I saw the film EXPELLED today and it was interesting ...

Select poll option that suits you most closely:

I am with Ben Stein who is a genius.	12.7%	[ 40 ]
I am with Dawkins who is brilliant!	28.3%	[ 89 ]
Darwinism is a foggy working hypothesis.	6.4%	[ 20 ]
There is no academic freedom anymore.	14.6%	[ 46 ]
I evolved from a cluster of cells that emerged from a pokey-ball.	37.9%	[ 119 ]
Total Votes:			[ 314 ]

[Dr Sparticle]

Shokushu

Dr Sparticle

The fact that you think a study must require a complete set of data to be valid shows a tragically painful misunderstanding of not only professional polling, but even more so, statistics. The very purpose of statistics and the proper methodology in studies like this is to take smaller data sets and to consolidate it into a body of information with which you can generate useful information. It is rarely feasible or even possible to collect all available data, and this is a prime example.

But what is even more telling, is your insistence to include countries that have little to no relationship to the United States in to the data. Explain to me in what way it is beneficial or in any way statistically appropriate to include nations which do not even recognize the ideas of biological evolution? Biological evolution as it is being discussed is largely a Western European and North American pursuit. That isn't to say that there aren't other countries that are well aware of the theory, but that it is a better use of our time and money to collect statistics from nations with similar cultures to our own because, surprisingly enough *sarcasm* it is a more accurate reflection of our own position. With this in mind, do you really think your absurd recommendation of questioning those from South Korea or China made any sense at all. Did you even think about what you were saying or did you just decide to be a nit picky pain in the arse, thinking that you were being academically thorough and not realizing, as you wallow in your own ignorance, that professional statisticians ignore some data sets FOR A REASON!

The only way the chart and study would be in any way useless is if it was a complete fabrication. Other wise we can learn a lot from the data, specifically, the United States is one of the only major powers in the world who has a problem understanding and accepting evolution.

You're too upset to see that what I've been doing with all of the examples is shooting down my own possible explanations of what countries were being included. I am not actually concerned with including most of them on the list.

Redem's guess of Europe plus America and throwing Japan in for flavor sounds pretty reasonable but if that's the case you're comparing a bunch of closely knit countries and some place out of the far east with only one of the countries in the Americas? I'd say only having one country from this continent is fair except for the blaring issue of why Canada was not taken into consideration. If the vast wilderness of the place was too much to handle you could only gather data in Quebec and just make a note of it.
But no, they're comparing just America against Europe and one Asian country so that it's not quite so clear that basically all of the data comes from Europe. Well "Europeans and Americans have different attitudes" is a pretty obvious point but it sure isn't the first one you would think is being made when you look at this now is it?[/trying to mimic your emotional state]

While you CAN learn a lot from the data if it is accurate most people WILL NOT learn very much from it. What MOST PEOPLE will do is browse it over a bit and form a quick opinion on what the overall trend is.
If this came with more information on how and why particular sets of data were included I'd look at it with the kind of professional interpretation you keep demanding it deserves but seeing as it doesn't include any such information I have concluded that it was intended for laymen and unfortunately my examination of the thing indicates a high probability of bias and/or agenda at work in this compilation.
Thank you very much, have a nice day n_n

I am not in the slightest bit angry. We do have a major issue here though, and that is that you can't seem to make up your mind what is bothering you about this study. At first you suspected bias because it didn't include every country in the world (poor little Namibia, Bangladesh and Estonia were left out. Perhaps we should poll the penguins of Antarctica to ensure we get all the continents too). Then you were claiming bias based on the fact that some countries, which you mistook for world powers, were not included (i.e. Canada, South Korea, China and Russia). You then shifted your argument to a presence of bias based on some vague claims about misleading the readers without actually giving any evidence of bias. At this point, the sum of all of your complaints is that the poll didn't include our neighbors to the north in a poll designed to COMPARE THE UNITED STATES TO ITS EUROPEAN COUNTER PARTS AND JAPAN. I'm so confused, what part of this is confusing you. We already know that Canada is extremely similar to the United States. If anything, adding Canada would confuse the polls by placing a subject into our data set which is too similar to us and the comparison gets skewed.

As for the rest of the data, if you had done more than just eye balled the graph with a slack-jawed stare, you might have noticed that little button at the top which links you back to the study itself, which gives all the information and background of the study. I mean really, I can appreciate the fact that you people want some help finding sources, but must I spoon feed you everything. Ok, here we go:

Here is the link for the background on the study: HERE

And here is a magical information finder that will help you in the real world, where you wont always have somebody to hold your hand when you want to learn: HERE

[Shokushu]

Dr Sparticle

I am not in the slightest bit angry. We do have a major issue here though, and that is that you can't seem to make up your mind what is bothering you about this study. At first you suspected bias because it didn't include every country in the world (poor little Namibia, Bangladesh and Estonia were left out. Perhaps we should poll the penguins of Antarctica to ensure we get all the continents too). Then you were claiming bias based on the fact that some countries, which you mistook for world powers, were not included (i.e. Canada, South Korea, China and Russia). You then shifted your argument to a presence of bias based on some vague claims about misleading the readers without actually giving any evidence of bias. At this point, the sum of all of your complaints is that the poll didn't include our neighbors to the north in a poll designed to COMPARE THE UNITED STATES TO ITS EUROPEAN COUNTER PARTS AND JAPAN. I'm so confused, what part of this is confusing you. We already know that Canada is extremely similar to the United States. If anything, adding Canada would confuse the polls by placing a subject into our data set which is too similar to us and the comparison gets skewed.

As for the rest of the data, if you had done more than just eye balled the graph with a slack-jawed stare, you might have noticed that little button at the top which links you back to the study itself, which gives all the information and background of the study. I mean really, I can appreciate the fact that you people want some help finding sources, but must I spoon feed you everything. Ok, here we go:

Here is the link for the background on the study: HERE

And here is a magical information finder that will help you in the real world, where you wont always have somebody to hold your hand when you want to learn: HERE

A: You are perturbed enough that you can't help but insult me with all the might you can muster.
B: My point hasn't changed once, you just feel like such an expert info-sleuth that you've assumed a new point each time I said more. You might want to scale back on the certainty that you understand what you've just read what with all the false positives you get.
C: Uh huh. Nice how you finally say it's meant to compare the US with Europe now that someone else has put that to words for you.

Anyway the article doesn't say that was the intention. Instead the article dives right into religious causes: American Fundamentalist Christians interpret the Bible differently than other groups of Christians.

I'm just going to lump this all into a quote block in case you don't care what I read in the article.

Quote:

Treads along with some political reasons: Major political parties in the United States are more willing to make opposition to evolution a prominent part of their campaigns to garner conservative votes—something that does not happen in Europe or Japan.
The researchers also single out the poor grasp of biological concepts, especially genetics, by American adults as an important contributor to the country's low confidence in evolution.

and one more bit of text that horrifies me: The current study also analyzed the results from a 10-country survey in which adults were tested with 10 true or false statements about basic concepts from genetics. One of the statements was "All plants and animals have DNA." Americans had a median score of 4. (The correct answer is "yes." wink

Then it addresses our culture: The creationists are still creationists—they're not going to change because of a court decision."

Scott says one thing that will help is to have Catholics and mainstream Protestants speak up about their theologies' acceptance of evolution.

“The professional clergy and theologians whom I know tend to be very reluctant to engage in that type of ‘my theology versus your theology’ discussion, but it matters because it’s having a negative effect on American scientific literacy."

Although unfortunately it includes retarded gems like this: Bruce Chapman, the president of the Discovery Institute, the primary backer of ID, has a different view of the study.

"A better explanation for the high percentage of doubters of Darwinism in America may be that this country's citizens are famously independent and are not given to being rolled by an ideological elite in any field," Chapman said. "In particular, the growing doubts about Darwinism undoubtedly reflect growing doubts among scientists about Darwinian theory. Over 640 have now signed a public dissent and the number keeps growing."
Thankfully it provides information that the Discovery Institute wanted left out: Nick Matzke of the National Center for Science Education in California points out, however, that most of the scientists Chapman refers to do not do research in the field of evolution.

The percentage of Americans accepting evolution has declined, but so has the percentage of those who overtly reject it.

"I was very surprised to see that. To me that means the glass is half full,” Scott said. “That 21 percent we can educate."

The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. Judging by the pattern of your responses you're not going to understand what I just said so: The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations.

The graph is just an update on information that has been gathered before and other than the precise change in it everyone pretty much knew about it anyway and has their own ideas about what it means. The study knew where to look for a correlation and didn't even bother to establish causation because this is a volatile subject and we know which group opposes and regularly fights against the idea of evolution.

But while all of that is nice information to have I still haven't been explicitly told the procedure for selecting countries. It seems pretty heavily implied that they wanted to show a nasty connection between America and extreme religious states.
Thankfully the article provided me with the name Jon D. Miller so I know where the hell these numbers are coming from. Another poll asked the same question but gave options for ranges of certainty- 30% of America outright rejects evolution and 14% is certain of it. The nine countries in Europe ranged between 7% and 15% for completely rejecting evolution.

This other article digs up that other things were checked in the actual study that was being talked about- fundamentalism is only 1/3rd stronger a force on someone's opinion against evolution than holding pro-life views here (though the first article does go over the reason for that- it's been made a political issue.)

Here's something else though:

Quote:

When presented with a description of natural selection that omits the word evolution, 78% of adults agreed to a description of the evolution of plants and animals (see table S2 in SOM). But, 62% of adults in the same study believed that God created humans as whole persons without any evolutionary development.

Oh, and something else that was left out of the article:

Quote:

the mean score on the Index of Genetic Literacy was slightly higher in the United States than the nine European countries combined

I would expect people to be able to see it by this point but I'll just say it explicitly so there's no confusion: It's not necessarily the researchers I distrust but the people presenting their data, since it has been clear that this was a news article rather than the kind of peer reviewed journal the researchers would try to publish things in.
The lack of detail leaves a lot of room for putting your own views into this- it's happened quite a bit at the level we're at who knows what other steps have had the same contamination.

D: Actually in Canada you only get about 25% of the people saying they think God created us as we are. A little more than 60% are fine with the idea that humans evolved from something whether God had a hand in it or not. They've got very different attitudes.
E: The button above and below the data wasn't very useful for me since I was linked right to the chart and the buttons aren't linked to a particular webpage but instead contain the code

[removed]history.back()

Whether you're a programmer or not you should be able to understand why that didn't lead me to the article.
F: Google? Wassa that?

[mrsculedhel]

Dr Sparticle

The way I am seeing it, there are two major reasons why the acceptance of evolution is so low.

1. It is very misunderstood: It is very evident by many of the posts in this forum and others I have participated in that those who disagree with evolution rarely understood what it actually says, even in the most simplistic terms. For example, a large number of people think that evolution claims that we evolved from modern chimpanzees. In fact this is a blatant misunderstandind. We didn't evolve from modern chimps, but that we share a common ancestor with the modern chimpanzees. What this means, essentially, is that an organism in the past branched off in to two completely seperate species, which after millions of years, gave rise to one group, modern humans, and another group, modern chimpanzees (among many of our other common ancestors).

2. People are afraid to take sides on a controversial position. One of the most devious tactics that the creationists have come up with is the "Teach the controversy" position. Your average Joe Shmo doesn't understand evolutionary theory so when he/she hears that there is a controversy between two ideas, mr/mrs. shmo will usually take the safe position and say they don't have a any position at all on the topic. However, when you characterize the dispute as taking place between god and science, as the creationists have done, then the decision becomes much easier for the largely theistic American population. To anybody who has spent any length of time studying the topic, they have should have noticed that this is a false dichotomy. One can believe in god and evolution with no inconsistencies.

This looks to me like an excellent summation of the problem of acceptance. I agree that evolution = atheist/creationism = faith in God is indeed a false dichotomy, however are there people who are atheists who possibly do not understand this is a false dichotomy, too?

Knowing what matter is and how the appearance of solids is actually a perception ... I am surprised that so many people are materialists. Why do people still only believe what they can "see" when our sight is so limited? When our understanding is so limited?

[Dr Sparticle]

Shokushu

A: You are perturbed enough that you can't help but insult me with all the might you can muster.

Am I not allowed to call someone a slack jawed yokel without people thinking I am angry. I enjoy colorful and descriptive language. I am far from angry.

Shokushu

B: My point hasn't changed once, you just feel like such an expert info-sleuth that you've assumed a new point each time I said more. You might want to scale back on the certainty that you understand what you've just read what with all the false positives you get.

You are either being dishonest or you are confused.

You said

Shokushu

Um, Piltdown? You've only got like 34 countries on that list but there are like, a hundred (195 actually.) If all of the countries not on that chart pretty much reject evolution that would mean America is in the top 20% of countries in terms of acceptance of evolution.

You are clearly complaining about the lack of a complete, 195 country study.

You then said:

Shokushu

China, India, Canada, Russia, and South Korea are both countries that were not on that list and that I know the names for. I'm not certain about how the education systems in most of those countries work but I would at least think Canadians know about evolution and that the country wouldn't disallow finding out what people think about it :

If they had said what kind of countries were included I wouldn't have even thought about this but they only said "34 countries." They obviously didn't just target world economies or countries where the citizens are all fairly educated.

You are clearly complaining about the absence of the non-world power countries I mentioned (China, India, Canada, Russia and South Korea). I should also note, for a little later on, that you are clearly complaining about the researchers performing the study, not the source providing access to it.

Finally, you said:

Shokushu

I'd say only having one country from this continent is fair except for the blaring issue of why Canada was not taken into consideration. If the vast wilderness of the place was too much to handle you could only gather data in Quebec and just make a note of it.
But no, they're comparing just America against Europe and one Asian country so that it's not quite so clear that basically all of the data comes from Europe.

And you are clearly complaining about the lack of Canadian representation in the poll, or some Alternative North American equivalent. Considering that Canada is the only other country in North America, I am going to have to assume that is the one you wanted.

Shokushu

C: Uh huh. Nice how you finally say it's meant to compare the US with Europe now that someone else has put that to words for you.

Anyway the article doesn't say that was the intention. Instead the article dives right into religious causes: American Fundamentalist Christians interpret the Bible differently than other groups of Christians.

I didn't mention that it was a study comparing the United States with European countries and Japan because it didn't occur to me that you hadn't read the article posted. I guess it was a bad move on my part to simply assume that you hadn't merely looked at the pretty red and blue lines and that you actually looked at the source the image was linked to. You see, if you tried to pull this stuff in a college setting or any scholastic environment (trying to critically analyze a study without actually researching the study on your own and basing everything off of one graph derived from the study), you would be laughed off of the campus.

Since you still are completely incapable of doing your own research, I will continue to bottle feed you the information.

Here is a link to the study in question: HERE
*Note that the study was quite clearly a comparison of the United States with European countries and Japan

Shokushu

The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. Judging by the pattern of your responses you're not going to understand what I just said so: The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations.

I never claimed that it was. I was speculating as to why they didn't include Canada in their results. On multiple occasions, I pointed out that the study was a comparison of United States evolution acceptance vs. Europe and Japan. I agree that Canada could serve as a good piece of data, but it hardly invalidates anything because of its absence.

Shokushu

But while all of that is nice information to have I still haven't been explicitly told the procedure for selecting countries. It seems pretty heavily implied that they wanted to show a nasty connection between America and extreme religious states.

So if they had included Canada, then the extremist Christians in the bible belt wouldn't have looked so horrible. Somehow I doubt that. Just an aside, I love you how demand that I explicitly tell you stuff. Again, I can't do all of your work for you.

Shokushu

Thankfully the article provided me with the name Jon D. Miller so I know where the hell these numbers are coming from. Another poll asked the same question but gave options for ranges of certainty- 30% of America outright rejects evolution and 14% is certain of it. The nine countries in Europe ranged between 7% and 15% for completely rejecting evolution.

You mean this, Jon D. Miller?
http://www.cmb.northwestern.edu/faculty/jon_miller.htm

Northwestern Website

Professor Miller also serves as Director of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) and as Director of the International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy, both located at Northwestern University.

Jon D. Miller serves as the Director of the Center for Biomedical Communications. Jon is a Professor in the Medical School and in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Trained as a political scientist, Jon brings the social science skills of survey research and quantitative analysis to the study of the public understanding of science and technology. For two decades, he has designed and conducted the biennial national studies of the public understanding of science and technology for the National Science Board, published biennially as Science and Engineering Indicators. His work in the measurement of scientific literacy and attitudes has been replicated in more than 20 countries.

Yeah, sounds like a real dishonest guy.

Shokushu

I would expect people to be able to see it by this point but I'll just say it explicitly so there's no confusion: It's not necessarily the researchers I distrust but the people presenting their data, since it has been clear that this was a news article rather than the kind of peer reviewed journal the researchers would try to publish things in.
The lack of detail leaves a lot of room for putting your own views into this- it's happened quite a bit at the level we're at who knows what other steps have had the same contamination.

As I have already pointed out previously.

1. You most certainly were complaining about the people conducting the poll.
2. Any semi-intelligent person who was not content with the source given to them, in this case a scientific magazine article, would know that the official study can likely be found online, which is precisely why I provided the google link. It took me literally one google search and less than 10 seconds to find the study itself.

Shokushu

D: Actually in Canada you only get about 25% of the people saying they think God created us as we are. A little more than 60% are fine with the idea that humans evolved from something whether God had a hand in it or not. They've got very different attitudes.

Which is precisely why I pointed out earlier that, had Canada been included, it would have just moved the US farther down the list, making things even more depressing.

Shokushu

E: The button above and below the data wasn't very useful for me since I was linked right to the chart and the buttons aren't linked to a particular webpage but instead contain the code

[removed]history.back()

Whether you're a programmer or not you should be able to understand why that didn't lead me to the article.

Again, I apologize for assuming that you knew how to work a standard website and/or google. From your prior responses, I shouldn't have given you so much intellectual credit.

[mrsculedhel]

Piltdown

I am not the only one on here who has said you are blanketing statements, I beleive another person used the term "painting with the same brush" in reply to you. It is okay, so long as you recognize you have done it, but I hardly think it is fair to critisize someone for doing the very thing you are guilty of doing as well. I believe the phrase is "do as I say, not as I do"?

I am comfortable with what I stated in my quote you selected. I posed it as a question.

Iguana reminded me that I my biases are showing when I post about Protestantism. I have a problem with some Protestant theology. I love CS Lewis book, Mere Christianity. He was Church of England and his overview of Christianity is orthodox and very good in my opinion. I probably don't need to get into what I see as the problems of Protestantism other than to say as far as they have a doctrinal demand to believe in a literal creation as depicted in Genesis ... that is on topic to this thread.

I do have a bias. I think there is good theology and bad theology. Still, in a way, the very nature of this thread is a form of apologetics for those protestants with whom I do disagree.

My question remains: What harm does it do for people to be creationists outside of attempts to manipulate science. Just how can we agree that denial of advanced theorectical biology is a detriment to our politics, culture/society?

I am not sure how this even impacts science overall, as scientists specialize in their own fields. How does evolution denial adversely affect technology/research and development?

Thank you to any and all comers who would like to explain this for my benefit together with others who are following this discussion.

[MiniSiets]

Forgive me if this has already been posted but I don't have time to read through 56 pages.

http://www.expelledexposed.com

Before seeing this movie you should be taking note of that website. There are a lot of questionable ethics that went into making this movie, and you should take caution not to be so easily deceived by it. The movie is creating an argument where it does not even exist. Scientists agree unanimously already about the existence of evolution, now they're just working out the details. Science is about finding an understanding of our universe through observable and factual information. Intelligent design provides no such factual basis. It is nothing more than speculation at this point, and that's not science. If you're gonna write about it in a scientific book, yeah you are gonna get shunned for it by the rest of the scientific community, and righteously so for it. If you've actually got real evidence based on sound observation for it, then we can start talking about unfairness.

No one is being "oppressed" by the Darwinists. People seem to think a theory is just some idea a guy came up with during his hangover on the weekend, and that's simply not true. Yeah evolution is a theory... kinda like gravity. Look, this was all proven years ago when Gregor Mendel did his plant experiments and was able to accurately predict future traits that would appear in later generations. All evolution does is draw the conclusion based on Mendel's findings that since we do pass on genetic traits from generation to generation, then naturally as time goes on weaker traits will continue to phase out as those that possess them cannot sustain themselves while those with superior traits survive more effectively in their environment to pass them on once more, thus evolving. It's all perfectly logical. How anyone can still argue against evolution just baffles my mind.

[EsgarBlackpoxs]

mrsculedhel

My question remains: What harm does it do for people to be creationists outside of attempts to manipulate science. Just how can we agree that denial of advanced theorectical biology is a detriment to our politics, culture/society?

Not much, other than the afforementioned attempts to manipulate science and taint it. Though I would contend that Evolution is less "Advanced theoretical biology", and more along the lines of "basic tenent". Evolution is at the heart of quite a bit of Biology.

mrsculedhel

I am not sure how this even impacts science overall, as scientists specialize in their own fields. How does evolution denial adversely affect technology/research and development?

It would, for example, make the medical society drastically inefficient at combating diseases. After all, those two viruses CAN'T be related. The study of ancestral biology would basically be abolished in a Creationist ruled science world.

A more theoretical answer would be that it if they were denying Evolution based on religous grounds, it would prompt scienctists to start using religous answers instead of research.

[Piltdown]

Shokushu

Dr Sparticle

I am not in the slightest bit angry. We do have a major issue here though, and that is that you can't seem to make up your mind what is bothering you about this study. At first you suspected bias because it didn't include every country in the world (poor little Namibia, Bangladesh and Estonia were left out. Perhaps we should poll the penguins of Antarctica to ensure we get all the continents too). Then you were claiming bias based on the fact that some countries, which you mistook for world powers, were not included (i.e. Canada, South Korea, China and Russia). You then shifted your argument to a presence of bias based on some vague claims about misleading the readers without actually giving any evidence of bias. At this point, the sum of all of your complaints is that the poll didn't include our neighbors to the north in a poll designed to COMPARE THE UNITED STATES TO ITS EUROPEAN COUNTER PARTS AND JAPAN. I'm so confused, what part of this is confusing you. We already know that Canada is extremely similar to the United States. If anything, adding Canada would confuse the polls by placing a subject into our data set which is too similar to us and the comparison gets skewed.

As for the rest of the data, if you had done more than just eye balled the graph with a slack-jawed stare, you might have noticed that little button at the top which links you back to the study itself, which gives all the information and background of the study. I mean really, I can appreciate the fact that you people want some help finding sources, but must I spoon feed you everything. Ok, here we go:

Here is the link for the background on the study: HERE

And here is a magical information finder that will help you in the real world, where you wont always have somebody to hold your hand when you want to learn: HERE

A: You are perturbed enough that you can't help but insult me with all the might you can muster.
B: My point hasn't changed once, you just feel like such an expert info-sleuth that you've assumed a new point each time I said more. You might want to scale back on the certainty that you understand what you've just read what with all the false positives you get.
C: Uh huh. Nice how you finally say it's meant to compare the US with Europe now that someone else has put that to words for you.

Anyway the article doesn't say that was the intention. Instead the article dives right into religious causes: American Fundamentalist Christians interpret the Bible differently than other groups of Christians.

I'm just going to lump this all into a quote block in case you don't care what I read in the article.

Quote:

Treads along with some political reasons: Major political parties in the United States are more willing to make opposition to evolution a prominent part of their campaigns to garner conservative votes—something that does not happen in Europe or Japan.
The researchers also single out the poor grasp of biological concepts, especially genetics, by American adults as an important contributor to the country's low confidence in evolution.

and one more bit of text that horrifies me: The current study also analyzed the results from a 10-country survey in which adults were tested with 10 true or false statements about basic concepts from genetics. One of the statements was "All plants and animals have DNA." Americans had a median score of 4. (The correct answer is "yes." wink

Then it addresses our culture: The creationists are still creationists—they're not going to change because of a court decision."

Scott says one thing that will help is to have Catholics and mainstream Protestants speak up about their theologies' acceptance of evolution.

“The professional clergy and theologians whom I know tend to be very reluctant to engage in that type of ‘my theology versus your theology’ discussion, but it matters because it’s having a negative effect on American scientific literacy."

Although unfortunately it includes retarded gems like this: Bruce Chapman, the president of the Discovery Institute, the primary backer of ID, has a different view of the study.

"A better explanation for the high percentage of doubters of Darwinism in America may be that this country's citizens are famously independent and are not given to being rolled by an ideological elite in any field," Chapman said. "In particular, the growing doubts about Darwinism undoubtedly reflect growing doubts among scientists about Darwinian theory. Over 640 have now signed a public dissent and the number keeps growing."
Thankfully it provides information that the Discovery Institute wanted left out: Nick Matzke of the National Center for Science Education in California points out, however, that most of the scientists Chapman refers to do not do research in the field of evolution.

The percentage of Americans accepting evolution has declined, but so has the percentage of those who overtly reject it.

"I was very surprised to see that. To me that means the glass is half full,” Scott said. “That 21 percent we can educate."

The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. Judging by the pattern of your responses you're not going to understand what I just said so: The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations.

The graph is just an update on information that has been gathered before and other than the precise change in it everyone pretty much knew about it anyway and has their own ideas about what it means. The study knew where to look for a correlation and didn't even bother to establish causation because this is a volatile subject and we know which group opposes and regularly fights against the idea of evolution.

But while all of that is nice information to have I still haven't been explicitly told the procedure for selecting countries. It seems pretty heavily implied that they wanted to show a nasty connection between America and extreme religious states.
Thankfully the article provided me with the name Jon D. Miller so I know where the hell these numbers are coming from. Another poll asked the same question but gave options for ranges of certainty- 30% of America outright rejects evolution and 14% is certain of it. The nine countries in Europe ranged between 7% and 15% for completely rejecting evolution.

This other article digs up that other things were checked in the actual study that was being talked about- fundamentalism is only 1/3rd stronger a force on someone's opinion against evolution than holding pro-life views here (though the first article does go over the reason for that- it's been made a political issue.)

Here's something else though:

Quote:

When presented with a description of natural selection that omits the word evolution, 78% of adults agreed to a description of the evolution of plants and animals (see table S2 in SOM). But, 62% of adults in the same study believed that God created humans as whole persons without any evolutionary development.

Oh, and something else that was left out of the article:

Quote:

the mean score on the Index of Genetic Literacy was slightly higher in the United States than the nine European countries combined

I would expect people to be able to see it by this point but I'll just say it explicitly so there's no confusion: It's not necessarily the researchers I distrust but the people presenting their data, since it has been clear that this was a news article rather than the kind of peer reviewed journal the researchers would try to publish things in.
The lack of detail leaves a lot of room for putting your own views into this- it's happened quite a bit at the level we're at who knows what other steps have had the same contamination.

D: Actually in Canada you only get about 25% of the people saying they think God created us as we are. A little more than 60% are fine with the idea that humans evolved from something whether God had a hand in it or not. They've got very different attitudes.
E: The button above and below the data wasn't very useful for me since I was linked right to the chart and the buttons aren't linked to a particular webpage but instead contain the code

[removed]history.back()

Whether you're a programmer or not you should be able to understand why that didn't lead me to the article.
F: Google? Wassa that?

Science Contributors
Between the year of 1994-2004, 6,741,866 total scientific papers were written by the top 10 contributors to science. Here are the numbers:
America: 2,832,621/6,741,866= 42%
Japan: 759,449/6,741,866= 11.3%
Not included on the graph of countries accepting evolution, but those who make the top ten:
Canada: 376,897/6,741,866= 5.6%
Australia: 228,773/6,741,866= 3.4%

Note that both Canada and Australia combined contribute less than 10% and both fall short of the top 5. It should be of no surprise that the 2 countries included on the list are also the two largest non-European scientific contributors. Further, your insistence that Canada be included leads me to think you must be Canadian, as from what I can see, there is no significant reason that Canada should as it contributes 5.6%. I would also like to note that your statistics on Canada only makes the US citizens look worse as more people from Canada (who publishes ~6%) accept evolution than people form the United States(who is top on the list at 42%).

[Beyond_Oblivion]

EsgarBlackpoxs

mrsculedhel

I am not sure how this even impacts science overall, as scientists specialize in their own fields. How does evolution denial adversely affect technology/research and development?

It would, for example, make the medical society drastically inefficient at combating diseases. After all, those two viruses CAN'T be related. The study of ancestral biology would basically be abolished in a Creationist ruled science world.

Let's not forget that most people who are also against evolution expand "evolution" to include all scientific theories they dislike, including certain bits of physics and chemistry (arguments against the synthesis of organic compounds, arguments against big bang, arguments that encourage complete ignorance of the basic theories of motion and thermodynamics, etc.).

[Piltdown]

Beyond_Oblivion

EsgarBlackpoxs

mrsculedhel

I am not sure how this even impacts science overall, as scientists specialize in their own fields. How does evolution denial adversely affect technology/research and development?

It would, for example, make the medical society drastically inefficient at combating diseases. After all, those two viruses CAN'T be related. The study of ancestral biology would basically be abolished in a Creationist ruled science world.

Let's not forget that most people who are also against evolution expand "evolution" to include all scientific theories they dislike, including certain bits of physics and chemistry (arguments against the synthesis of organic compounds, arguments against big bang, arguments that encourage complete ignorance of the basic theories of motion and thermodynamics, etc.).

Geology, astronomy...

[Shokushu]

Dr Sparticle

Shokushu

A: You are perturbed enough that you can't help but insult me with all the might you can muster.

Am I not allowed to call someone a slack jawed yokel without people thinking I am angry. I enjoy colorful and descriptive language. I am far from angry.

Shokushu

B: My point hasn't changed once, you just feel like such an expert info-sleuth that you've assumed a new point each time I said more. You might want to scale back on the certainty that you understand what you've just read what with all the false positives you get.

You are either being dishonest or you are confused.

You said

Shokushu

Um, Piltdown? You've only got like 34 countries on that list but there are like, a hundred (195 actually.) If all of the countries not on that chart pretty much reject evolution that would mean America is in the top 20% of countries in terms of acceptance of evolution.

You are clearly complaining about the lack of a complete, 195 country study.

You then said:

Shokushu

China, India, Canada, Russia, and South Korea are both countries that were not on that list and that I know the names for. I'm not certain about how the education systems in most of those countries work but I would at least think Canadians know about evolution and that the country wouldn't disallow finding out what people think about it :

If they had said what kind of countries were included I wouldn't have even thought about this but they only said "34 countries." They obviously didn't just target world economies or countries where the citizens are all fairly educated.

You are clearly complaining about the absence of the non-world power countries I mentioned (China, India, Canada, Russia and South Korea). I should also note, for a little later on, that you are clearly complaining about the researchers performing the study, not the source providing access to it.

Finally, you said:

Shokushu

I'd say only having one country from this continent is fair except for the blaring issue of why Canada was not taken into consideration. If the vast wilderness of the place was too much to handle you could only gather data in Quebec and just make a note of it.
But no, they're comparing just America against Europe and one Asian country so that it's not quite so clear that basically all of the data comes from Europe.

And you are clearly complaining about the lack of Canadian representation in the poll, or some Alternative North American equivalent. Considering that Canada is the only other country in North America, I am going to have to assume that is the one you wanted.

Shokushu

C: Uh huh. Nice how you finally say it's meant to compare the US with Europe now that someone else has put that to words for you.

Anyway the article doesn't say that was the intention. Instead the article dives right into religious causes: American Fundamentalist Christians interpret the Bible differently than other groups of Christians.

I didn't mention that it was a study comparing the United States with European countries and Japan because it didn't occur to me that you hadn't read the article posted. I guess it was a bad move on my part to simply assume that you hadn't merely looked at the pretty red and blue lines and that you actually looked at the source the image was linked to. You see, if you tried to pull this stuff in a college setting or any scholastic environment (trying to critically analyze a study without actually researching the study on your own and basing everything off of one graph derived from the study), you would be laughed off of the campus.

Since you still are completely incapable of doing your own research, I will continue to bottle feed you the information.

Here is a link to the study in question: HERE
*Note that the study was quite clearly a comparison of the United States with European countries and Japan

Shokushu

The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. Judging by the pattern of your responses you're not going to understand what I just said so: The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations. The study wasn't about world powers, scientifically contributing nations, or even Christian nations.

I never claimed that it was. I was speculating as to why they didn't include Canada in their results. On multiple occasions, I pointed out that the study was a comparison of United States evolution acceptance vs. Europe and Japan. I agree that Canada could serve as a good piece of data, but it hardly invalidates anything because of its absence.

Shokushu

But while all of that is nice information to have I still haven't been explicitly told the procedure for selecting countries. It seems pretty heavily implied that they wanted to show a nasty connection between America and extreme religious states.

So if they had included Canada, then the extremist Christians in the bible belt wouldn't have looked so horrible. Somehow I doubt that. Just an aside, I love you how demand that I explicitly tell you stuff. Again, I can't do all of your work for you.

Shokushu

Thankfully the article provided me with the name Jon D. Miller so I know where the hell these numbers are coming from. Another poll asked the same question but gave options for ranges of certainty- 30% of America outright rejects evolution and 14% is certain of it. The nine countries in Europe ranged between 7% and 15% for completely rejecting evolution.

You mean this, Jon D. Miller?
http://www.cmb.northwestern.edu/faculty/jon_miller.htm

Northwestern Website

Professor Miller also serves as Director of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) and as Director of the International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy, both located at Northwestern University.

Jon D. Miller serves as the Director of the Center for Biomedical Communications. Jon is a Professor in the Medical School and in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Trained as a political scientist, Jon brings the social science skills of survey research and quantitative analysis to the study of the public understanding of science and technology. For two decades, he has designed and conducted the biennial national studies of the public understanding of science and technology for the National Science Board, published biennially as Science and Engineering Indicators. His work in the measurement of scientific literacy and attitudes has been replicated in more than 20 countries.

Yeah, sounds like a real dishonest guy.

Shokushu

I would expect people to be able to see it by this point but I'll just say it explicitly so there's no confusion: It's not necessarily the researchers I distrust but the people presenting their data, since it has been clear that this was a news article rather than the kind of peer reviewed journal the researchers would try to publish things in.
The lack of detail leaves a lot of room for putting your own views into this- it's happened quite a bit at the level we're at who knows what other steps have had the same contamination.

As I have already pointed out previously.

1. You most certainly were complaining about the people conducting the poll.
2. Any semi-intelligent person who was not content with the source given to them, in this case a scientific magazine article, would know that the official study can likely be found online, which is precisely why I provided the google link. It took me literally one google search and less than 10 seconds to find the study itself.

Shokushu

D: Actually in Canada you only get about 25% of the people saying they think God created us as we are. A little more than 60% are fine with the idea that humans evolved from something whether God had a hand in it or not. They've got very different attitudes.

Which is precisely why I pointed out earlier that, had Canada been included, it would have just moved the US farther down the list, making things even more depressing.

Shokushu

E: The button above and below the data wasn't very useful for me since I was linked right to the chart and the buttons aren't linked to a particular webpage but instead contain the code

[removed]history.back()

Whether you're a programmer or not you should be able to understand why that didn't lead me to the article.

Again, I apologize for assuming that you knew how to work a standard website and/or google. From your prior responses, I shouldn't have given you so much intellectual credit.

A: The switches you make from long sentences to several short ones before switching back again build a sense of tension. You can poke fun at people without sounding angry but you need to learn how to control the tone of your sentences. This level of control isn't necessarily taught in the K-12 environment but there's a good shot the highest level courses available to you at least introduced the concepts you need to make use of.
I'm sure with some time you'll get the hang of it.
B: No, I wasn't being direct. Why should I have to cater to your need to assume you know what I'm getting at?
Argue this all you want but you're simply never going to convince me that I don't know what my own intentions were.
C: All I ever saw posted was a graph with links to an article that didn't work.
THAT is what I have been complaining about. An article without accompanying information.
Regardless of the actual source of that information right here on this forum Piltdown gave us a picture and left us to assume whatever we would about it.
No matter how much work I went to to find out more about that image less than 1% of the people on these forums who stumble into this thread are ever going to so much as read one article about it (much less the three I've read already. Oh, and I had already read the Policy Forum article but thanks for posting it here.)
-and I never saw a satisfactory answer to my questions about WHY we were comparing America with Europe.
-the way you keep thinking I disagree with the results of the study keeps leading me to only two possible conclusions. Either you are angry and want to frame me as having the beliefs of a particular group so that you have someone to fight with or I don't speak English. I'm reeeealy sure I speak English pretty good but if I'm wrong about the other one this seems to be the only possible explanation.
-first you're telling me to use Google and now you give me links to everything possible? I can tell that you're trying to be insulting which loops back into the bit about how you're so angry with me- ah, I think I know what it is, you worry about being controlled emotionally so you automatically reject emotional explanations for your actions. Ok, ok. You think poorly of me and would like very much for me to be miserable- but you're not angry, no, you are just very opposed to me being correct.
-I think your points are invalid, for the reasons I have been discussing thus far.

*This is going to become a mess of replies if we keep replying the way I just did. Let's both try to condense our answers from this point on.

D: I don't object to that.
E: And you wonder why I think you're angry, err, I mean, certain that I am wrong on all fronts.

Anyway, now that there's so much additional information about the chart in this thread I don't have much reason to argue about it's presentation anymore.

[Shokushu]

Piltdown

Science Contributors
Between the year of 1994-2004, 6,741,866 total scientific papers were written by the top 10 contributors to science. Here are the numbers:
America: 2,832,621/6,741,866= 42%
Japan: 759,449/6,741,866= 11.3%
Not included on the graph of countries accepting evolution, but those who make the top ten:
Canada: 376,897/6,741,866= 5.6%
Australia: 228,773/6,741,866= 3.4%

Note that both Canada and Australia combined contribute less than 10% and both fall short of the top 5. It should be of no surprise that the 2 countries included on the list are also the two largest non-European scientific contributors. Further, your insistence that Canada be included leads me to think you must be Canadian, as from what I can see, there is no significant reason that Canada should as it contributes 5.6%. I would also like to note that your statistics on Canada only makes the US citizens look worse as more people from Canada (who publishes ~6%) accept evolution than people form the United States(who is top on the list at 42%).

Nope, not Canadian.

Edit: And that link won't work for me.
Reedit: Nevermind, it's up again.

[Dr Sparticle]

Shokushu

A: The switches you make from long sentences to several short ones before switching back again build a sense of tension.

Ever heard of James Joyce? Variation in sentence structure, and yes this includes sentence length, is a form of writing style. I'm sorry if you haven't been introduced to anything other than grade school literacy.

Shokushu

You can poke fun at people without sounding angry but you need to learn how to control the tone of your sentences. This level of control isn't necessarily taught in the K-12 environment but there's a good shot the highest level courses available to you at least introduced the concepts you need to make use of.
I'm sure with some time you'll get the hang of it.

I can't be held accountable if literary subtleties allude you.

Shokushu

B: No, I wasn't being direct. Why should I have to cater to your need to assume you know what I'm getting at?
Argue this all you want but you're simply never going to convince me that I don't know what my own intentions were.

I can only go off of what you actually posted, and what you actually posted was a lot of crying about different countries that didn't get included into the study until ultimately I had convinced you that the only country of merit which you were complaining about was Canada.

Shokushu

C: All I ever saw posted was a graph with links to an article that didn't work.
THAT is what I have been complaining about. An article without accompanying information.
Regardless of the actual source of that information right here on this forum Piltdown gave us a picture and left us to assume whatever we would about it.

Which is precisely what I was complaining about. In the real world, you are expected to look up any accompanying information when a graph is presented. As for your issues, I don't know why the link wouldn't work for you as it worked perfectly fine for piltdown and myself. In any case, it is not only not unheard of but common for people to do their own research when something intrigues them or confuses them.

Shokushu

No matter how much work I went to to find out more about that image less than 1% of the people on these forums who stumble into this thread are ever going to so much as read one article about it (much less the three I've read already. Oh, and I had already read the Policy Forum article but thanks for posting it here.)

And? What would you like me to do about about the majority and their lack of skepticism?

Shokushu

-and I never saw a satisfactory answer to my questions about WHY we were comparing America with Europe.

I imagine it would be because European countries have the largest number of similarities and likely because the information was already available to the researchers. I don't see much benefit in asking most of the Asian countries, African countries or South American countries about their view on evolution, particularly when many of the countries in those respective continents don't know about evolution. That leaves Europe.

Shokushu

-the way you keep thinking I disagree with the results of the study keeps leading me to only two possible conclusions. Either you are angry and want to frame me as having the beliefs of a particular group so that you have someone to fight with or I don't speak English. I'm reeeealy sure I speak English pretty good but if I'm wrong about the other one this seems to be the only possible explanation.

Somebody who says, "I speak English pretty good" probably does not speak English very well. In any case, I never said and never thought you disagreed with the study. I simply found your complaints to be hasty and short sided. You tried to claim that the study is invalid because it lacked input from some specific countries. That shows a clear misunderstanding of how statistical surveys work, which is why I stated it.

Shokushu

-first you're telling me to use Google and now you give me links to everything possible? I can tell that you're trying to be insulting which loops back into the bit about how you're so angry with me-

Actually, the google link was an attempt to preempt any future requests for more references. My little way of saying, try doing your own work for a change. Most of the information I have provided you has been the first hit in google, so the fact that these sources allude you boggles the mind.

Shokushu

ah, I think I know what it is, you worry about being controlled emotionally so you automatically reject emotional explanations for your actions. Ok, ok. You think poorly of me and would like very much for me to be miserable- but you're not angry, no, you are just very opposed to me being correct.

You are wrong, so I voice that fact. That is really all there is to this.

Shokushu

-I think your points are invalid, for the reasons I have been discussing thus far.

Thanks for the summary, Dr. Cliff Notes

Shokushu

D: I don't object to that.

Great. Then why were you so opposed to the idea that the survey "served its purpose" as I pointed at previously. If you concede that adding on more countries, like Canada, would just further prove the point the survey was making, why would you complain that leaving this information out is a sign of dishonesty and misleading material on the part of the research?

Shokushu

E: And you wonder why I think you're angry, err, I mean, certain that I am wrong on all fronts.

Certainly most fronts. I agreed that Canada could be an interesting piece of data. Everything else was wrong, but your Canada comment should count for something, right?

[Piltdown]

Shokushu

Piltdown

Science Contributors
Between the year of 1994-2004, 6,741,866 total scientific papers were written by the top 10 contributors to science. Here are the numbers:
America: 2,832,621/6,741,866= 42%
Japan: 759,449/6,741,866= 11.3%
Not included on the graph of countries accepting evolution, but those who make the top ten:
Canada: 376,897/6,741,866= 5.6%
Australia: 228,773/6,741,866= 3.4%

Note that both Canada and Australia combined contribute less than 10% and both fall short of the top 5. It should be of no surprise that the 2 countries included on the list are also the two largest non-European scientific contributors. Further, your insistence that Canada be included leads me to think you must be Canadian, as from what I can see, there is no significant reason that Canada should as it contributes 5.6%. I would also like to note that your statistics on Canada only makes the US citizens look worse as more people from Canada (who publishes ~6%) accept evolution than people form the United States(who is top on the list at 42%).

Nope, not Canadian.

Edit: And that link won't work for me.

I am afraid I did not understand your earlier point, if you have retracted it since, then ignore this. I just double checked the link and it is working fine. If you need another way, type in "top countries in science in 1994-2004" into google. Here is an un-titled link to it: http://in-cites.com/research/2005/march_21_2005-1.html. If you still have problems it may be your browser as a few people have tried it already and told me it works fine. Further, my linking the graph was not meant to be decieving as the button at the top and bottom said back to article (which at the time worked fine for me) and if there were any problems for anyone else it would take just a few moments in a google search by typing in the name of the graph to show the contex. It should be even more obvious that I did not attempt to hide the links as I provided them to Dr Sparticle when he asked and all of the links supported what I was saying even further. I even said a few key points of the article including the reference to Turkey's religiosity.

[Piltdown]

mrsculedhel

My question remains: What harm does it do for people to be creationists outside of attempts to manipulate science. Just how can we agree that denial of advanced theorectical biology is a detriment to our politics, culture/society?

I am not sure how this even impacts science overall, as scientists specialize in their own fields. How does evolution denial adversely affect technology/research and development?

Thank you to any and all comers who would like to explain this for my benefit together with others who are following this discussion.

The influence on politics is my biggest fear. During the presidential debates, a question was posed as to who did not accept the theory of evolution...three people running for presidency raised their hands. These people are attempting to run the country, and yet refuse to listen to the sceintific consensus as their own world-veiw opposes it. What other issues might they ignore or completely deny based on their religion? What feilds of science would be denied federal grants for study because the president decided he didn't like what the scientists were saying? What would happen to the medical feild, which bases its research on the theory of evolution as well. Would we still be able to use DNA in court? Finally, what happens to the children who don't get to learn science... not just evolution, but anything that upsets the religious as many creationists label evolution as not simply being biological, but geological and cosmological as well... would children learn any science at all? Young earth creationists would have to deny gravity as well, should that not be taught either? These are all very real possibilities if creationists were given their way.