What the hell is going on? Look at this Harris Poll:
Earlier this year, the State Board of Education in Kansas reignited an old debate ‘whether or not creationism should be taught in public schools’; and shone the spotlight on a new theory, intelligent design. While many in the scientific community may question why this issue has been raised again, a new national survey shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) agree with the basic tenet of creationism, that “human beings were created directly by God.”
At the same time, approximately one-fifth (22%) of adults believe “human beings evolved from earlier species” (evolution) and 10 percent subscribe to the theory that “human beings are so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them” (intelligent design). Moreover, a majority (55%) believe that all three of these theories should be taught in public schools, while 23 percent support teaching creationism only, 12 percent evolution only, and four percent intelligent design only.
This is totally unacceptable. It’s like we’ve been invaded by stupid robots.
You have no idea what a relief it is to know it’s not just Kansas.
Wait a minute, what am I saying?
It’s the whole damn country! (Runs screaming from blog.)
This poll scares the shit out of me and I will do my fair share of running and screaming (always have, lol) but we need you!!
lol! I got halfway out the door and thought, Where am I going to run? Iowa?
You made me roar! Thanks for that… although I’m also freaking out.
I’m less concerned with how we got here (or where we’re going) than I am with what the hell we’re doing with our world while we’re here…
have one without the other. Crazy folks just don’t make good stewards of a nuclearized world.
I had this exchange at TPM Cafe yesterday (the discussion was on a survey of conservative commentators and their views on evolution):
ME
rachelrachel
ME
ME
By the way, HERE is the article about the survey of the wingnuts.
I’ve been pimping secession for some time now. Are ya ready yet? Living in the American version of democracy is like driving on an Interstate reserved for blind psychos. Enough already. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with religion.
Right at the moment there are a bunch of us all up and down the west coast who would happily go.
I tried to get the Canadians to take us, but so far they don’t seem terribly interested. I think that may be because I’m trying to split off western Washington, and eastern Washington has all the hops, and therefore the primary means for the production of beer.
Oh wait . . . they have the cherries too. I guess we have to take them anyway. sigh
get a lot cheaper if you had to import them cross-border from the eastern side. I mean, they wouldn’t have to take out taxes to pay for schools or anything as long as they have their illustratud storys from the Bible.
We import their cheap hops and sell them back expensive beer. We could probably finance the whole country that way!
OK, it might have to be a really small country, but hey.
Well, where does Germany get its hops from? Or Switzerland?
We can import them. ‘sides, with global warming, we’ll soon be able to raise our own.
P.S. I grew up in hop country…. those farmers made a killing. And off the backs of extremely poor migrant families who were looked down upon for living — “look at that! 10 of them living in a one-room shack!”
Damn the Dumbed-Down Robots!
I fall somewhere in the middle of this, for I believe in a Great Spirit, that guided my ancestors from the murkiness of the primoridial pool of early life on this planet. I believe that evolution is a sanctified theory that has validated itself and should be taught in every classroom in every school in the nation.
If they want to teach intelligent design, then do it a religious studies course that encompasses all of the religions of the world.
What I believe and what I know are not always the same and what I believe I can not always prove.
I believe that I am a miracle because Great Spirit lifted me from a life of degradation and despair. Great Spirit instilled in me a desire to grow as a human being and excel in that growth. I can’t prove to anyone that Great Spirit is all powerful, all knowing, all being, I can only demonstrate to those around how Great Spirit impacts my life and my interaction on this planet.
That life evolves is no mystery to me, college courses in botany, and geology opened my mind to the wonders of the evolutionary explosions that occurred on our planet. Seeing the wonders of geology up and down the west coast on a summer geology class that lasted six weeks. Exploring the plant life that lives in the ocean and deserts of So. California, created wonderous pleasures of intellectual ponderings of how such a diverse life force could develop on this speck of blue in the greater universe.
I don’t know and frankly I continue to believe that evolving has not stopped, that evolution and belief in a divine power can co-exist and does co-exist with many scientist and scholars.
I live in Kansas and have had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting two board members outside of the Kansas BOD offices which are two blocks from where I work. They were discussing something about ID and how it was going to take the place of evolution one day as the proper way for science to explain life on earth. I waved and contiued walking away, shaking my head and wondering if all wingnuts were that ridiculous in their ability to sanctify their own actions and wreak havoc upon the rest of us.
the numbers are significantly different from when they polled this back in 1994.
1994 44% Sane 46% Insane
2005 38% Sane 54% Insane
These wingnuts have been very busy. They are ruining the country.
in the middle. You believe in evolution. Nobody knows, or has a way of knowing, the ultimate origins of things — or at least has no way of grasping it. Personally if I were going to be religious the idea of a Great Spirit would probably be what I’d gravitate toward, or else Hinduism minus the drek that’s accumulated over centuries of priestly bullshit. Both views make much more sense to me than the Sky God cults that came out of Southwest Asia.
But whether one chooses to envision the ultimate reality as the Void or the Christian God or the Great Pumpkin or Nick and Jessica, the crucial point, to me, is whether one has to deny science and reason in order to hold onto that vision. I think any “faith” that can’t deal with the real world is twisted and sick, and should be exposed as such at every opportunity.
every independent indicator points conclusively to the fact that Nick and Jessica are demigods, not gods in and of themselves.
tricked the weak among us into seeing them as demi-gods, thus causing us to suffer the eternal damnation of the UnCool.
People, open your eyes!!!!
I have no problem believing that God could use evolution to create human beings. In fact I would believe God used evolution to create human beings before I would believe that God placed dinosaur bones in the earth to trick humans and test their faith, because I don’t believe that God is a God of lies.
I’m with the Dalai Lama on this one, who once said: “If science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly.” What an enlightened idea — but then you would expect such enlightened ideas from His Holiness, wouldn’t you? 🙂
that it seems to denigrate the concept of God to postulate the tricks you mention, as well as DNA data that all support the idea of gradual change over time.
Robert Pennock’s book The Tower of Babel, is an interesting comparison of linguistic data with genetic data. Pennock investigates support for the idea that languages were created all at once by God, and uses that as an analogy for genetic creationism.
I am not religious, but I would support a God that shaves with Ockham’s Razor.
I also believe in a God who works by way of natural laws, albeit some we haven’t discovered yet. As you say, the elegance of DNA fits in with that idea.
The concept of a God who works by natural laws occasionally trips up people who don’t seem to think the same way. I have a friend who told me once that “God could do absolutely anything he wanted to.” I told him that I believed there were limits to God’s powers, but they are just so far ahead of our understanding that sometimes it seems like there aren’t; he said he didn’t believe it; and I asked him whether he believed that God could make a rock so big He couldn’t move it. I think he’s still thinking that one over.
An interesting question is whether it’s possible for the laws of physics to be modified. Some rather interesting speculative fiction has been written on that topic.
Isaac Asimov’s “The Gods Themselves” came out of his speculation of what might happen, if I remember correctly, if a scientist got hold of an isotope that wasn’t supposed to exist.
I know that mathematicians have done some interesting things with “playing with the rules.” Non-Euclidian geometry, for instance, answers the question, “What would happen if it’s not true that for any given line and point not on the line there is not exactly one line through that point parallel to the original line?” But I don’t know what-all physicists have done with similar ideas. I really miss Martin Gardner’s “Mathematical Games” column from Scientific American; he used to delve into such topics, and always made them interesting and entertaining.
I see that belief and science can be different, though not incompatible. If I understand you completely, you think the same.
Science covers my logical understanding of the world I live in. Belief covers my emotional relationship to that existence.
I can understand physics and statistics, and yet still avoid walking under ladders.
Science is always incomplete. It involves theories which accommodate the facts that we know so far. We know that there will be future accumulations of facts which will require theories to be modified, or even discarded. But that does not invalidate the cumulative facts – it merely expresses our desire to know more.
The debate about evolution v creationism/ID is confusion about what is science and what is philosophy and belief. Both develop and evolve in their own seperate ways. Science is about repeatable evidential phenomena, Philosophy and belief are about our understanding of the meaning of those phenomena, and the words we use to describe them.
The two ‘sides’ actually evolve in tandem. What is a ‘miracle’ yesterday, becomes a physical explanation tomorrow. The explanation requires a modification of belief, but not necessarily the words we use to describe them.
The Great Spirit (and correct me if I am wrong) is two words which describe a personal attitude to the experience of life, not a science of that life. The attitude is a filter for the benefit of the user, but not the ‘liquid’ that is being filtered…
(who is six) about “God” last night (he brought it up) — whenever he comes home talking about Jesus or God (there was a time when he insisted on saying grace, my husband didn’t like it one bit, but my cooler head prevailed (in this one instance) and told the little guy that he could thank God and Jesus and whoever he wanted to, just so long as he remember to also thank his Dad (my husband is the one who cooks, 99.9% of the time) — MY, what a diversion that was!
Anyway, we have always told him that people will try to tell him God and Jesus are “up there” we tell him that Jesus was a great guy by all accounts, but that “godde” is inside him (we point at head and heart) — hard to walk the line with one so young, but I tell him NEVER to allow someone to make him feel bad or lessor by using God or Jesus. We’ll talk more when his attention span for the abstract extends a bit!!
😉
But the FIRST time that he comes home from school with this crap, I am off to the principal’s office…actually, I’ll try the teacher first….it worked in kinder, even though she was very religious, she didn’t feel the need to preach to the children, she just did.
Arg, sorry for the rambling ramble…..
When I get to feeling like you are BooMan, I think about all of the people I know who DON”T ascribe to this BS and say: “ah, THERE’S my “country”!!
are teaching our children that Jesus was an ascended Master, who gave of himself for the betterment of the world in which he lived.
My wife is a Reiki Master and healer and I want our children to know that many religious figures have been twisted and torn from their original embodiment for the benefit of the churches and their organizations.
I believe that we must live in balance with our world, that the current regime is systematically working to move us into their biblical Armeggedon and regardless of what the rest of think that is where they are going to take us.
Do I need a tinhat, I don’t know, I don’t think so, just look at how much pillaging and plundering is coming out of Washington right now.
I can only do what I can do and right now that is to try and get my house rep, Jim “tom delay clone” Ryun, unelected next year. He is vulnerable now with the delay label upon him and maybe some moderates in this rep district will kick his ass out, I can only hope.
Emphasis mine…I am stunned by these numbers!
To paraphrase H.L.Mencken: It is the fundamental theory of America…that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or thoughts.
PEACE
I only wish I could find a way to capitalize on one of his most famous sayings without selling my own soul to do so — something like “You can never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
Now I think the American people are wonderful at heart, by and large, but Mencken’s maxim is the only way I can think of to explain stuff like Survivor.
Part of it has to do with the nonsensical “either/or” position presented by many religious leaders. Even one cardinal someone or other apparently is working to rescind any hint of Papal acceptance of evolution that was givin by the recently dead Pope. I came across that somewhere today, when I find it I will link it.
Unfortunately, as you’ll no doubt have noticed from the numbers, it’s not just conservatives or right wingers who believe this stuff. I know liberals… leftists, even, who have fallen for the “You can’t believe in God and science” blah blah, for some odd reason. Or, worse, that you can’t believe in science at all, because they lie.
Thus, in their minds, there is no verifiable or testable “proof” of global warming, evolution, or other ‘controversial’ things. Weirdest thing to encounter… I almost don’t know what to say, because these too are people who know all the arguments and the science…, they just reject them.
Usually, as long as they are not planning on working against science in schools, or clamoring for the teaching of creationism in schools… from the left… I wind up saying not an awful lot. I don’t much care what people personally believe, as long as they are not attempting to also make others believe it, without something that can be tested and proven or disproven.
I’m right there with you – but I think it’s time for us to start being a bit more challenging. Fundamentalism has gotten far to comfortable and mainstream.
Oh I do… just to a point, if they are friends. As I am not religious, any further gets to the point where people sometimes feel I am attacking their religion or beliefs, and thus shut down anyway.
I noticed post downthread and I think things like that – and those thoughts expressed by other religious/spiritual people on here, on the ability to combine the two with no problems – are what needs to get more air time, face time whatever.
The unreligious are at a natural disadvantage in the situation, and allow for a too easy out from actually thinking through something (“You just are anti christian!”).
What is worse, I am one of those damned liberal atheist biology professors. My suggestion: Arm yourself with facts about ID – most people don’t know exactly what the IDer’s are saying and it’s easy to discredit without getting into religion at all.
Also, arm yourself with info about which religions embrace evolution as the way in which God created life and allowed it to develop on our planet. That shifts the discussion away from the either/or of you either believe in God or you “believe in” (arggghhh, hate that one) evolution. Instead the discussion can be about why some faiths see a conflict and some don’t. Even an atheist can participate productively in such a discussion.
LOL
You must have been reading Fafblog.
I have a question about this poll
frankly I find both numbers astonishingly low – and perhaps the result of a flawed design.
why are “created by God” and “evolved from other species” either / or exclusive choices. I’m convinced of both.
I understand that some will consider me a nut – but I believe there is a creator, I believe that creator has intelligence and will – and I believe that science – including evolutionary biology – is the best means we have for using the creator given gifts of rational thought, curiosity, and even freewill to study this creation, learn about it, and open our eyes to the wonder and awe of it.
There simply should not be this huge conflict. I understand there IS and we have to deal with that. One of the things I take it as my duty as a religious person (Christian specifically) is to help turn back the wave of unthinking blind fundamentalism in my home state (KS) and globally.
Both are ways of asking, and answering, core questions. They need not conflict, either, in my opinion, is blind, even dangerous, without the other. Creationism, by whatever name, is not science. Science involves being able to “test” observable data. Um, thou shalt not test your God….
and if you find it will you please let the rest of us know just where the hell it is? Whatever one wants to believe in is their own personal choice(soon to be taken away?) but when they try to shove it down my throat I want to vomit.We are in the midst of a religious war and half the country doesn’t even realize it.
When I went through treatment many many years ago they asked us to just believe there is something greater than yourself, even if it is a damn doorknob. I believe they mostly did this to get us out of ego and humble ourselves enough to dig deeper into our pyches to find the root of our problem. My ideal higher power is the energy of the Universe and our connectedness and love. That is what works for me but it doesn’t mean that everyone else is wrong. What scares me is that the extemists believe it is their way or you are evil, not worthy and all that rot. Gee, guess the Extemist Muslims and Extremist Christians have alot more in common than they think.
regardless of what religion is being professed. I remember that door knob analogy and how I viewed it was that it was leading into a room full of people who combined were greater than myself. I figured that all them could kick my ass so they were in fact greater. It was not until I was introduced to a sweat lodge meeting on a reservation in San Diego that Great Spirit entered into my conscious mind as a way to gain greater freedom from active addiction.
Wow…sweatlodge in San Diego? Is it still in existance? I would be very interested. I love Native American practices and rituals. I use the Medicine Card deck for guidance at times.
Compare evolution to sex education. What sex education? Yes, but go back to a time we actually HAD sex education. There is no disputing the science behind sperm and egg, cell multiplication and division, DNA, yadda, yadda, yadda. With as much as we know about the science from fertilized egg to fully formed fetus, we don’t know everything about that process. It doesn’t prevent teaching exactly what we do know.
The science does not threaten anyone’s “God makes life” beliefs which belong in a religion class, not a science class.
The robots are HERE! They’re just underground.
Or the smart ones are underground waiting until the stupid robots get rid of the smart humans?
This reminds me of the day I was walking down a street in my neighborhood in NYC, that has a church with a rapidly growing Russian Orthodox following. Suddenly, the question occurred to me, “What if the majority of Americans really were religious and wanted more religion in schools and government? Could that really happen?”. Then I thought that it couldn’t because it’s counter to the Constitution. That even if the “majority” felt that way it wouldn’t matter since this country was founded on separation of church and state.
Several years ago, I was talking with a lovely,young woman who was raised in a religious Lebanese family in Canada. I was more naive about our cultural differences back then. We got into a discussion about woman’s roles and religion. She told me she believed in Adam and Eve. I was startled and asked inquisitively, “Do you believe dinosaurs and cavemen existed?”. She said yes. I asked how she could believe in both – she just shrugged and had no explanation. She seemed content to believe in both, even though she favored creationism.
I am constantly baffled by those who live in this country and ignore how it evolved. How can people who want religion to dominate our government call themselves “patriots”? Aren’t these the people the true patriots fought to banish from our shores?
The survey left out that probably 25% would check “all of the above” for different origin-of-life ideas. In all seriousness, if the survey included some kind of test for consistency of thinking, there would be large error bars.
The idea that rank and file Americans were ever an Enlightenment population just can’t be. It’s a belief that may come from guaging the population based more on all sorts of opinion leaders than on the average citizens themselves. There’s also an unrecognized fact that the economy is outgrowing its need for rational educated citizens, which is why society doesn’t so much attack as increasingly ignores the views of reality-based groups.
We tend to exaggerate the effectiveness of the rational arguments and policies of politicians in the past, and underestimate the logistical grassroots organizing done for us by labor, ethnic, religious & other cultural leaders, much of which was every bit as emotional and a-rational as anything the right uses today.
Another thing we on the left seem to misunderstand is the difference between rational and reasonable. The average person in a society is (to my thinking) by definition “reasonable” but s/he can be–and in the United States, most definitely is–very irrational.
We don’t understand how ordinary people assemble their view of reality and make their decisions. Most people do not rationally think through most of their decisions. They blend views of peers, respected authority, habit & experience, and only a relatively small amount of rational thinking. Knowing this, the right has spent 40 years variously taking posession of, or fabricating replacement authorities and institutions that give reasonable ordinary people important cues.
Experience is crucial in the evolution issue. The experience of the average person is that acceptance or rejection of evolution has no effect on their lives. It may well be boom-or-bust for many of us, but for average people, science and evolution are not even relevant.
It’s my belief that progress has passed a threshold beyond the ordinary reasonable person’s ability to understand their world. As technology becomes increasingly magical, and politics and the economy become arcane and farther and farther beyond influence of the common person, it’s reasonable for them to turn to superstion and fundamentalism, which are the age-old comforts of people who could not understand and influence their world.
We might create an Enlightenment society in America, but it would be a lifetime-long project that could begin only after the powerful forces now working to eradicate rationality are somehow contained.
If we would take back America by being the party of reality, we have to wake up and learn what ordinary people really believe and how they really make decisions, and then we have to find channels outside the increasingly hostile mass media to reach them with persuadable information to win their support.
I absolutely agree with the thrust of your comment. My demurral is with only this part of it,
“It’s my belief that progress has passed a threshold beyond the ordinary reasonable person’s ability to understand their world.”
While that is true of much of science – I’m totally hopeless at theoretical physics for example, despite a Ph.D. in a science (biology) – basic concepts like evolution are completely accessible to the average person.
The class I mentioned below is for non-science majors – future accountants and such. They had no problem with understanding either the basics of evolutionary theory or why ID is scientific hogwash.
This poll is not inconsistent with others that show many Americans either believe in things that science says can’t be proven or science claims don’t exist (i.e. flying saucers, angels), nor with other polls, studies and informal surveys that show Americans to be ignorant about basic facts of science, history and geography, but well versed in the momentary details of celebrity.
I agree it does show that the view identified as Christian fundamentalist has gained power, because of their concentration on this “issue.”
Scientists are not blameless in this either. Some are intolerant of religion or spirituality in principle, and ridicule those who even think about the transcendent possibilities. Science has made absolute claims that have turned out to be false (until recent decades, any mind-body connection was considered superstition.) Some have treated legitimate dissent within evolutionary science as if it were the same as fundamentalist claims (although the public at large is probably unaware of this).
Personally, I am discouraged by these findings, not surprised, and except as they contribute to a radically different way of looking at the world that is likely to be quite destructive, I am not threatened by them.
People believe all kinds of things. But the real victim here are the children who won’t receive an adequate education. Unless they find employment in a right wing think tank or fundamentalist church or political institition, they are being severely limited in the careers they might have.
Not “believing” in “evolution” means not accepting an entire body of knowledge basic to all the sciences and related practices, such as medicine. It is also fundamental to other disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities.
This was easy back in the 40’s and 50’s when I went to school.
I happen to believe in what I believe in and really DUDE, your attitude is quite condescending. I don’t have any problems with understanding science and holding my choice of spiritual beliefs. If I am loony, then it is not because of what I believe in spiritually, okay?
Here’s the deal. When I went to school in the dark ages, they taught evolution as science. They suggested to us if we had a conflict with our religious/spiritual beliefs and science, we discuss it with our spiritual advisers and parents. Science is science. . .not saying they know everything, I remember when we used to think the world was flat. . .heh!
The thing is, who are you to tell me that I cannot or should not hold whatever spiritual beliefs I want? Who is the school to do that? Teach science in the school, leave the rest of it to mom, dad, the preacher, shaman, master or whomever one may seek such counsel from.
And is it really your assessment that those of us whom may disagree with you on your belief in science to the exclusion of other possible beliefs are LOONY?
You appear to be, in your statements here at least, very judgmental of others. Something my spiritual beliefs don’t encompass. I am willing to allow your belief in whatever you wish, whatever gets you through, DUDE! Please think about allowing me and others the same option.
P.S.
And Booman. . .You know I love you, so I am not meaning this personally, but really man, focus on the problem which is what should schools teach, okay? Or maybe you were and I just missed the whole point.
but there are some things that people believe that I am judgmental about.
I am judgmental toward white supremicists for example.
As for evolution, it is not a grand theory of the universe, or its origins. It has nothing to say about whether God exists or doesn’t, or what God might be like or want from us, if anything.
Biology is impossible without the theory of evolution, as are countless area of medical research. There should not be any debate about whether evolution is a solid theory. As theories go it is about as robust as you could hope for.
Furthermore, our schools don’t teach creationism, our media doesn’t promote creationism, and there is no easy answer for why so many Americans don’t believe in evolution.
You can believe that God created the universe and still believe in evolution. But if someone thinks that we haven’t establised beyond a reasonable doubt that we, as a species, evolved from lower life forms, then they are either uninformed or insane.
This really shouldn’t reflect on someone’s spirituality at all. But it is totally unacceptable that our schools are doing such a bad job of teaching biology.
I whole heartedly agree about the schools and science. And If I should want to believe that creator sang the Universe into existance or the world is carried on the back of a turtle, that does not preclude me allowing science in all its great understandings and discoveries. Just as I bet the same 65% of those people in the polls go to the doctor when they are seriously ill. . .you see, they do believe in science after all.
Creationism, or any other spiritual belief-ism has no place in schools. Unless one is attending a specific religious school and even then, they should be taught science, in my opinion.
So really we aren’t disagreeing much here.
And this whole poll depends a great deal on who and whre they polled and how they asked the stupid questions. Just like all other polls.
As an atheist, I don’t personally believe in a Creator, but I wish well and respect many who do (I’m a big fan of PastorDan, for example. And my Mom, who I consider a “real Christian.”)
As a biologist, I find evolution both scientifically rational and deep in my heart beautiful. Many believers feel the same, and we are in total agreement on this.
It is those whom I consider “not real” Christians (or similar fundamentalists of other faiths) who have lost sight of the teachings of their Teacher and have veered off into the pursuit of total power and greed (not espoused by any reputable faith that I know of) that I have a problem with. Certainly not you, shirl.
I sometimes think I know more about Jesus’ teachings than many people who call themselves Christian. And greatly admire and embrace much of what he had to say.
It is in the interests of the power and greedheads to confuse the issue (“You either believe in God or evolution! Which is it? You’re either for God or against God!”) It divides people and leads to arguments that distract from what is really important. And they have, sadly, done it very well.
“I sometimes think I know more about Jesus’ teachings than many people who call themselves Christian.”
You and I are singing from the same page, Janet. I am not a Christian, but I think I understand the teachings they profess a great deal more than many of them seem to, I’ve certainly spent most of my life studying their religions. And I have plenty of opinions about the whole area of Christianity. . .not important here.
I don’t have any problems with anyone’s choice of belief or non-belief, I don’t know how it could possibly be any of my business. I’ve found what gets me through, everyone else pretty much does the same.
I think your closing statement says it all:
“It is in the interests of the power and greedheads to confuse the issue (“You either believe in God or evolution! Which is it? You’re either for God or against God!”) It divides people and leads to arguments that distract from what is really important. And they have, sadly, done it very well.”
And your sig line is perfectly Millay and perfecly perfect. Thanks
“I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. -Edna St. Vincent Millay”
That the media don’t promote creationism. They may not promote it in the sense that they run shows explicitly laying out the creationist worldview, but they give talking heads endless airtime to misrepresent both evolution and ID without challenge.
See my comment downthread. That is why my students were so angry at the media.
the utter failure of priests and preachers to bypass any opportunity, no matter how sleazy or destructive, to grow their cults and make quick bucks.
Right you are about that one!
I know that Booman is totally capable of defending himself if he feels that he needs defending, but I think the two of you really are on the same page. The idea here isn’t that people believe in “intelligent design,” or Frisbeetarianism, or anything else. The idea here is that “intelligent design” is being debated as worthy of being taught alongside evolution in schools as if they were equivalent. It is no such thing and should not be. See Janet Strange’s post elsewhere in this discussion; she can explain this better than I can.
I have no problem with what people believe in the privacy of their own homes, churches, synagogues, ashrams or wigwams, but when you’re teaching science in a public school you’re supposed to teach facts, not pseudoscience, and you’re especially not supposed to sneak religion in the back door disguised as science. If a public school system wants to present a particular religion’s idea of how man came to be on this planet, that’s fine if it’s done in the proper way and place — like, say, in a unit on comparative religion as part of a social studies class. But to present it as established fact, especially if it’s presented as an established fact that precludes the teaching of actual science, is just flat wrong.
That’s my point exactly. Sorry I stated it so poorly that you missed it.
Science in schools = YES
Religion not in school= Yes
although that may not have come across well either. Really, all I’m saying is that we’re all on the same page here — we want science taught in the schools, and other matters (e.g. spirituality) to be taught in their respective spheres.
the various kinds of believers who can’t accept a challenge to their beliefs and so try to turn it an attempt to “tell me what I cannot” believe. You have a right to your beliefs. Others have a right to think your beliefs are bullshit. You evidently thing “spiritual” beliefs have some kind of special immunity from dissent. They don’t.
You want to argue the facts, the logic, the ethics, whatever, fine. Much appreciated. But spare us, already, from the poor victim pose.
Sorry you got that from how I expressed it. I do not view myself as a victim here.
I abhor the thoughts of this creationism in school thing. It was the part about 65% of people sited in the poll were LOONY that got me.
One’s beliefs in things religious or spiritual should not conflict with the teaching of science. Schools should not force religious beliefs on students. Nor should they teach in such a way that students are irrevocable wrong to hold whatever creation or other beliefs they might have.
Believe what you want in your private lives. In School we should teach SCIENCE as science. . .not pander to any religious groups.
Looks like I kind of reacted to an image I got from the hostility that seemed to be coming out of your post. The poll question was so badly written that I almost have to wonder whether this is some kind of hoax or something. It set up an opposition between believing in evolution only vs basically believing in some kind of deity. That’s terrible design, and I can’t believe Harris would do such a lousy job of polling.
Nonetheless, as far as I’m concerned, those who believe evolutionary theory is flat out wrong are indeed loony, or voluntarily ignorant, which is worse. Like you, I don’t care what people think in their private thoughts and conversations. But as you say, when they try to force those notions onto the public space, that’s a whole different story. IMO, their beliefs are fair game for all assaults short of physical.
Anyway, thanks for your moderate response to my overdone reaction.
We are two peanuts in the dish on the bar. . .pretty hard to tell us apart, eh? I do hope you were never a-salted. . .hehehe
Bad pun! BAD pun!!!!!! Naughty evil ricked pun!!!!! We hates it! We despises it! We must remember it for the next chance we gets to use it!
Such high praise from you Omir! Thank you. It even hurt me to type it out, but it is worth it after all!
I have a hard time accepting that we as a nation are really that dumb, and that leaves me to wonder who sponsored the survey they are using?
Certainly the majority of Americans are Christian but that doesn’t explain why such a high number (64%) believe in Creationism. Catholics, if I remember from my years of schooling, have no problem reconciling their belief in God with evolution.
Just noticed the reference to the Harris Poll. I still think that you can believe in a higher power and still not have a problem with evolution.
If God is timeless, why couldn’t she/he put all the ingredients in place and sit back and watch what develops through evolution?
I happen to think that evolution should be taught in school and creationism/ID should be covered in a comparative religion class.
Certainly I am responsible for the spritual upbringing of my children and if I disagree with what they are being taught at school I can teach them my beliefs at home.
ID must be taught in biology class because ID is a scientific argument. The ID hucksters go to great lengths to insist that ID is not creationism and makes no statements about “God” or religion.
Since it is a bogus, crappy, pseudo-scientific argument that is easily – scientifically – discredited, it is in science class that it is appropriately discussed. Science class is where people like me are attempting to teach our students how to think critically and how scientific reasoning is done. When we do this, students have no trouble seeing the scientific fallacies that ID is based on. My students certainly didn’t. I didn’t even have to explain most of it – they ran with it, finding even more reasons why ID was bogus than I had suggested.
You can’t teach it in religion class, because it is a scientific argument (false one, but a supposedly scientific argument). Religion class is not the place to teach scientific thinking, any more than science class is the place to teach theology. It is in science class that pseudo-science should be exposed.
Last Spring I taught Intelligent Design in my non-majors Cell and Molecular Bio class. Taught it? Yeppers. How? I used what I learned from Paul Rosenberg’s The ID Fraud: “Intelligent Design” For Non-Dummies diary at dKos.
(This is on my to-do list of “diaries I mean to write.” Breaking: I taught Intelligent Design in my biology class!!!)
I started off with a discussion of the religions that I was aware of that see no conflict between their religious faith and the scientific explanation of evolution, while acknowledging that some others do see a conflict. I reviewed the meaning of “theory” as in “scientific theory.” (We had covered this before.)
I explained that “Intelligent Design” was an attempt to show that evolution could not have happened, and that therefore it did not happen. That the IDer’s were purporting to make a scientific argument, not a religious argument. That as science, it fails. Explained why their argument fails, scientifically.
That it is pseudo-science, bogus. And why. (Used much info from links provided by Paul.)
Interesting observations about this:
Most previously thought that “Intelligent Design” meant that there is a God of some kind and s/he must be involved somehow with the existence of the universe. None knew that ID was a specific, pseudo-scientific argument meant to disprove the possibility of evolution. Most had previously identified themselves as espousing Intelligent Design – because they believed in God. However, and this is important, most also accepted evolution as the reasonable explanation of the history of life on Earth.
The rest of the class was devoted to rants by the students about the media and how it fails to inform us. BTW, I never brought up the media or led them to this in any way – it was all their own doing. I just sat back and watched.
Good thing our economic future does not critically depend upon a workforce that has mastered the fundamentals of biology.
oh, never mind. whoops.
Seriously, this is because there is now real money behind this disinformation. And money from the strangest places. The biggest funder of the Discovery Institute is the Gates Foundation. And who has made more money from progress? That I will never understand.
http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/200407/0084.html
I never understood hating science.
If the stupidity got to the point that it cost companies money, then they would clamor for a better educated populace… Unless they could just go find it overseas.
Oh. Shit.
You’re a terrific teacher. I thought I was fairly informed and I didn’t know that ID was an attempt to disprove evolution. I thought it was saying that life is so complex that there must have been a creator at the beginning of it all…but left open the possibility of evolution at work.
Should have gone to college, I guess.
My students didn’t know this either and that’s why they were so angry at the “media” for not informing them of this.
would rule out intelligent design.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. 🙂
The survey is sobering in a way and makes one wonder what kind of science has been taught in the schools – and not just recently. May also reflect the very large megaphone of the radical right and the push to polarize the country. But…I’m not sure it’s as bad as it looks. A glance at the whole survey raises some serious questions about the way it was conducted and interpreted. First, I’m not sure people knew what they were being asked. Even the TNR group (theoretically pretty well educated) seemed confused about terms (and might have been fudging to be PC). Same stuff could apply to the Harris sample. For example, “creationism” is an ambiguous term. It’s a pretty religious country and a lot of people believe in a Creator (some of them in the deistic sense in which it was used in the Declaration of Independence). They’re likely to respond “yes” to a question about “creationism” and still believe in at least some aspects of evolution.
At the risk of being wonkish, these are some of the contradictions in the survey: A big splash is made at the outset about 64% of the sample believing in “creationism” and only 22% believing that humans evolved from earlier species. Looking at the other questions (in the fine print), however, reveals that equal numbers do and do not believe that apes and man have a common ancestry. Equal numbers also believe that Darwin’s theory is proven by fossil discoveries and almost equal numbers believed that plants and animals have evolved from other species. Those are big contradictions to the 22% figure and should have been interpreted in the summary. Sometimes the nature of the questions can also “push” people in one direction or another and I don’t know what effort was made to find out how people were interpreting the questions. These polls are usually done for some group. I would wonder if there was an agenda to find out what they wanted to find out.
Of course the usual culprits (younger, better educated, more liberal, Northeastern/Western, i.e., blue) are more likely to believe in evolution, although more than half of these believe in “creationism.” Suspect this simply means that some people subscribe in at least some respects to evolutionary theory and are also religious – which is fine – but the Harris pollsters apparently don’t do nuance.
Sorry for the length of this comment but these polls make me a little crazy. They contribute to misinformation and polarization – maybe even a bit on this thread.
I have no problem with creationism being taught in school. That is, provided it is taught as part of a philosophy class, not a science class. Of course, then Vishnu can be discussed, or the earth being a giant turtle and a host of other philosophies/religions.
doesn’t get just a tad more common sensed about evolution this silly bird flu may straighten out a whole bunch of idiots on the subject of evolution really fast! I have lived in a fantastic age when many common diseases had been slain by the generations before me. Now that my life isn’t in danger any longer though I’m feeling kind of omnipotent and I think I’ll just go ahead and throw all that science bullshit out the window now because I don’t need it anymore. I still remember my grandfather telling me about all of the children who used to die when he was a kid. He was the oldest in his family of 4 boys and 1 girl and they had always considered themselves incredibly lucky. When his mom died though and they went through her personal papers for the first time he learned that he wasn’t the firstborn. There was a boy and a girl before him who had both died of whooping cough. His mother never spoke of it. He always had Discovery magazine laying all over his house…..science had changed and healed his life in so many ways. He could stop worrying so much about his kids as smallpox and polio and TB and so many other robbers of life fell by the wayside thanks to our understanding of how things really work.