15% of americans believe in evolution

[catmother]

i don't remember if it was just on bill maher or the tom brokaw special about fundies. but that's scary -- that means 85% believe in creationism.

[flowomo]

1. you'd have to have a source on this before it could be evaluated

who took this poll? Dobson?

Here are the some of the results of a 2001 Gallup poll on creationism, evolution, and public education:
45% believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so
37% believe that human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided the process.
12% believe that human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.
6% answered "no opinion" or "other".

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/e/ev/evolution_poll.htm


so you've got 37 (evolution and god) + 12 (evolution, no god) = 49%

[Lasher]

2. Right

This conclusion might have been based on a question such as, "Do you believe in any sort of supreme being?"

[catmother]

4. thank you. that makes me feel

a hell of a lot better. my husband heard it too. so i wasn't hallucinating.

[flowomo]

7. well, that 45 % is still pretty sad

[Warren DeMontague]

10. That 45% is beyond appalling.

With that level of rejection of modern science, they should be churning their own butter and riding horse-drawn buggies.

[nosmokes]

13. particularly when you consider the religous illiteracy of

the american public. i recall a poll that came out a year or so back and the numbr of professed church going, bible believing socalled christians that couldn't name the authors of the gospels or that though joan d'arc was noah's wife woulda been funny if it wasn''t so sad. i thought it was something out of the onion at first but it was for real. so not only do they eschew evolution, but they really don't grasp what they profess to believe either. they're just intellectually lazy. if they can't wrap their brains around a concept in 30 seconds then it just can't possibly be true. shiny thing...

[FreedomAngel82]

3. Malloy told about this too earlier this week

It is sad. I'm a Christian and I highly do believe in evolution too. Since I believe in God I believe He created everything including evolution. To me evolution is the how everything happened. Why so many of them don't like it I don't know. :shrug: They don't like science or anything with science in general. When I was in high school I always loved science, biology, astronomy etc. My grandfather was an elder in his church for twenty-seven years and he worked at NASA (he by the way told me and my dad once he thought Bush was a moron and he voted for Kerry my mother told me). Just because I believe in science doesn't mean that's going to waver my faith in God and Christ. Maybe these people don't want to believe in evolution (I know people online who think of evolution as total evil and just plain false and that it's fairy tales, talk about hypocriacy right?) because they're afraid their faith will be wrong or something. I really don't understand it. I really would love my country to move forward with science and discovery instead of just standing still and letting other countries move ahead.

[catmother]

6. well said.

[electricray]

11. My personal belief is ...

that faith is being used against the faithful and it has been ever since King James realized the power that could be excercised over masses fearful and reverent of something that no human can quantify.

I am not a Christian, but I do believe in a force that drives everything. In order to fit my beliefs into modern social discourse I simply use the word God to describe that force.

When Creationists speak to me regarding evolution my answer is always "Aren't you afraid that you are commiting blasphemy without even knowing it when you deny the true genius and beauty that God has revealed to us?" I mean, If one truly believes that God created everything, why can that not include evolution? Isn't the study of everything merely a way for humans to give meaning and definition to the world around us? That sounds an awful lot like the study of religion if you ask me. Why is everything a divisive contest when it comes to who believes what?

I often feel like I am being disingenuous when I have these conversations since I am not a Christian and I don't understand everything about the faith, but I feel that my heart is in the right place. My opinion on the bible is the same as my opinion on every piece of religious literary documentation: They are all written by mortals attempting to define concepts that come from sources that mere mortals can never fully grasp. Therefore I believe that strict fundamentalist interpretation of any stripe may be blasphemous.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. 15% believe that the sun revolves around the earth.

[Silent3]

8. I agree that the poll results are sad...

...but don't blow this too far out of proportion. One can believe that a god helped to "guide" evolution, and one can even believe a god expended some sort of special effort on making our sorry species as a special case of creation, without buying into the whole Biblically-literal creationist story.

The number of people who believe the Biblically-literal horseshit is sadly high enough... something like one third of Americans. But let's not make that horror worse by mentally inflating it to 85%.

We're still left with 2/3 who don't need to be in a completely bizarre state of denial toward overwhelming fossil and geological evidence regarding most, if not all, of the basic evolutionary picture, who can accept that the age of the earth is in billions, not thousands, of years, who aren't going to buy into ridiculously naive stories about dinosaurs on wooden arks, etc.

[SoKalKyle]

9. 15% believe in the theory of gravity

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512

[Az]

12. Its highly suspicious

To say the least. Very possible that the questions were tainted so as to produce the results. Could be a limited sample set as well.

There are three kinds of lies. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.

[SoCalDem]

14. That's BS..

I wish people would quit reporting on loosey-goosey "polls" on TV..They create a misconception and then quote each other..

I have NEVER met a single person in my life who believed the Adam's rib fable..or failed to see the connection between animals living now, and those from archaeological digs..

Only a real dullard would not see a connection..and anyone schooled more than a few years back (when the rightwingers started pushing their nonsense into the schools) was taught by real science teachers.

[Dave Sund]

15. It's a false perception

Evolution and intelligent design are not mutually exclusive -- and not everyone who says evolution is wrong believes in creationism. That's not to say that 15% isn't an astonishingly low number. It is to say that the sensationalistic approach the media have taken to this story is ridiculous.

[DanCa]

16. Part Man Part Monkey -

Well I have no problems believing in creationsism or evolution I am tired of the extreme right wing dumping thier beliefs on everyone. Thier really should be an amendment clause to the constitution saying that the right to practice religion doesn't include the right to force it down peoples throats 24/7

[Toots]

17. Means most here are part of that elite few...

Who cares anyway???? We're here get used to it......

[tjwash]

18. Ask yourself this...

...why do you think it is, that all the tech and science jobs are getting outsourced to India and China now?