theory. I don’t think that that statement is refutable. You all, in your infinite wisdom, are correct. A theory is an application of facts–well tested and tried. That, however is not to say that a theory is 100% correct. Take Eisntein’s theory of relativity and his explanation of gravity. Years ago it would have been taken as accurate and correct. People would have argued for it saying that it “has been tested and retested and retested again and again, and it stands up to the criticisms levied against it.” Now however as we study more and more into the realm of the nanoscale world, we are discovering there is much more to forces, specifically electromagnetic forces. The problem is, things break down at a certain point when you try to conglomerate the two current theories of electromagnetic forces and gravitational forces. So what happens? Scientists then relook at the previous-agreed upon theory of gravity with a new light. New hypothesese arise to explain what is newly found. And then new theories arise such as the string theory. So, if your argument is that evolution is a theory, and thus “as good as gold.” I ask you why other accepted theories have been wrong or at least incomplete?
I’ve only one comment to Anon, use some of your research time to look back at history and see all the scientific theories that have been proven to be wrong before you get all misty eyed over the theory of evolution. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m just saying that you’re a fool to be dogmatic about it. I’d say the same thing to literal creationists.
Yes, new scientific theories arise everyday. But it would require staggering amounts of evidence to contradict that evolution doesn’t occur. The theories of which people are speaking are refinements of evolution. How did it occur? How quickly did it occur? When did it occur? None of these refute the fundamental premise that we evolved from less complex forms.
At some point, a scientific theory after having its accuracy verified thousands of times becomes accepted as fact. Gravity is a good example. Newton’s laws (within defined parameters) are another example. Yes, Newton’s laws break down at some point; however, they are still incredibly accurate in numerous circumstances and are still accepted as fact given proper conditions. That species change due to environmental effects has been verified by so many different fields of study it is accepted as fact. That the earth is millions of years old has been verified by so many different fields of study using so many different methods of verification that it is accepted as fact. Thinking that because theories change all the time that it justifies comparing scientific truth to religious faith is utter scientific ignorance and it is further evidence of a breakdown in our education system.