Posted on 04/19/2006 3:57:51 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
A new article in PLoS Biology (April 18, 2006) discusses the state of scientific literacy in the United States, with especial attention to the survey research of Jon D. Miller, who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University Medical School.
To measure public acceptance of the concept of evolution, Miller has been asking adults if "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals" since 1985. He and his colleagues purposefully avoid using the now politically charged word "evolution" in order to determine whether people accept the basics of evolutionary theory. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of Americans who reject this concept has declined (from 48% to 39%), as has the proportion who accept it (45% to 40%). Confusion, on the other hand, has increased considerably, with those expressing uncertainty increasing from 7% in 1985 to 21% in 2005.In international surveys, the article reports, "[n]o other country has so many people who are absolutely committed to rejecting the concept of evolution," quoting Miller as saying, "We are truly out on a limb by ourselves."
The "partisan takeover" of the title refers to the embrace of antievolutionism by what the article describes as "the right-wing fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party," noting, "In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Missouri, and Texas all included demands for teaching creation science." NCSE is currently aware of eight state Republican parties that have antievolutionism embedded in their official platforms or policies: those of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas. Four of them -- those of Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas -- call for teaching forms of creationism in addition to evolution; the remaining three call only for referring the decision whether to teach such "alternatives" to local school districts.
A sidebar to the article, entitled "Evolution under Attack," discusses the role of NCSE and its executive director Eugenie C. Scott in defending the teaching of evolution. Scott explained the current spate of antievolution activity as due in part to the rise of state science standards: "for the first time in many states, school districts are faced with the prospect of needing to teach evolution. ... If you don't want evolution to be taught, you need to attack the standards." Commenting on the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.], Scott told PLoS Biology, "Intelligent design may be dead as a legal strategy but that does not mean it is dead as a popular social movement," urging and educators to continue to resist to the onslaught of the antievolution movement. "It's got legs," she quipped. "It will evolve."
Perhaps I have been fighting for free expression on campus for the last 20 years.
No, it's the conflict with their literalist interpretation of the Bible or the Koran. Most fundamentalists don't know a whole lot of biology, so if there were 'flaws' they wouldn't be able to evaluate them.
As for 'evomaniacs', well, stupid people are often hostile to what they don't understand.
You mean, like Newton changing the orbits of planets and observing the result. Oh, wait, he didn't do that. I guess that means he wasn't a real scientist.
And then there's Einstein. Here's a list of the science experiments Einstein ran in his research career.
(begin list)
(end list)
Sorry, Einstein, according to our FR peanut gallery, you don't qualify as a real scientist either.
I've never seen such strong opinions with so little to back them up.
Please support this claim. I am against censorship and believe that every person has the right to their beliefs. However, the contention over the ToE is not about censoring the idea of ID. It is, rather, a result of repeated attempts by individuals, whose motives are different than they claim, to force science to accept, as science, a notion that has no more evidential support than astrology, tarot-reading, or any of the endeavors of Ms. Cleo.
Over two hours later, and the only response is the sound of crickets..... as expected.
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -EGH
Well, yeah, that was the point I was making. I got my degree in Meteorology and evolution never came into it. There is nothing in that field that hinges on evolution. Biology courses were never required. One could be a great meteorologist and have no clue what evolution is all about. It seems that from what I've read on these threads, that there are some who disagree with this.
Those other branches of science depend on the scientific method of which the ToE is an example, but rejecting the ToE is not rejecting the scientific method; it's just rejecting the conclusions some have arrived at by observing the fossil record.
Guess those of us that study the stars don't qualify either.
Deep Impact was an astronomical experiment, for sure.
All you've got to do is send a chunk of metal towards Alpha Centauri, and in a few thousand years, someone else will watch what happens when it hits. And if you're lucky, they'll include you as a middle author :-)
LOL! :-)
Had you specialized in palaeoclimatology, it would have.
I had the fortune of being in the mission control room at JPL for the Magellan launch. (My voice is recorded as saying "go for launch"). :-) My two seconds of fame. LOL!
Cool.
Hm,,,,likely none.
Except that those cultures, if any, that thought that 2+2=5 apparently didn't make it.
Come on now. We all know you said: "This is boring; I'm going to go for lunch."
"Sorry, Einstein, according to our FR peanut gallery, you don't qualify as a real scientist either."
There's a number of things that Einstein postulated that couldn't be tested until many years after his death. I'm sure you are aware of that.
"In other words, it is the flaws in the evomaniacs' arguments that have caused the creationists' resistance to the theory of evolution as a whole."
Nope.
What I said was, the argument is not over postulates which can be tested in a lab. The argument is solely over the postulates which are jealously held in spite of the ability to reproduce them.
(And, yes, I realize that the above statement doesn't apply to many people on this board. Many of them are still arguing with the results produced in the lab. But I'm not referring to those people).
So he wasn't a RealScientistTM until he was dead a few years?
I looked back and found no such thing. All of RWP's comments have been relate to documented numbers.
Defend yourself of withdraw the comment.
"So he wasn't a RealScientistTM until he was dead a few years?"
Considering the grief he got over some of his ideas when he was alive I'm sure that's what some people said. But he at least he had mathematical proofs for many of his ideas. Proofs can be reproduced and verified on a chalkboard.
History will tell whether you, Darwin, and your colleagues will be held in high esteem or chuckled at for your own ignorance. Modern medicine laughs at medical theories and ideas from the 19th and 20th century. Do you think the people of the 21st and 22nd centuries will think any differently of much of the current scientific knowledge? Of course, the exception to this will be those ideas which can be examined and tested in the lab -- just like any of the experiments Newton, et. al. performed are still being reproduced today.
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