Posted on 12/20/2010 7:19:04 AM PST by SeekAndFind
If you're in a room of 100 people, odds are likely about 40 think God created humans about 10,000 years ago, part of a philosophy called creationism, according to a Gallup poll reported Friday (Dec. 17). That number is slightly lower than in years past and down from a high of 47 percent in both 1993 and 1999.
And 38 percent of Americans, the poll estimates, believe God guided the process that brought humans from "cavemen" to today's incarnation over millions of years, while 16 percent think humans evolved over millions of years, without any divine intervention.
This secular view, while a relatively small number, is up from 9 percent in 1982, according to Gallup.
Like most American attitudes, Gallup wrote, views on human origins have political consequences. For instance, debates and clashes over which explanations for human origins should be included in school textbooks have persisted for decades. And with 40 percent of Americans continuing to hold to an anti-evolutionary belief about the origin of humans, it is highly likely that these types of debates will continue, according to Gallup.
The findings also stand in stark contrast to another announcement Friday, this one by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The memo was issued to federal science agencies to guide them in making rules to ensure scientific integrity.
The Gallup results are based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 10-12 with a random sample of 1,019 adults, ages 18 and older, living in the continental United States. The findings were weighted by gender, age, race, education, religion and phone lines to make the sample nationally representative.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
The Global Warming gods and goddesses will not be happy about this report. Unless we send even more ‘love offerings’ to their prime oracle Al Gore we can expect even hotter weather on the East Coast next week.
When presented with a highly ordered complex universe it is only logical to believe that it is the result of intelligence of some sort. I believe that evolutionary processes occur but I also believe that evolutionary science is filled to the brim with subterfuge and religious fervor with a willingness to take a handful of bones or fragments of recovered dna and craft wild fantastic stories that are nearly wholly the product of the imagination not empirical research of a scientist.
Scientists who know better still insist on claiming human beings share 98% or better genetic commonality with apes which is at best misleading and at the worst a purposeful fraud. Human beings in particular have 2 less chromosomes than alleged nearest relatives. Chromosomal fusion has been used to explain this but even with that epigenetic gene modifiers controlling gene expression have shown than only as much as 60% of genetic expression is shared between human beings. Studies of gene expression in the human brain alone show that 90% of expression is up-regulated in comparison to apes. Also things like telomeres are much shorter.
I think my sentiment on the reliability of evolutionary science is captured by this quote:
“Chimpanzees share about 98 per cent of our DNA, but bananas share about 50 per cent, and we are not 98 per cent chimp or 50 per cent banana. We are entirely human and unique.” -Telegraph columnist Steve Jones
The key problem is the level of intellectual dishonesty and the desire of many scientists to present a degree of certainty on the exact nature of evolutionary processes that the evidence just does not support. We see the same thing across the board whether it be environmental science, sex science, etc. We unfortunately have science presented far too often as not an expression of what we know but as a bludgeon to force compliance to a narrow liberal progressive worldview.
And let’s not forget that they begin their evolution theeories after life is already introduced (i.e. DNA and single celled organisms). They have no credible explanation for the approx 3 billion lines of living code that compose a single strand of DNA.
Good scientific research considers all of the data rather than picking and choosing only that which supports one’s bias (i.e. Radio Isotope age-dating for rocks - couple that w/ a google of Mt. St. Helens).
It was 6 in 10 just a few years ago, so I doubt Gallup’s analysis, but if true we are surely well into the “falling away” that leads to his coming!
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“Evolution requires more faith than I have.” ~ClearCase_guy
Sooooo...
“Which theory of evolution are you talking about?
“...What is the significance of such a theory? To address this question is to enter the field of epistemology.
A theory is a metascientific elaboration distinct from the results of observation, but consistent with them.
By means of it a series of independent data and facts can be related and interpreted in a unified explanation. A theory’s validity depends on whether or not it can be verified; it is constantly tested against the facts; wherever it can no longer explain the latter, it shows its limitations and unsuitability. It must then be rethought.
Furthermore, while the formulation of a theory like that of evolution complies with the need for consistency with the observed data, it borrows certain notions from natural philosophy.
And, to tell the truth, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution.
On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based.
Hence the existence of materialist, reductionist, and spiritualist interpretations. What is to be decided here is the true role of philosophy and, beyond it, of theology.
Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider _the spirit_ as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person. ...”
Excerpted from:
Theories of Evolution
John Paul II
First Things 71 (March 1997): 28-29. bttt http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1839540/posts?page=22#22
Both require faith...one in God and one in man.
Since man routinely lets us down and in many cases deliberately and God has NEVER let us down the smart money is on the big guy upstairs.
Both require faith...one in God and one in man.
Since man routinely lets us down and in many cases deliberately and God has NEVER let us down the smart money is on the big guy upstairs.
Both require faith...one in God and one in man.
Since man routinely lets us down and in many cases deliberately and God has NEVER let us down the smart money is on the big guy upstairs.
The Objective analysis of all of the evidence fully agrees with the creation.
It requires deeply subjective manipulation to even begin to develop “naturalism;” similar to AGW, but far more dishonest.
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So 40% of Americans operate off of common sense, 38% are blinkered but well-meaning, and 16% are abject morons.
That correlates fairly well with the conservative-moderate-liberal breakdown as well.
Most naturalists start their examination with naturalist/material assumptions.
The evidence says “young Earth” in a loud voice.
One must ignore massive evidence visible on the surface of the Earth, and delve into incredible selective gathering of samples to get ‘old Earth.’
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“White folk” in your neighborhood aren’t too bright I take it?
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I guess you didn't get the memo. The leading creationists say not to use that argument anymore because it has been so thoroughly refuted it just makes them look bad when it's used.
BTW, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics was developed under the Mechanical THEORY of Heat.
That would be the 38% cited in the article - in addition to the 40% who are YEC.
Either you are you an exceptional speed-reader?!
OR
I’d wager I’ve spent more time and read more books on evolution than you have on creation.
> “Where did they get these numbers from?”
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Polling drunken Oprah viewers at 2:00 PM.
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