from this,
but could not.
Forty Percent of Americans (and Most Republicans) Don't Believe in Evolution
According to Gallup, Four in ten Americans—and 52 percent of Republicans—believe "God created humans in present form within the last 10,000 years." Ah, the Enlightenment! The age of science and rationality! It was fun while it lasted.
They only swing that way because evolution isn't in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic-Mormon holy books...if they all opened by saying "Many years ago the Universe emerged from a gigantic explosion, then the planets formed, then life began on our planet, and God said 'Well, enough for Day One'" then people would be fine with it. Also, if the Theory of Evolution had something to say about an afterlife, possibly people would be more for it.
ReplyDeleteAs for my holy book, it takes place 10,000 years from now on a desert planet where Space Muslims ride on giant worms and the film adaptation was so skull-bustingly awful the director hid behind the nom du fail 'Alan Smithee' for the extended version.
Hey, I count this as cause for celebration! That bottom plot is up, unprecedentedly high! And the top plot is unprecedentedly low! Assuming a linear trend (admittedly questionable), they'll catch up with each other in 2119. So, will the majority of Americans start to take climate change seriously, soon enough to do anything about it?
ReplyDeleteAlso: the question is sloppy. It requires that the respondent decide, definitely, whether or not God did something. As Bohr said to Einstein, "Stop telling God what to do." I just can't wait to see what these people will do after a real SETI detection.
Only 40%!! That's the lowest since they've started taking the poll. Hooray?
ReplyDeleteI'm with Frod on this!
ReplyDeleteAs a Christian whose doubts tend more in the deist than the atheist direction, I'd actually have some trouble deciding between #1 and #2 myself. Sadly, those are not the two lines that are converging, since there is some possibility for interesting conversations there. Instead, both charts suggest continued polarization, which won't be much relieved by the fact that the Republicans I know (mostly from church) also fall somewhere in the combined 44% minority (which, it must be said, is substantial enough to offer some hope, though I fear the evolution deniers boost their influence through volume as well as numbers).
ReplyDeleteI would like to bring up several points:
ReplyDeleteScience can only investigate natural causes. That is part of its epistemology. If the supernatural exists, then there are some things that science will never be able to explain.
Both the sentence, "There is no God," and the sentence, "There is a God," are unscientific, since neither can be proven using repeatable experiment.
Until we see repeatable laboratory evidence of life evolving from non-life, science will not have proven abiogenesis, let alone macroevolution (evolution between genii, families, etc, rather than speciaition, or microevolution, which everyone sees happening).
Many evolutionists start from the premise that there is no supernatural, therefore life must have evolved. As a Christian, I hold the following, slightly different view: If there is an absence of any supernatural creation, then life must have evolved to begin with (even if the life that evolved ended up creating life here on earth). However, I also believe that the supernatural exists (which does not necessarily rule out evolution, but instead opens the door to the possibility of creation).
So, kindly prove that the supernatural exists. I don't think it's enough for you just to say you believe it.
ReplyDeleteBelief in God is one thing; I wouldn't be so crass as to say that's incorrect, since I expect the same consideration for my own non-belief in God. Neither can be proven, as stated above. Whether you believe in God or evolution, both, or neither, there is irrefutable evidence that homo sapiens societies have existed for at least 200,000 years. Belief that human beings appeared only 10,000 years ago is not faith. It's just garden-variety ignorance.
ReplyDeleteAnd these 40% comprise 95% of my students.
ReplyDeleteI had a paper 3 weeks ago begin with the clause that the subject matter "never existed, since the world is only 6000 years old, as described by the only true authority: Genesis."
@Strelnikov: Mormons believe in evolution. They believe Genesis's "seven days" meant "seven eras" that comprise a total of 4.5 billion years.
@Academic Monkey:
ReplyDelete> ...the world is only 6000 years old, as described by the only true authority: Genesis."
I defuse most of these, by telling them I don't require belief: all they have to do is to know what scientists think, and why they think what they think. They love it: they think I'm "so open-minded."
> Mormons believe in evolution.
I'm glad, since Utah is so rich in fossils.
As far as I've been able to observe, one thing that serious, thoughtful scientists and serious, thoughtful adherents of many faiths have in common is a considerable dose of humility in the face of the unknown. Both groups hope to know more, eventually (in this life and/or another), and are willing to put considerable time, thought, and discussion into the endeavor. But they don't have any illusions that they're going to reach final, definitive answers, at least not in this life. That attitude (and the fact that both groups recognize the difference between faith and scientific knowledge, and which questions lend themselves to which approach) is one reason there are plenty of serious scientists who are also people of faith. There are also, of course, plenty of scientists who are atheists, or at least don't embrace any particular faith. I tend to think anyone who spends a considerable part of his/her time pondering the marvels, large and small, of the universe just might, unawares, be "glorifying" and "enjoying" God, which, according to the Westminster Catechism, is the "chief end of [human beings]." That's not exactly an orthodox viewpoint, but the belief that we can't fully comprehend God or God's methods definitely is.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure, however, that God didn't create evidence of millions of years' worth of life on earth just to test our belief in Genesis, any more than (s)he made some people gay and then forbade them to act on their desires as a test of faith and/or obedience.
But I could be wrong, about any or all of the above.
@FFF: I could respond that I would like you to prove that the supernatural does not exist. Instead, I will reiterate: Both the sentence, "There is no God," and the sentence, "There is a God," are unscientific, since neither can be proven using repeatable experiment.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that science will say anything on the subject. All that is left is philosophy, and even there, debates about philosophy come down to which axioms you choose.
Just as the Parallel Postulate is an axiom which you can either accept as is, or accept something else instead, I accept as an axiom that the supernatural exists. From what I gather, you accept as an axiom that the supernatural does not exist. Thus, any argument I may make will be invalid to you, since you deny the validity of one of my premises. The same holds in the other direction.
Actually, "There is a God" can indeed be proven using simple logic. The Bible says He exists, and we know the Bible is correct because it is written by God, who exists, according to the Bible. QED
ReplyDeleteI bet you atheists are feeling pretty silly right about now...
@Anastasia: Very funny!
ReplyDelete@Cassandra: Leviticus sharply conradicts what you're saying. Doesn't it sound like, "If God meant man to fly, He'd have given him wings"? If you can claim to know the will of God so well, and in so much detail, how do you do it, and why am I not privy to this knowledge?
@Boaz: This is a rationalization. How much easier it would make my research in astrophysics, if I could just assert that anything existed, because of the "axioms I choose"! As Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. noted,
"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile." I suggest you re-examine your axioms, because they have characteristics of a self-reinforcing delusion.
Furthermore, don't you know that abiogenesis is a hypothesis, and a predicton of evolutionary theory? JCVI-syn1.0 was a big step toward demonstrating it. As no less than Charles Darwin observed, "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." I can literally perform miracles for all to see (the liqid nitrogen I show off in class always goes over well), but you can do no such thing. I'd think you'd regard that as especially troubling, since proof by performing miracles was required so often to convince people, both in the Old Testament (making an eclipse, on cue) and in the New (turning water into wine). You talk awful big: why don't you make a miracle, and convince me?
Furthermore, there isn't much more than semantic difference between macroevolution and microevolution. The only real difference is that the unaided eye can see one, and not the other.
Furthermore, don't you know that there is NO GOD but ALLAH, and MOHAMMED is his Prophet!