The Sheep Report In
A new poll of 2,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center had some incredibly disturbing results:
Nearly two-thirds of those in a Pew Research Center poll, 64 percent, say they believe “creationism” should be taught alongside “evolution”…
“…alongside evolution”, meaning in Science class, as opposed to in Religion class.
In the poll by the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of those surveyed held strict “creationism” views that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”
That’s right, 4 out of every 10 Americans believe that humans and dinosaurs and everything else in Creation, so to speak, have existed since the beginning of time! And in case you’re wondering, a Gallup poll found that this “Strict Creationist” group put the Beginning of Time at roughly 10,000 years ago, about six orders of magnitude smaller than the actual evidence indicates.
A good friend of mine made the comment, upon hearing these results, that people who could believe that could believe anything; you could delude them into to thinking or doing anything. It’s nothing short of a wake-up call, an America on the brink of decline, the Enlightenment finally extinguished.
Read the Full Pew Research Survey at Pew Forum
August 30, 2005
Read the Full Gallup Poll at Gallup.com
November 19, 2004
lady be good wrote:
Why shouldn’t creationism be taught along side evolutionism? No one is more against seperation than I, but when it comes to this issue, both are theories and just because you teach them doesn’t mean you are forcing students to believe in them and you can approach it educationally without a religious twist.
I am a christian who believes in creation and in order to receive what I considered an accurate scientific education I went to private christian school (so I got to pay for school twice, how fair is that). But even there, my teachers taught us about the theory of evolutionism so that we would know the theories and be able to speak about the intelligently.
As far as I am concerned, it is simply balance. It seems proposterous to me to completely base scientific education on one theory that is just that- a theory. It affects the way you look at datings, adaptation, etc. but even within creationism there are too many conflicting theories- how old the earth is, did God create dinosaurs, etc. It just proves that the way we treat education and present it needs a complete over haul. Too much of what we learn is being filtered through someone elses ‘ok’. Reminds me of Russians handling WWII education in Eastern Europe, and new truths are still surfacing. ladybegood1@hotmail.com
Posted 01 Sep 2005 at 11:04 pm ¶
Tom Chappell wrote:
Well, because one is Science, and one So Totally Isn’t. My complaint is that they’re teaching ‘Intelligent Design’ in the fucking Science class, rather than the Religion class ghetto where it belongs. While both are called ‘theories’, one [evolution] has abundant support from the evidence, while the other is just a lot of wishful thinking, a means to an end.
And it’s spelled ’separation’.
Posted 03 Sep 2005 at 12:43 am ¶
lady be good wrote:
ouch. do you have to be so nasty and biased and use the f word?? because last time i checked, creationism wasn’t such a wishful thinking and there is quite a bit of scientific evidence to support it. shall i attach some of that in a comment? and make sure you let me know when you find the neanderthal man.
Posted 06 Sep 2005 at 11:25 am ¶
Steve Ring wrote:
One problem is just English. Because of the excellent quality of science education in this country, people are confused by the word theory. In general usage, theory basically equals idea. So, any idea that you have about how things work, is your theory about how things work. In science, the word theory, has specific limitations. It, like a general idea, is a way of explaining a set of facts or assumptions, but it has to be possible to disprove the theory. It must be possible to design an experiment, the result of which can be used to disprove the theory.
So, what experiment would you design to disprove creationism, or “Intelligent Design”? If there isn’t one, then these “theories” don’t belong in a science class, because they aren’t science.
Early in the century Bertrand Russell was giving a public talk on gravity in London, and as he was explaining how gravity held the world in orbit, he was interrupted by an old woman. She said that he was wrong, and that everyone knew that the world was held up by a giant turtle. He asked her what held up the turtle? She replied that he was silly and that it was turtles all the way down. Theory – perhaps. Science – no. How do you prove a turtle isn’t there?
Posted 06 Sep 2005 at 4:42 pm ¶
Tom Chappell wrote:
> lady be good: No, I needn’t have sworn to argue my point. But really, your arguments are fairly incoherent, and it is tiring to refute them point by individual point. I can do it for a few of them, though:
1. What is this “seperation” that you so abhor? The “wall of separation between Church and State” that Thomas Jefferson argued for?
2. How could you possibly approach Intelligent Design without a religious twist? Its only purpose for existence is make religious people who are uncomfortable with evolution comfortable. No unreligious person argues for it, therefore its motive is religious, therefore it can’t be approached without a religious twist, right?
3. “Did God create dinosaurs?” What are you saying? Are you seriously trying to diminish God’s importance, just so Intelligent Design will work out for you? By reducing The Lord of All Creation to some Parish President? That makes you more comfortable than saying, as the Catholics have said, that there is no conflict between Christianity and Evolution? Why does every single word in the Bible have to be literal truth? Can’t some parts be allegorical, but illustrative of some Higher Truth?
4. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” So, look, the world is billions of years old. This is a fact. No amount of you calling me “biased” is going to sway me on this. And humans appeared on the world much, much later. So clearly the story of Adam and Eve cannot be the literal truth; at the very least, you have to make the length of the days go all funny. Whatever you argue, if you want to argue it here, has to accommodate that not-the-literal-truth aspect. You’re totally welcome to still be religious, even though I’m not, but if you seriously want to argue for the teaching of Intelligent Design in Science class here, please be prepared to marshall some serious weight in your arguments, and not just say, “Well, they’re both just theories, aren’t they? Who can say which is better?” Well, the one that has testable hypotheses is better, as far as Science class is concerned.
Posted 07 Sep 2005 at 7:04 am ¶