Poll: Creationism Trumps Evolution

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Repo Man

Valued Senior Member
CBS Poll: Creationism Trumps Evolution

(CBS) Americans do not believe that humans evolved, and the vast majority says that even if they evolved, God guided the process. Just 13 percent say that God was not involved. But most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Support for evolution is more heavily concentrated among those with more education and among those who attend religious services rarely or not at all.

There are also differences between voters who supported Kerry and those who supported Bush: 47 percent of John Kerry’s voters think God created humans as they are now, compared with 67 percent of Bush voters.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml

We are doomed.

Edit: click on the link on the left side "Religion in the pharmacy?"
 
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I would believe it, people are stupid drones who do whatever they are told, and religion is yelling out orders pretty loud. I mean come on, they even call their followers sheep and they don’t even care!
 
Repo Man said:
(CBS) Americans do not believe that humans evolved, and the vast majority says that even if they evolved, God guided the process. Just 13 percent say that God was not involved. But most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools.
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Does it mean that the evolution process is not teached in US schools? Are they learning that the "God, Adam, Eve..." process is the truth? It's a joke, no? (I'm not talking about "Does God exist?", allright?!)
 
SG-N said:
Does it mean that the evolution process is not teached in US schools?
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No, evolution is widely taught in schools to at least some degree. I would guess that the reason why so many Americans are deluded and brainwashed is that religious indoctrination begins at home and at church well before students are exposed to scientific reality at school. Looking back at my schooling, I think it wasn’t until about mid-highschool (about 15 or 16 years old) that I received the first serious lessons on the theory of evolution in biology class. For many unfortunate American children, years of Sunday school and fundy parental “guidance” very effectively brainwash them long before that stage.

In fact, I think it’s even worse than that. It’s not until college science courses that a person really becomes familiar with the scientific method and the way science is practiced.

There’s a famous quotation (I forget who it is supposed to be attributed to) that goes like this: “You cannot reason a person out of a position that they did not reason themselves into in the first place.”

This is a perfect summation of the problem. For the majority of people, religious brainwashing is permanent and cannot be undone. And, unfortunately for America, it occurs early and very effectively precludes any future biological education or reasoned appraisal of the theory of evolution. :( <P>
 
spuriousmonkey said:
I would rather say that most of you are uneducated.
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But can improvements in education bring the number of creationists down? I'm a product of public education. I certainly feel that evolutionary theory is adequate to explain the diversity of life on Earth. These people are consciously choosing to believe ancient dogmatic assertions about the origin of life over facts and evidence. My pessimism is based on the fact that not only is acceptance of scientific method poor at the present time (here in the U.S.), it actually seems to be losing ground.

I've a good friend who teaches at a junior college in Washington state (geology). He regularly tells me about how he constantly has to deal with creationism with his students. In spite of more supporting evidence being freely available than ever before in history, my impression is that people are clinging to magical notions of divine intervention more fiercely than ever.

An excerpt from a post election email he sent:Thanks for the posts. Yes, this is very depressing. One colleague has given up all hope. He took down all his anti-Bush, pro-Kerry material saying what is the point. He has decided all his students are morons and will always be morons, the majority of the electorate are morons, and there is nothing that can be done about it.


From An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish:

It is odd that modern men, who are aware of what science has done in the way of bringing new knowledge and altering the conditions of social life, should still be willing to accept the authority of texts embodying the outlook of very ancient and very ignorant pastoral or agricultural tribes. It is discouraging that many of the precepts whose sacred character is thus uncritically acknowledged should be such as to inflict much wholly unnecessary misery. If men's kindly impulses were stronger, they would find some way of explaining that these precepts are not to be taken literally, any more than the command to "sell all that thou hast and give to the poor."
Bertrand Russell, http://www.luminary.us/russell/intellectual_rubbish.html

Being a pessimist by nature, I don't see a solution. Worst case scenario would be religious wars dragging us into a new dark age. Best case, maybe the tide will turn, and at least we will have a majority (maybe 51 to 60%) who can accept radical theories such as plate techtonics, and the evolution of life. But I'm not holding my breath.
 
I'm usually not much of an optimist, but I don't think the situation is really as bad as it seems.

The majority of Americans will answer a poll, "Yes, I believe that God created the heavens and the earth." But they also want their children to get the best education possible, so relatively few will pull their children out of schools that teach evolution.

And education kills creationism.
There may be a lot of "low-level" creationism in the US - i.e. a lot of people have looked at a few websites and said, "That makes a lot of sense." But very few people who dig deeper - especially children - will be fooled for long.
"High-level" creationists - i.e. those who have studied the subject - are invariably propagandists and/or oppurtunists.

As Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Creationism is loud and obnoxious but as long as intelligent people are vigilant, it will never be more than a flash in the pan.
 
That is really sad. The Americans think the only alternative to evolution is creation science.
 
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