40% of the United States poplation believes in evolution

I found this at National Geographic a while ago:



I can only say that im proud to be a dane

if the numbers beside the bars are the number of respondants to a poll then i'd say the survey is worse than useless, it's downright misleading, the numbers aren't even proportionate to population, any chance of a link so i can see more detail?

That just shows that the other 60% haven't evolved a brain yet. Those who disbelieve the facts are simply sheeple.

hmm
500 out of 400k for malta..
the others aren't proportionate

however, even if it isn't
it can still be an accurate portrayal

i've heard that 52% of americans don't understand evolution (yes, i said understand instead of believe)

tsk tsk tsk Not nice.

Evolution isn't a proven 'fact'. It is a good theory, but not a proven fact. Natural selection is proven, but not evolution. No missing link = no sure proof.

oh .. and as far as the 'sheeple' part ... many who know that evolution isn't proven yet would call those that call it 'a fact' to be sheeple.

(for the record - I don't know if it is real or not, and I don't care either way)

Well, I understand it, but I dont know if I really believe in succesive macroevolution. I think there are far too many holes in the theory and dont believe that their can be enough biological changes, evenm over millions of years, to produce an entirely different organism.

As for the "that shows people havent evolved a brain" comment, I think that shows that the fundy elitists are entirely foolish and closed minded.

phan, the problem is that there is no real competing theory
sure, ID is there
but it's not a scientific theory
it has no hypothesis
no
all ID does is try to poke holes in evolution
but it brings forth no evidence to support that design took place

evolution, like ALL theories has its holes

Yes evolution is a theory, so is Einstein's theory of relativity, yet they both seem to stand up to any and all challengers brought up thus far.

Interesting, considering that according to this article US science literacy "exploded" in 1995. Science literacy was defined as follows:


Also from this article


Also, you can see that twice the percentage of Europeans believe astrology is scientific (55%) as opposed to Americans (25%) here.

Similarly, this shows that americans score more-or-less equal to Europeans with respect to answering questions about science correctly with the sole exception of “humans evolved from animals .”

This shows that US citizens -by a substantial margin consider science more important than do European. What is particularly noteworthy is in the second column, third question down, it reads "It is not important for me to know about science in my daily life," In the EU, nearly 80% agree with this statement, whereas in the US, less than 20% agree. This further substantiates the idea that science is more important in the life of the average American as opposed to European.

Finally this shows that the US has the highest score in the world for the leading indicators of science & technology.

I did note that Denmark didn't make any of these lists

[edit on 28-1-2007 by kallikak]

kal, the thread isn't about scientific literacy
it's just about evolution

sure, the USA is in the lead in every other respect
that's why this is troubling
the USA is the most advanced nation in so many ways, yet some of us let religion get in the way of scientific thinking

Care to explain that?

Evolution is well documented. Natural Selection and Genetic Drift is what makes up the theory of evolution. Genetic drift is proven. You yourself stated that Natural Selection is proven. There is a substantial data base of evidence to back it up the theory of evolution. There is proof that transitional species do exist and there is also fossilized proof of transitional species. The so called 'missing link' that so many speak of, is a transitional species in the human ancestral tree.

From Wikipedia:

To understand evolution, one must be scientifically literate, no?

And in fact, that people in the US are less likely to accept evolution, is often, not always but often correlated to a perceived lack of scientific literacy, so the question of scientific literacy is indeed quite relevant.


Hmmm... perhaps the US is a leader in this respect as well, and the rest of the world doesn't know it.


Who's to say religion is the reason? It's often described as the reason, but a belief in any religion doesn't necessarily preclude belief in evoluiton... myself being a perfect example of this.

In fact, what evidence is there to suggest that religion is the source of this disbelief? Lots of scientists are religious, and lots of atheists aren't scientists.

I know it's fun to blame religion for problems... or perceived problems, but what is the proof the disbelief in evolution is related to one's religiosity?

can you give me a counterexample to the statement that all people believing in intelligent design must first believe there was a designer?

the problem is that the so-called "alternatives" to evolution are nothing more than religious propaganda in disguise

hence, atheists are down the line believers in some sort of evolutionary theory and yes, there are still divisions within evolutionary theory
such as the conflict between punctuated evolution (which holds that most evolution only happens after some sort of major shift, like a destructive event) vs gradual evolution

I'm sorry.... Intelligent Design? When did that get brought into this discussion? Please explain to me how the question of evidence linking one's religious affiliation with one's disbelief in evolution is answered by asking another, seemingly totally unrelated question?

The question was what proof is there that disbelief in evolution is directly correlated with one's religious background.


This isn't about 'alternatives.' The OP says 40% of Americans believe in evolution, it doesn't say that 60% of Americans support ID. In fact, I know this isn't true. While the US is the largest bastion of ID supporters, it's doesn't equal 60% of the country. You've simply read what you wanted into this particular article. 60% of the US population isn't supportive of ID, the statistic reveals nothing about Americans 'belief' in ID, and is significantly less relevant than my comments re: scientific literacy.


Not necessarily true. Many of the Raelians could be considered atheists, but could hardly be described as 'down-the-line believers in evolution.'


Okay... so...

Apparently 60% of the US doesn't believe in either. What's your point?

I don't know enough about the subject of evolution to really make a decision. I know the basics of evolution and creationism, but is there a third choice? Something has to be correct, and if it's not those two what is it?

I suppose it depends on your particular point of view... that is whether or not you consider ID to be Creationism or not. But in any case... there currently is no scientific alternative to evolutionary theory... there are philosophical, religious, and other types of explanations, including extraterrestrial ideas, but there really is not another option scientifically.

?

Darwin's Theory of Evolution is that evolution occurs through a mechanism of natural selection.

Like any theory, it will never become a 'law' or 'proven'. Any scientific theory is 'potentially falsifiable', we could find out something tommorrow that refutes it, or someone could come up with a completely different theory that is a far better explanation of the evidence.

Its a fact that evolution, that species change, happens, we can observe it in the wild and in the lab.

The missing link was just a phrase from a long time ago, a postulated intermediate between modern man and modern apes. There are infact many fossil species that serve as just such "intermediates", there isn't anylonger any missing link. We have fossil evidence, and by an examination of the evidence, we have a theory about what man evolved from and how, and that theory, that succession of inter-related species, could be overturned at any moment. BUT, we still know that evolution, that species change over time, occurs.

Well, I certainly agree that there are no real good competing scientific theories. I mean PURELY scientific. I think too many assume that science has excluded the possibility of God. I prefer to think that we have just barely scratched the surface with what we know and havent reached the level that God exists on. My old science professor use to leave us hanging on the edge by explaining how everything seems to be just "perfect" in the universe as we know it for life to exist. It was rather amusing.

I can see evolution proceeding on small scales, no one has been able to witness true macroevolution of any organisms. I like the analogy that some ID theorists use. pure evolution makes about as much sense as a tornado traveling through a junkyard and creating a fully functional 747. It just doesnt happen. Also, if we are to believe that humans evolved from primates, why haven't all the other primates evolved into humans? If they are a seperate species of primate, where is the original primate humans evolved from? The so called "missing link."

We only have 3 possible explanations for our existance on our planet:

1. we were created by some entity (God).

2. we are simple products of evolution.

3. We are a transplanted colony from some group of extra terrestrials.

All 3 have profound implications.

There is no evolution. No missing link = no evolution. I read somewhere that a archeologist discover human footprints in the same timeline as the Dinosaurs rock layer. Now, if man went through evolution, why are there so many Dinosaurs fossils and monkey fossil and zero missing link fossil. Think about that...
I think a more advance being from somewhere came to earth and clone us between themselves and monkeys. That's why we have similarities to monkeys, but yet we are not monkeys and can not mate with them.
If you read the bible closely you can interperate it this way. "God created us in his image" Sounds a lot like cloning to me...And cloning humans can be done with modern tech by the way.

Science and God coexist for those of you who don't know yet. Check out the theory or Strings and the divine matrix. Everything is connected through feelings and emotions. I think you can google the theory and find some interesting stuff. This is where the movie matrix got its idea from.