More Americans accept theory of creationism than evolution

baraka

I ran across this article this morning and found it, well, interesting to say the least................

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default.aspx?ci=27847

Majority of Republicans Doubt Theory of Evolution
More Americans accept theory of creationism than evolution

by Frank Newport

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant minority who doubt that evolution adequately explains where humans came from.

The data from several recent Gallup studies suggest that Americans' religious behavior is highly correlated with beliefs about evolution. Those who attend church frequently are much less likely to believe in evolution than are those who seldom or never attend. That Republicans tend to be frequent churchgoers helps explain their doubts about evolution.

The data indicate some seeming confusion on the part of Americans on this issue. About a quarter of Americans say they believe both in evolution's explanation that humans evolved over millions of years and in the creationist explanation that humans were created as is about 10,000 years ago.

Broad Patterns of Belief in Evolution

The theory of evolution as an explanation for the origin and development of life has been controversial for centuries, and, in particular, since the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's famous The Origin of Species. Although many scientists accept evolution as the best theoretical explanation for diversity in forms of life on Earth, the issue of its validity has risen again as an important issue in the current 2008 presidential campaign. Two recent Republican debates have included questions to the candidates about evolution. Three candidates -- Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo -- indicated in response to a question during the May 3 debate that they did not believe in the theory of evolution, although they have attempted to clarify their positions in the weeks since.

Several recent Gallup Polls conducted in May and June indicate that a significant number of Americans have doubts about the theory of evolution".

I also found a nice chart of a survey presented by national geographic comparing the acceptance of evolution theory in different countries. The chart is a little less in depth than the Gallup poll but its gives an illustration of the broad trends between countries.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/21329204.html

Ahnimus

Lameageness!

MLC2006

there's no doubt that evolution exists. by it's very definition, evolution can't be reasonably denied. but who is to say that evolution does not have a creative intelligence behind it? a scientist can have test animals in a laboratory and cause them, through testing and altering, to evolve into a new subspecies within a few generations. so is that natural evolution or intelligent evolution? I've seen scientific explanations of how planets, asteroids, stars, black holes, galaxies, plants, an animals came together and formed what we now know. but I've never heard an explanation as to how the universe itself came into being. or for that matter, how "being" came into being.

it's like the chicken and the egg thing, there had to be something for something else to come into "being" or come into existence. before the universe and the galaxies, there was SOMETHING that existed that put it all into motion.

baraka

MLC2006 wrote:

there's no doubt that evolution exists. by it's very definition, evolution can't be reasonably denied. but who is to say that evolution does not have a creative intelligence behind it?

I know folks who say that they are 'creationist' in this sense, but are entirely accepting a billions-year old earth and humans-evolved-from-apes and all that, in as much as there is scientific support for that. Their stance is simply that the laws of nature where made such (by their deity) that the way evolution happened, was a (planified) result of them. This is of course an unfalsifiable position, but not in contradiction to science.

As far as the Genesis-stye 'creationists' (which is in contradiction to science)............is this a uniquely American phenomena?

MLC2006

baraka wrote:

I know folks who say that they are 'creationist' in this sense, but are entirely accepting a billions-year old earth and humans-evolved-from-apes and all that, in as much as there is scientific support for that. Their stance is simply that the laws of nature where made such (by their deity) that the way evolution happened, was a (planified) result of them. This is of course an unfalsifiable position, but not in contradiction to science.

As far as the Genesis-stye 'creationists' (which is in contradiction to science)............is this a uniquely American phenomena?

I don't believe the "Genesis-style" or the Biblical sense is contrary to science either. you have to remember that the Bible (or whatever other holy book) was written by men with limited understanding of a lot of different things. so the Bible says that everything was created in 7 days. but the earth was created at a time when there was no time, so there was no clear rule as to what a "day" was. the Bible says man was created by dust. but "dust" to someone in biblical days could be atoms, evolution, or whatever. because God himself could have come down and explained how man was created, but at that time, the people of that day would not have understood it. the Bible is vague, because the people who wrote the Bible had limited understanding.

there are scientific explanations that can't be denied. but there are things that science can't deny either. you can't bake a birthday cake out of nothing. and the universe cannot be created out of nothing except by a greater intelligence. the universe may stem from a million trillion gazillion years of evolution. but at some point, there was nothing. and somehow, that nothing came into being and set into motion the things that we see today. and that was a plan. and science cannot disprove that.

searchlightsoul

baraka wrote:

I know folks who say that they are 'creationist' in this sense, but are entirely accepting a billions-year old earth and humans-evolved-from-apes and all that, in as much as there is scientific support for that. Their stance is simply that the laws of nature where made such (by their deity) that the way evolution happened, was a (planified) result of them. This is of course an unfalsifiable position, but not in contradiction to science.

As far as the Genesis-stye 'creationists' (which is in contradiction to science)............is this a uniquely American phenomena?

Why is it unfalsifiable. I mean genetics is the basic mechanism of evolution and is entirely ruled by chance. Consequently you can't have evolving life which must lead inestricably to humans-thats completely egocentric. There was never any assurity that we would be here.

searchlightsoul

MLC2006 wrote:

there's no doubt that evolution exists. by it's very definition, evolution can't be reasonably denied. but who is to say that evolution does not have a creative intelligence behind it? a scientist can have test animals in a laboratory and cause them, through testing and altering, to evolve into a new subspecies within a few generations. so is that natural evolution or intelligent evolution? I've seen scientific explanations of how planets, asteroids, stars, black holes, galaxies, plants, an animals came together and formed what we now know. but I've never heard an explanation as to how the universe itself came into being. or for that matter, how "being" came into being.

it's like the chicken and the egg thing, there had to be something for something else to come into "being" or come into existence. before the universe and the galaxies, there was SOMETHING that existed that put it all into motion.

What your proposing is intelligent design (ID). Unfortunately life was not designed, it is an illusion.
For example pick any number of structures in the human body which fail regularly at mundane every day tasks or worse-are simply bad to start with at birth. Things like flat feet, the human spine (back injuries etc), back of the skull, inner ear. All these structures are a sub-optimal design-they are not the best way to construct that structure to function the way it does.
Natural selction has simply fashioned the best it can from a less then desirable start point. A creator would have done much better.

baraka

MLC2006 wrote:

I don't believe the "Genesis-style" or the Biblical sense is contrary to science either. you have to remember that the Bible (or whatever other holy book) was written by men with limited understanding of a lot of different things. so the Bible says that everything was created in 7 days. but the earth was created at a time when there was no time, so there was no clear rule as to what a "day" was. the Bible says man was created by dust. but "dust" to someone in biblical days could be atoms, evolution, or whatever. because God himself could have come down and explained how man was created, but at that time, the people of that day would not have understood it. the Bible is vague, because the people who wrote the Bible had limited understanding.

There are two camps of thought as far as I can see: The Genesis-style creationists & those that subscribe to a more sophisticated theory of intelligent design.

Basically, proponents of Genesis-style creationism hold that the universe and the Earth were created approximately 6000 years ago, based upon the lineage of people mentioned in the first few books of the Old Testament. They also hold that modern species of plants and animals were created in their present forms, as described in the book of Genesis. The fact that measurements of radioactive decay in rocks have set the age of the Earth to be over four billion years old is of no concern.

MLC2006 wrote:

there are scientific explanations that can't be denied. but there are things that science can't deny either. you can't bake a birthday cake out of nothing. and the universe cannot be created out of nothing except by a greater intelligence. the universe may stem from a million trillion gazillion years of evolution. but at some point, there was nothing. and somehow, that nothing came into being and set into motion the things that we see today. and that was a plan. and science cannot disprove that.

I have no problem with the idea that there are things that lie outside the scope of science. I am, however, concerned with the large number of Americans that can NOT seem to reconcile the FACT of evolution with their spiritual beliefs. I would not place all the ID folks in the category, however. According to the articles I posted in the first thread, it seems that non-Americans seem to have an easier time with this.

My question was is this primarily an American phenomena and if so, why?

baraka

searchlightsoul wrote:

Why is it unfalsifiable. I mean genetics is the basic mechanism of evolution and is entirely ruled by chance. Consequently you can't have evolving life which must lead inestricably to humans-thats completely egocentric. There was never any assurity that we would be here.

To be accepted as science, a theory must have predictive value, must be coherent (or internally consistent), must be falsifiable (or verifiable), and must explain at least those phenomena explained by the current theory. I'm referring to intelligent design here. I also stated that ID does not necessarily go against science, that say, genesis-style creationism does, but it certainly does not fall in the scientific category (see my first statement). I'm not sure what the point of your other statements are (I haven't had a lot of sleep, so my reading comprehension skills are not up to par right now .)

surferdude

MLC2006 wrote:

there's no doubt that evolution exists. by it's very definition, evolution can't be reasonably denied. but who is to say that evolution does not have a creative intelligence behind it? a scientist can have test animals in a laboratory and cause them, through testing and altering, to evolve into a new subspecies within a few generations. so is that natural evolution or intelligent evolution? I've seen scientific explanations of how planets, asteroids, stars, black holes, galaxies, plants, an animals came together and formed what we now know. but I've never heard an explanation as to how the universe itself came into being. or for that matter, how "being" came into being.

it's like the chicken and the egg thing, there had to be something for something else to come into "being" or come into existence. before the universe and the galaxies, there was SOMETHING that existed that put it all into motion.

This is more or less where I'm at. I believe the evolution science put forth but leave room for mystery where there are no answers yet. How I fill this mystery is up to me and just as rational as how anyone else does.

LikeAnOcean

I don't understand how people can not believe in evolution. Look at what people have done with breeds of dogs through selective breeding. If we can do that in hundreds of years, I don't know how nature couldn't do that in millions of years.

MLC2006

searchlightsoul wrote:

What your proposing is intelligent design (ID). Unfortunately life was not designed, it is an illusion.

I am not just talking about life, I am talking about all matter. and what are you talking about, "it's an illusion"? what's an illusion? life? I find that silly.

MLC2006

LikeAnOcean wrote:

I don't understand how people can not believe in evolution. Look at what people have done with breeds of dogs through selective breeding. If we can do that in hundreds of years, I don't know how nature couldn't do that in millions of years.

I don't think most people don't believe in evolution. most religious people don't want to hear about evolution because they see it as an affront from non-religious people. and when one says something like, "science's theory of evolution proves that God does not exist", it IS an affront to religion. and the theory of evolution absolutely does not prove that God doesn't exist.

polar bears evolved from grizzly bears. that's fact. it's not deniable. but that's not to say that there was not intelligence. afterall, the grizzly in very cold climates had to change in order to adapt. that in itself is "intelligent". and to me, that points to God as much as it points to science.

PaperPlates

Can't evolution simply be the "tool" or method by which a creator did his/her creating?

gue_barium

MLC2006 wrote:

I don't think most people don't believe in evolution. most religious people don't want to hear about evolution because they see it as an affront from non-religious people. and when one says something like, "science's theory of evolution proves that God does not exist", it IS an affront to religion. and the theory of evolution absolutely does not prove that God doesn't exist.

polar bears evolved from grizzly bears. that's fact. it's not deniable. but that's not to say that there was not intelligence. afterall, the grizzly in very cold climates had to change in order to adapt. that in itself is "intelligent". and to me, that points to God as much as it points to science.

Is God a brain?

soulsinging

id like to know how this survey was phrased. depending on the way the question was asked, the numbers could be skewed... some people not be inclined to answer "i accept evolution" when they think that choice means they deny god. some people might say creationist even while accepting evolution becos it is important that they express belief in their god. there is a far cry between believing in a creator and believing the genesis story.

but hey, at least we beat turkey.

Brain of J.Lo

baraka wrote:

I ran across this article this morning and found it, well, interesting to say the least................

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default.aspx?ci=27847

Majority of Republicans Doubt Theory of Evolution
More Americans accept theory of creationism than evolution

by Frank Newport

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant minority who doubt that evolution adequately explains where humans came from.

The data from several recent Gallup studies suggest that Americans' religious behavior is highly correlated with beliefs about evolution. Those who attend church frequently are much less likely to believe in evolution than are those who seldom or never attend. That Republicans tend to be frequent churchgoers helps explain their doubts about evolution.

The data indicate some seeming confusion on the part of Americans on this issue. About a quarter of Americans say they believe both in evolution's explanation that humans evolved over millions of years and in the creationist explanation that humans were created as is about 10,000 years ago.

Broad Patterns of Belief in Evolution

The theory of evolution as an explanation for the origin and development of life has been controversial for centuries, and, in particular, since the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's famous The Origin of Species. Although many scientists accept evolution as the best theoretical explanation for diversity in forms of life on Earth, the issue of its validity has risen again as an important issue in the current 2008 presidential campaign. Two recent Republican debates have included questions to the candidates about evolution. Three candidates -- Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo -- indicated in response to a question during the May 3 debate that they did not believe in the theory of evolution, although they have attempted to clarify their positions in the weeks since.

Several recent Gallup Polls conducted in May and June indicate that a significant number of Americans have doubts about the theory of evolution".

I also found a nice chart of a survey presented by national geographic comparing the acceptance of evolution theory in different countries. The chart is a little less in depth than the Gallup poll but its gives an illustration of the broad trends between countries.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/21329204.html

Do most republicans also believe in Santa? :rolleyes:

baraka

soulsinging wrote:

id like to know how this survey was phrased.

Click on the first link and scroll down. It provides the different questions asked.

MLC2006

Brain of J.Lo wrote:

Do most republicans also believe in Santa? :rolleyes:

you think Republicans are the only people who believe in God? if so, you're as dumb as the question you posed.

lucylespian

PaperPlates wrote:

Can't evolution simply be the "tool" or method by which a creator did his/her creating?

Now this really pisses me off, fucking religion hijacking scientific knowledge, saying it's part of the grand plan. It's not, it's bloody theft. Sod off and come up with your own ideas.

Bloody worse than saying he buried dinosaur bones to trick us.

MLC2006

lucylespian wrote:

Now this really pisses me off, fucking religion hijacking scientific knowledge, saying it's part of the grand plan. It's not, it's bloody theft. Sod off and come up with your own ideas.

if God created man and thought, then it is science that hijacked religion, not vice versa.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

What are you talking about!? Republicans are proof of evolution!

There's your missing link right there...

lucylespian

MLC2006 wrote:

if God created man and thought, then it is science that hijacked religion, not vice versa.

So, if god owns and provides all our thoughts, we can never sin, because we only ever do what he makes us do ??

MLC2006

lucylespian wrote:

So, if god owns and provides all our thoughts, we can never sin, because we only ever do what he makes us do ??

I didn't say God controls what thoughts come into someone's head. I said, if God created "thought" as in "the ability to think".

the anti-religion people love talking about science this and science that. the thing is that science has become a religion in itself. and it hasn't proven or disproven anything regarding God. as I asked early, where did "being" come from? how did the first matter that sparked the universe ever come into existence? science never has and never will answer those questions. so then, "God" is as good an answer as anything else.

Alex_Coe

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

What are you talking about!? Republicans are proof of evolution!

There's your missing link right there...

I think I'm missing the joke.

sponger

I don't think it's really that americans don't believe in evolution; I think it's that americans don't like the idea of having anything in common with apes. They like to think that they're special and gifted moreso than any living thing on the planet. It's not a matter of a lack of evidential support for evolution; it's just that they'd rather believe the bedtime stories.

Bu2

sponger wrote:

I don't think it's really that americans don't believe in evolution; I think it's that americans don't like the idea of having anything in common with apes. They like to think that they're special and gifted moreso than any living thing on the planet. It's not a matter of a lack of evidential support for evolution; it's just that they'd rather believe the bedtime stories.

I like to think that we are all from nature, we are all with nature, we are all for nature.

The fact that the rest of my fucked up country doesn't believe that, is not my fault.

But that doesn't mean that I don't plan to do something about it.

And my monkey friends agree with me, wholeheartedly. They are busy printing out the "Impeach Bush and Cheney" bumperstickers as I speak.

PaperPlates

lucylespian wrote:

Now this really pisses me off, fucking religion hijacking scientific knowledge, saying it's part of the grand plan. It's not, it's bloody theft. Sod off and come up with your own ideas.

Bloody worse than saying he buried dinosaur bones to trick us.

How do you really feel about it?

And they say "creationists" are touchy. Sheesh!



By the by, I'm not a "creationist", nor a religious man.

Sod off? You guys are so cute when you're angry.

PaperPlates

Bu2 wrote:

And my monkey friends agree with me, wholeheartedly. They are busy printing out the "Impeach Bush and Cheney" bumperstickers as I speak.

its not nice to call liberals monkeys.

Bu2

PaperPlates wrote:

its not nice to call liberals monkeys.

to call monkeys nonliberals.

Songburst

MLC2006 wrote:

I didn't say God controls what thoughts come into someone's head. I said, if God created "thought" as in "the ability to think".

the anti-religion people love talking about science this and science that. the thing is that science has become a religion in itself. and it hasn't proven or disproven anything regarding God. as I asked early, where did "being" come from? how did the first matter that sparked the universe ever come into existence? science never has and never will answer those questions. so then, "God" is as good an answer as anything else.

"God" is the easy answer for those questions. If god was accepted as the answer to everything, the little date on your stone tablet computer would read "dark ages" instead of June 14. People who are told to believe that God is responsible for everything in the world (except the bad stuff) for their whole lives tend to believe just that. Not too many people who say they believe in god actually do believe in god. They just say it because they have been told that it is bad to say that you don't.