Nakor
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Non-Prophet
Posts: 991
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Post by Nakor on Dec 19, 2010 16:55:05 GMT -5
A new Gallup poll with an error of ±4% (95% confidence) shows that approximately 40% of Americans believe that humans were created in roughly our present form within the last 10000 years or so. www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspxThere are factors that affect it, such as republicans (52%) or regular church-goers (60%) being more likely to disbelieve evolution, but even then you can see from the numbers that it's not just limited to these areas -- liberals (34%) and those who never attend church (24%) are still far too likely to disbelieve evolution. Education impacts this number, but even postgraduates are 22% likely to disbelieve evolution. Honestly, these numbers are a bit scary. At this point it's been thoroughly demonstrated that evolution occurred. I don't object to the people who say evolution happened but that God guided it, but those who try to teach that it's all a lie are spreading ignorance, and it can only end up harming future generations. Something honestly should be done to promote honesty and critical thinking in this regard, but I'm just not sure what. Ad campaigns tend to be ineffective to this end. Of course, we should (and generally do) defend the education system from such nonsense, but is there anything else that can be done to fix this problem?
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Post by austkyzor on Dec 19, 2010 19:33:26 GMT -5
...only solution I can come up with are rationalist thought police - because otherwise all I've got is a massive ad campaign, with many signs that all say "Evolution is a proven fact!"
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Post by qooqǝɯɐƃ on Dec 19, 2010 19:50:35 GMT -5
If it's left to the government it will take a long time for anything to change. It's really hard to change the status quo when so many people believe in it. If a politician wants to remain in office in a democracy he needs the support of the people, therefore a politician will rarely tell the public an unpleasant truth or advocate a policy that might make them uncomfortable.
Little by little, though, more people will accept the scientific evidence over 1700 year old stories.
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Post by Lex on Dec 19, 2010 22:13:45 GMT -5
Newsflash: 40% of Americans are morons Breaking story: We knew that already.
And I'm not going to retract that statement. If you honestly believe that evolution does not happen, you are, frankly, in my opinion, stupid.
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Post by Ricky on Dec 19, 2010 22:31:44 GMT -5
Newsflash: 40% of Americans are morons Breaking story: We knew that already. And I'm not going to retract that statement. If you honestly believe that evolution does not happen, you are, frankly, in my opinion, stupid. ^ I agree XP
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Post by Flags_Forever on Dec 19, 2010 23:39:43 GMT -5
Newsflash: 40% of Americans are morons Breaking story: We knew that already. And I'm not going to retract that statement. If you honestly believe that evolution does not happen, you are, frankly, in my opinion, stupid. ^ I agree XP Me too.
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Post by qooqǝɯɐƃ on Dec 20, 2010 20:12:07 GMT -5
WOW! Your guys' opinions add such depth and lucidity to this discussion. Bravo!
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Post by Lyserg Zeroz on Dec 20, 2010 20:33:26 GMT -5
I don't know either. I suppose the only option is little by little. People who don't accept evolution are probably very reluctant to change anything they believe in, no matter the proofs you give to them. Possibly an option could be some sort of authority they respect an follow stating that is silly to continue denying evolution, hopefully with that some would change their mind. ... Wouldnt it be cool if one day the news actually decided to air a story about how these crazy scientist of today discovered this crazy thing called evolution? Something like "Oh, yeah, some may be saying to themselves this is old news, but for the 40% of the people left, this is acual news".
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Post by Freddy on Dec 20, 2010 21:00:07 GMT -5
It's happened countless times in history. Given that christianity governs most people's minds, they do whatever they damn please.
They'll eventually accept it as "evolution happened guided by God", and that's ok, but for that to happen, they have to slowly and stealthily change all evidence so the church is never wrong. Imagine what an uproar it would be if the church changed its opinion on one matter in a mere 5 seconds? That'd make them lose a lot of followers.
And what do believers mean? Money.
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Post by Ricky on Dec 20, 2010 21:46:17 GMT -5
WOW! Your guys' opinions add such depth and lucidity to this discussion. Bravo! Encouragement of forward thinking does add depth to a discussion. If only to solidify the person's point and to keep things condense... Specially if the person agreeing (which in this case, happens to be me) believes anything else that might be added would not serve to do much more than waste time.
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Post by Lex on Dec 20, 2010 21:49:31 GMT -5
Honestly, there's no argument to be had. Creationism is not science. Evolution is. End of story.
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Post by Freddy on Dec 20, 2010 21:57:15 GMT -5
WOW! Your guys' opinions add such depth and lucidity to this discussion. Bravo! Encouragement of forward thinking does add depth to a discussion. If only to solidify the person's point and to keep things condense... Specially if the person agreeing (which in this case, happens to be me) believes anything else that might be added would not serve to do much more than waste time. It's the ^that discussion all over again.
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Post by Lyserg Zeroz on Dec 20, 2010 22:11:52 GMT -5
Hurray for derailing the topic =D! (well, not really ) [This post was brought to you by the desire of avoiding the horribly obvious response that another person could have posted to the comment above this one... this post may or may not turn into that horribly obvious response after an edit]
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Post by qooqǝɯɐƃ on Dec 20, 2010 22:17:35 GMT -5
You guys were just agreeing with Alex's comment that says these people who don't believe in evolution are stupid. That's not the discussion, that's why I said your comments didn't add depth. Something honestly should be done to promote honesty and critical thinking in this regard, but I'm just not sure what. . . . is there anything else that can be done to fix this problem? ^That is what we should be talking about Not focusing on stuff like this: Newsflash: 40% of Americans are morons Breaking story: We knew that already. And I'm not going to retract that statement. If you honestly believe that evolution does not happen, you are, frankly, in my opinion, stupid. Of course, you're free to say whatever you want and I don't mind that Alex wrote this, I was just saying that it's not the point of the thread. And Nakor already said and implied that. He just went one step further and declared it a problem that needs to be fixed, so that's what I figure we should be discussing. I'm one of the less common this-thread-isn't-going-in-the-right-direction Nazis =P
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Post by qooqǝɯɐƃ on Dec 20, 2010 22:20:11 GMT -5
Honestly, there's no argument to be had. Creationism is not science. Evolution is. End of story. Yea clearly you missed the last paragraph. We're not arguing the validity of evolution or creationism. Nakor thought that it's a problem that 40% of Americans don't believe in evolution, and so what should be done to change this?
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Post by Lex on Dec 20, 2010 22:44:32 GMT -5
Honestly, there's no argument to be had. Creationism is not science. Evolution is. End of story. Yea clearly you missed the last paragraph. We're not arguing the validity of evolution or creationism. Nakor thought that it's a problem that 40% of Americans don't believe in evolution, and so what should be done to change this? Oh shiitake... I'm blind.
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Post by qooqǝɯɐƃ on Dec 20, 2010 23:49:29 GMT -5
Yea clearly you missed the last paragraph. We're not arguing the validity of evolution or creationism. Nakor thought that it's a problem that 40% of Americans don't believe in evolution, and so what should be done to change this? Oh shiitake... I'm blind. *Offers carrots* =]
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Nakor
Star
Non-Prophet
Posts: 991
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Post by Nakor on Dec 22, 2010 2:16:01 GMT -5
lol indeed. I know it'll be slow no matter what we do. But at the same time, I'm not convinced that means we should sit back and just let it take its course either. I've noticed that you often hear a lot of misinformation from people who believe in creationism; you hear things like "dogs don't turn into cats!" and such, and some people actually believe that's what evolution claims. So an example of something we could do is get more real information about evolution out there, so that people don't have misconceptions of evolution that are easy to knock down as strawmen. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking of.
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Post by Flags_Forever on Dec 22, 2010 4:10:49 GMT -5
Educating people as to what exactly a scientific theory is would be helpful. It's so easy for the ignorant to dismiss evolution as "just a theory" because they don't understand what exactly a theory is in a scientific context.
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Post by marypo on Dec 22, 2010 6:09:03 GMT -5
I got an idea, let people believe what they want. Every "Debate" one might find in this forum is almost completely one-sided and a bit annoying.
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