A third of Irish people are ignorant

valen

Check out this article..
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19125653.700&feedId=life_rss20

One third of Irish people did not agree with the statement..
"Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals"

Who are these people ? This is stunning, upsetting and dangerous.

John

jonski

It is actually more like 1 in 5 disagreed with it and I would imagine that they might belong to the " god created man " belief .

Gurgle

valen wrote:

Check out this article..
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19125653.700&feedId=life_rss20

One third of Irish people did not agree with the statement..
"Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals"

Who are these people ? This is stunning, upsetting and dangerous.

John

I'm more worried about the hypocrites who claim to be catholic but did agree with that statement.

mike65

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2565/25653701.jpg

Mike.

valen

Hypocrites ? What, like the pope ? I think if he & his council of jesuit scientists are pretty sure we share ancestors with animals, then Catholics can hardly think otherwise,without being hypocrites, could they ?

John

iFight

mike65 wrote:

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2565/25653701.jpg

Interesting, it's weird that we're not closer to the UK

Gurgle

valen wrote:

Hypocrites ? What, like the pope ? I think if he & his council of jesuit scientists are pretty sure we share ancestors with animals

He what now?
They've done up a new cathecism?

wiki catholic and evolution, they do support it. they only have a loophole of "well our bodies developed but god created our souls" now.

kiffer

Who did they ask? what was their sample size.

The Graph looks like just under 25% answered no to the question, "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals".

I don't think it's all that bad... we're looking a one graph with very little detail...
Yes is clearly in the lead and will gain more ground over time, as older people die off... I guess that's a bit harsh.

I'm going to see if I can dig up the paper (Science, vol 313, p 765)

Supercell

Must admit i'm rather suprised at that, especially the difference between the Irish and British results.
Surely its the older generation skewing the national figures? , find it hard to believe that many people under say 45 years old honestly don't believe in evolution.

kiffer

Right... I've read through the paper ... the graph in NS is slightly different form the one in the paper... 1008 people in Ireland were questioned.
The paper is almost totaly concerned with US so doesn't give a lot of detailed analysis about other countries (edit: indvidualy, it does compair the US to Europe as a group), I think the information was carried out by telephone poll and that the also asked questions about other things...

The article makes the point that "A dichotomous true-false question format tends to exaggerate the strength of both positions." and that's pretty much what the graph gives us we only see the ~20% that say humans are not desended from some other spieces
BUT the article goes on to say that this group does / can contain people that believe that the world is older then the biblical 6000 years and that animals change over time, that the dinosaurs lived and died millions of years ago and that animals evolve ... but humans don't because we are spiecal...

"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." (these are american adults, and I think this shows that the word evolution has picked up a negitive taint... such that people will say no just because they hear it... but if you don't say evolution but descibe the situation they say maybe of even yes.)

I think that a large part of the problem is that most people don't think about these things much... and so simply believe what they are told and jump to strange seemingly incompatible ideas... I believe it's called double think... Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, and animals evlolved from other animals... but God created man as is at some point... they don't know when ... they never think about it...

As I said the data was apparently gathered by telephone poll and also asked about other things ...

"age, gender, education, genetic literacy, religious belief, attitude toward life, attitude toward science and technology (S&T), belief in S&T, reservations about S&T, and political ideology--were used to predict attitude toward evolution"

also as I said the paper is focused on the US. and so doesn't give a detailed breakdown of Ireland...

Jimoslimos

kiffer wrote:

BUT the article goes on to say that this group does / can contain people that believe that the world is older then the biblical 6000 years and that animals change over time, that the dinosaurs lived and died millions of years ago and that animals evolve ... but humans don't because we are spiecal...

"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." (these are american adults, and I think this shows that the word evolution has picked up a negitive taint... such that people will say no just because they hear it... but if you don't say evolution but descibe the situation they say maybe of even yes.)

This fact worries me more than people blindly believing in the 7-day creation, 6000 yr old Earth myth. In my opinion it is the worst aspect that creationism/intelligent design pseudoscience has brought to the evolution question, the cherry-picking or mangling of scientific theories to fit their own religious doctrine.

Gurgle

Jimoslimos wrote:

the 7-day creation, 6000 yr old Earth myth.

Its not a myth, its a fairy-tale.
Whole different belief system required for fairy-tales.

A myth is generally based on an interpretation (or misinterpretation) of some historical events, distorted by repeated telling.

A fairy-tale is usually intended to teach a lesson of some kind - nice girls get princes, wicked witches get their come-uppance, God made the world for us because he loves us. You don't have to believe the specifics of the story to believe the incorporated lesson.

kiffer

Jimoslimos wrote:

This fact worries me more than people blindly believing in the 7-day creation, 6000 yr old Earth myth. In my opinion it is the worst aspect that creationism/intelligent design pseudoscience has brought to the evolution question, the cherry-picking or mangling of scientific theories to fit their own religious doctrine.

Creationism and Intelligent Design are too very different beasts I wouldn't lump them together so strongly...
Many of the ID people I have spocken to happly say that evolution occurs and that the world is v. old. but mantain that it is a guided thing, under the direct controll of some greater entity.
To be honest all though I do not believe this myself I respect this allot more than I respect the views of Young Earth Creationists, mostly because they do not totaly ignore the facts around them.

Sure they've got some crazy god did it idea... but when it comes down to it I can't prove there is no god. I can prove that the world is very old and that one type of animal can change in to a new type of animal over time ... and they except these things... so I'm happy. I am happy to allow them the freedom to believe in any entity that they want.

Young Earth Creationists on the other hand... these people scare me.

Gurgle

kiffer wrote:

Young Earth Creationists on the other hand... these people scare me.

The good old 'we're right and anyone who says otherwise is wrong' philosophy.

bounty

the latest simpsons episode, "the monkey suit" deals with these ignoramuses