USA lags rest of world in understanding of genetics and acceptance of evolution: (rejecting, Earth)

egroen · #1 08-11-2006, 10:32 AM

Interesting (and more than a little depressing) article:
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiol..._evo_rank.html

A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower.

The study found that over the past 20 years:

The percentage of U.S. adults who accept evolution declined from 45 to 40 percent.
The percentage overtly rejecting evolution declined from 48 to 39 percent, however.
And the percentage of adults who were unsure increased, from 7 to 21 percent.

-Erin

evearael · #2 08-11-2006, 10:37 AM

Sad, but not terribly surprising.

MidnightBlue · #3 08-11-2006, 10:53 AM

I'm surprised we scored higher than Turkey.

I've just had my Anglophone bias driven home to me, too, I guess, because I was also surprised that Canada, Australia and New Zealand weren't included in the survey.

Faint · #4 08-11-2006, 11:02 AM

I'm shocked...SHOCKED!

No, not really. But it makes me wonder...what's the deal with these evolution deniers? Why are they so threatened by the idea? Are they insane? I understand that faith's can be interepreted to conflict with evolution, but why do you think they're so hell-bent on this course? Shouldn't more people be trying to reconcile their faith with evolution? I mean, they did that when we discovered the sun doesn't revolve around the earth.

MAYBE it's a feud mentality at this point...the evolution-denying-religious bristle when they hear the reason of science simply because it's science, so they knee-jerk an "it's all B.S." response? Of course, this attitude is willful ignorance...and that's criminal in my opinion.

New thread coming from this...

Mister_T · #5 08-11-2006, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faint

Why are they so threatened by the idea? why do you think they're so hell-bent on this course?

Fear of change. Changing one's ideals takes them out of the comfort zone. Is this mostly a conservative issue?

Faint · #6 08-11-2006, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister_T

Fear of change. Changing one's ideals takes them out of the comfort zone. Is this mostly a conservative issue?

Maybe that, and a stubborness to admit one's errors. Some people would rather continue the rest of their lives living a lie rather than admit they wasted several years believing the wrong thing.

And probably there are many others who think (on some level) that if they accept evolution the rest of their faith will collapse...as though humanity's orgin is some kind of cornerstone to their belief system.

Mister_T · #7 08-11-2006, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faint

And probably there are many others who think (on some level) that if they accept evolution the rest of their faith will collapse

That is a concept that a lot of churches (mostly protestant) pound into the heads of their members. It really is silly.

egroen · #8 08-11-2006, 12:15 PM

Christianity somehow survived the heretical notion the earth is a globe and travels around the sun... you would think it could survive this.

-Erin

Mister_T · #9 08-11-2006, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by egroen

Christianity somehow survived the heretical notion the earth is a globe and travels around the sun... you would think it could survive this.

-Erin

You'd be surprised. There are actually people out there who still believe the world is flat.