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To: count-your-change
I clicked on the “more knowledge” link. well worth effort to read the survey, no wonder the ‘council’ would press for more Darwinism teaching. All that effort and so little results.

Thanks for pointing that out. I for one am cheered to see that in the US, 51 percent agree that "it is possible to believe in a God and still hold the view that life on earth, including human life, evolved over time as a result of natural selection," compared with only 27 percent who don't. And 41 percent agree that "enough scientific evidence exists to support Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution,” compared to 30 percent who don't.

What I'm really curious about, but can't find any information on, is how they determined who "have heard of Charles Darwin and know something about the Theory of Evolution." If they're just self-identified, I'd be interested in seeing the results weighted by whether what they know is accurate. Because as we see here every day, there are lots of people who think they know something about the TOE, but what they think they know is totally off base. Including their opinions doesn't really support the article's headline.

50 posted on 10/28/2009 10:25:50 PM PDT by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
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To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
How else can a person answer a poll about what they have heard of except by self identification?

If you say you've never heard of something, how could anyone say differently? In looking at the figures I think some of the results are contradictory but then that is the nature of human thinking all time, I guess.

And of course it wasn't the goal of the pollsters to help the respondents to reason out their answers, just record them.

“And 41 percent agree that “enough scientific evidence exists to support Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution,”
compared to 30 percent who don't.”

But compared to those figures how many say they accept Darwin's theory? And if 51% say they “agree, that “it is possible to believe in a God and still hold the view that life on earth, including human life, evolved over time as a result of natural selection,”
does that mean they actually believe that personally or just that it is possible to believe?

The respondents interpret the questions as they must, according to what they think is being asked and answer that question, not always the one intended.

So the conclusions drawn from the the results of every poll is in the interpretation, unavoidably so.

57 posted on 10/28/2009 10:59:31 PM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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