According to a survey from the Pew Research Center, 84 percent of Americans think science has had a mostly positive effect on society, and scientists are held in high regard – more so than any other professions apart from the military and teaching, and way ahead of the clergy (or journalists, for that matter).
But along with all this adulation comes a shaky grasp of science – fewer than half those surveyed knew that electrons are smaller than atoms, for example.
And there’s a widespread refusal to believe ideas that are generally accepted by the scientific community. While 84 percent of scientists agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, for example, more than half the general public thinks we’ve had no effect at all…
But if you want the prime example of the public’s fundamental disagreement with basic scientific tenets, then – you’ve guessed it – it’s the question of human and animal origins.
According to the survey, an extraordinary 68 percent of Americans don’t believe in evolution through natural selection – a state of affairs that is surely unparalleled elsewhere in the western world. Less surprisingly, the figure is just 13 percent for scientists, who understand that the word “theory” in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution doesn’t actually mean “random guess”.
As you might expect, this situation creates a touch of cognitive dissonance. Over a third of the public said that science sometimes conflicted with their religious beliefs. This doesn’t put them off, mind you, as a full 63 percent of these creationists reckoned that scientists contributed “a lot” to society’s wellbeing. So perhaps there’s hope…
We could try making the creationists breed fruit flies, and actually see evolution in action. But a better way might be to make them put their money where their mouth is. Presumably, if you don’t believe in evolution, you don’t believe in newly-emergent strains of flu or other diseases, either. Just deny the latest vaccines to the creationists, and they’ll weed themselves out in the next hundred years or so. By natural selection.
“Believing” in crap is always so much easier than studying.
You can purchase the entire written works of Charles Darwin, (“Origin of Species” was not the only book he wrote), for $4.59 on a Kindle. It’s about 12,000 pages of research, peer testimony, observations, and FACTS. Plow through that, and you will gain the respect for his life’s work that he deserves. There are THOUSANDS of examples that clearly show how it works. But the deniers will never touch it.
OK, outside of maybe Ireland the US is by far the most religious country in the West. It permeates education, politics, and community life. The US also has the distinction of being quite fundamentalist in it’s religious views which makes the results of this survey completely predictable.
This has less to do with American’s views of science (which are probably not that different from other western countries) but has more to do with a deeply fundamentalist religious society.
You forgot a cartoon…
Now don’t knock religion for this. People respect each other for the ability to generate revenue. Make a list of prominent politians, scientists, doctors, philosophers, writers, businessmen, etc, and ask your average Joe to list these folks in order of their “respect” for them, and you’ll probably find the richest ones at the top of the list. Science is respected, but if you can’t make a buck at it, few will spend time familiarizing themselves with it.
It ain’t the religion, it’s the money.
Modern medicine sometimes DOES still use leaches.
Rarely , but they still do.
People are just dumb about science. The local
paper had a report about the _astrology_ department at our local university.
And cnn’s website kept referring to a Woolly Mammoth find as a dinosaur.
84% of scientists don’t agree on which way is up.
Adding carbon dioxide is causing problems for some sea life by changing the ph of sea water.
Increased CO2 ought to be doing something toward making the planet warmer than it would be otherwise but there is no and a I mean no agreement on how much of the warming that has occurred in the last 100 years is due to CO2. Right now the planet is cooling most likely because due to lower solar output; sunspot activity is way down. Since solar output is not now and never has been stable this is to be expected and there is nothing we can do about it.
If sunspot activity picks up the planet will of course start to get warmer again. However we did have one 50 time span called the little ice age back about the time of Shakespeare with almost no sunspot activity when arctic sea ice extended south of Iceland and a lot of people froze to death and a bunch more starved to death.
I can do without one of those.
A lot of people’s grasp on the basics of science is very poor and often make fundamental mistakes. I’m a comic book fan and I can’t tell you how often writers will say that something is happening in a different “galaxy” when they mean “solar system.” That’s like calling London a planet rather than a city.
Creationists love to bring up the second law of thermodynamics as a way to try to counter evolution except the law says that it only applies to a closed system. Earth isn’t exactly a closed system.
jccalhoun said “Creationists love to bring up the second law of thermodynamics as a way to try to counter evolution except the law says that it only applies to a closed system.”
The way they “interpret” (don’t you love that word?) the second law would mean that water wouldn’t flow out of your tap.
The thing that I don’t get is where this pseudo-mechanist, God is a watchmaker, 13th century thinking comes from? Looking at it from outside, it really seems to limit concepts like faith and a divine god. It is a self defeating train of thought that paints people of faith into a corner.
Religion is based upon supposed beliefs passed down from previous generations who sat around campfires in the evenings and for entertainment told each other scary story’s.
Today we have TV for campfires, but no new stories. The Bible party has used the ignorance and laziness of the many to run the country into it’s current state.
While the other party has offended the many with their outlandishly absurd acceptance and pressuring the people to accept any perversion or other repugnance by rubbing it in the face of the many who find it revolting.
Religion is a sickness, but it isn’t the only sickness taking our once great country down the toilet hole.
Check out Atheist Central. This guy thinks he’s got evolution debunked.
http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/
Post #11 got it right, it was the exact same thing I was thinking when reading that news story.
Science (real science, as in things we can observe, test, and demonstrate) doesn’t conflict with my religion because we’ve never seen a new kind of animal evolve. We’ve only seen mutations in those that already exist.
Not only have we only observed mutations (which by definition, *change* something, not create it), we’ve also never even seen a ‘beneficial’ mutation, as the theory of evolution requires.
The stupid, it burns. (see above)
Some people believe something in faith.. I think I’m the only science-minded person (who does believe in evo) who respects and understands that.. Everyone else seems to be a dick about it. I say get out of the tribal mode where you look down upon anyone with different beliefs, and lets try and dodge this topic altogether, it goes no where but the gutter.
“And there’s a widespread refusal to believe ideas that are generally accepted by the scientific community. While 84 percent of scientists agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, for example, more than half the general public thinks we’ve had no effect at all…”
This is where they lose people because scientists aren’t unbiased. When science is (mis)used to push political ideology it often resembles the blind zealotry that scientific reasoning was supposed to reduce/remove.
Some aspects of science are indisputable. Some will remain debatable, and when other people get hysterical or try to make a buck off it we have a right to be dubious.
To disprove creationism, one “biblical kind” must evolve into a different “kind.”
To prove creationism a new species has to just appear from out of nowhere.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Western Europe entered the thousand-year “Dark Ages”, characterized by mass superstition and ignorance. Why should we believe U.S. society (containing many citizens of Western-European extraction) will not repeat this tragedy as it’s empire is collapsing?
Does anyone think that maybe changing the culture so that knowledge is respected instead of ridiculed MIGHT make some small difference?
Naw… didn’t think so since obviously burning politically incorrect witches is the thing to do. And today’s witch wears a cross and believes in Christ.
The last sentence of the post says it all!!!!
Ok, here’s one for you. Where are the facts behind any ‘religion’?
I have no problem with ‘believing’ but until there is some evidence to prove the belief, it has less weight than something that can be proven.
Right?
And today’s witch wears a cross and believes in Christ.
and believes that evolution doesn’t happen and that the earth is only 6000 years old…
There are hundreds of millions of Christians around the world who are not “witches” and don’t believe in creationism or that the earth is only 6000 years old. It is only a tiny minuscule percentage of Christians who are the ones who are crazy witches.
Patrick, to be fair, I have to give you credit for that cartoon (post #3).
Funny as hell. 🙂
I’m not one of your strongly religious types, but I still adhere to a philosophy which could be summed as “intelligent design”. I’m sure I’m not alone.
#17 jccalhoun
It was double negative and he’s dippier than usual. Ignore it. 😉
From the story “Just deny the latest vaccines to the creationists, and they’ll weed themselves out in the next hundred years or so. By natural selection.”
Or better yet, MAKE them get a flu shot and watch them die.
#11 – Alfred1
Mutate a species for long enough and you end up with a new species. If you go back far enough in time, all life on earth is related to the same original organism. We as humans share our lineage not only with other primates, but with something as different from us as a fish.
Expecting a single mutation to produce a new species is just plain ignorant about the basic principles of biology and evolution. It is the sum of mutations that eventually differentiates an organism enough to be considered a new species.
The fundamental problem for many people is that they can not accept science that differs from their religious beliefs, because it is “one or the other”, and if Genesis declares that the earth was created in six days, and man was made from mud, then that is the way it has to be. There is no middle ground for many… and the less educated you are, the more likely you are to be inflexible like this. That is the core of the main article… people in the USA are ignorant and are prone to be driven by religious belief above things that they have trouble understanding or accepting.
# 26 Awake said, “Mutate a species for long enough and you end up with a new species.”
Unfortunately, there are major holes. The development of flight for instance…
#27 Patrick
“Unfortunately, there are major holes. The development of flight for instance…”
That’s true, look at Tinkerbell. No way that could have happened by evolution. I believe in fairies, and so should you.
I’m always amazed with people try to justify their religious beliefs by saying evolution is implausible or flawed. There are so many other aspects of science that are more mysterious than evolution. I’d more easily believe that electricity or quantum mechanics were magic than I would evolution.
That’s what you posted from the survey? Surely you read down to the part that said 6% of scientists are Republican?
Alfred1 and Patrick…. geez…. you model your life around the premise that your “facts” don’t need proof. To cope with that you have to ignore all proof to the contrary of those facts…. which you do every day on DU. That’s why you appear completely insane to most people. Correction, you are insane.
#27 Patrick
Flight is not a very extraordinary evolutionary path. It is found in mammals (bats), birds (and dinosaurs), insects. Forms of ‘flight’ are even found in water animals, such as rays, and even whales with their large fins.
There is extensive archeological record on the evolution of flight in birds. Even the much feared ‘Raptors’ of Jurassic Park fame had arms more similar to wings than to ‘regular’ arms. 5 minutes in Google (Bing is better) will easily answer that.
Again, it all boils down to this… either the divinely delivered story of Genesis is true as written or it isn’t. Since man was not present during creation, then Genesis is the literal word of God as delivered to man about what happened.
So if you dare say that Genesis is not necessarily a true story, then whole sections of the Bible can come into question, and your whole religion falls apart. Hence the desperate need to cling to a belief, regardless of the evidence against it. It like a child desperately wanting to believe in Santa Claus, even after seeing the parents put the presents under the tree.