Posted on 07/05/2014 8:16:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Do Americans understand the scientific consensus about issues like climate change and evolution?
At least for a substantial portion of the public, it seems like the answer is no. The Pew Research Center, for instance, found that 33 percent of the public believes “Humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time” and 26 percent think there is not “solid evidence that the average temperature on Earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades.” Unsurprisingly, beliefs on both topics are divided along religious and partisan lines. For instance, 46 percent of Republicans said there is not solid evidence of global warming, compared with 11 percent of Democrats.
As a result of surveys like these, scientists and advocates have concluded that many people are not aware of the evidence on these issues and need to be provided with correct information. That’s the impulse behind efforts like the campaign to publicize the fact that 97 percent of climate scientists believe human activities are causing global warming.
In a new study, a Yale Law School professor, Dan Kahan, finds that the divide over belief in evolution between more and less religious people is wider among people who otherwise show familiarity with math and science, which suggests that the problem isn’t a lack of information. When he instead tested whether respondents knew the theory of evolution, omitting mention of belief, there was virtually no difference between more and less religious people with high scientific familiarity. In other words, religious people knew the science; they just weren’t willing to say that they believed in it.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“If you don’t accept global warming, you are a flat-earth moron.”
It takes a whole lot more faith to believe in evolution and global warming than the alternatives.
Evolution is a faith-based religion. Some folks believe, others do not.
The Believers are outraged that not everyone attends their church.
Let me get this straight. The NYC public school system cannot teach the majority of their children to be proficient in algebra, but they can teach them enough statistical physics and error analysis to set them straight on climate change? Maybe they could teach them enough about differential equations so they can teach them to calculate the half life of carbon-14 too.
The target audience of this news outlet operates purely on emotion. So any discussion of facts and beliefs have no bearing. They believe in evolution - not because of science - but because it makes them feel good to believe in evolution. It fills them with a feeling of intellectual superiority over those knuckle-dragging religious wacko conservative types.
This nation is quickly evolving into a broke, Third World mess, and THIS is what they’re concerned about???? Unbelievable!
There is no "belief" in science, given that science is a methodological way of gathering evidence about the physical world. To claim that one does not "believe" in observational data is like claiming that one does not " believe" that the sky often appears to be blue. No one can " believe" facts into or out of existence.
OTOH, anthropogenic global warming does not have solid evidence to support its major hypothesis. The issue has become co-opted by politicians, who are subverting what should be the impartial nature of science.
It’s amazing to me how the scientific method has been reduced to a ‘consensus’ in public opinion polls of people that really don’t have a clue one way or the other.
I and others here on FR have over the years posted quite a bit about a fellow named Lysenko in the old Soviet Union. His brand of ‘science’ came to be known as Lysenkoism. Today’s anthropogenic global warming or climate change (AGW/ACC)proponents appear as a sort of replica of Lysenkoism brought into today’s setting.
With all that we know about history and its failures we really shouldn’t allow these people (AGW/ACC activists) to be funded to carry forward the false pseudo-science of yesteryear.
Galileo new all about consensus too.
It’s really funny to me that the AGW proponents and the flood geology folks us the same abuses of logic. That is appeals to authority, ad hominem attacks, straw man propositions are favored by both groups. From a scientific viewpoint, it is undeniable that the climate is changing. The earth record is one of constantly changing climates both regionally (most common) and worldwide. The question is “What combinations of factors cause what changes?”
“This nation is quickly evolving into a broke, Third World mess, and THIS is what they’re concerned about???? Unbelievable!”
More than that, there is a difference between a Theistic-Evolutionist or a Scientist who is a believer and an uneducated ideologue. To state that people who do not believe in atheistic evolution are less well educated or less intelligent than those that do is simply character assassination.
The question itself at least as it is phrased in the article is also misleading because it is too broad. Evolutionist, atheistic ones themselves say that life remains in a constant state with very little or NO change for many millions of years (Punctuated Equilibrium) and that evolutionary changes tend to occur very rapidly and then slow down or stop for millions of years. That is why we can’t actually see evolution occur. It appears to me that there is a lot of room in such a system for God to work. If you actually read the first few chapters of Genesis you clearly see and almost textbook evolutionary progression of initial creation, a differentiation of matter an energy, lessor animals like fish and birds, higher animals and then humans.
The issue that most Christians have with evolution is actually not evolution but natural selection and the time scale. Einstein showed that time is not constant. Thus it is entirely possible that what Good could do in 6 days would appear as billions of years to us. Even scientist have abandoned natural selection for the most part as the driver for evolution.
As to Climate Change, the issue is actually is it primarily related to human activity or part of a larger climate cycle inherent in nature? What you do about it, if anything is very different depending upon what you think causes the problem.
This is just another in the endless stream of articles that the godless-left SPEW (To use one of their their favorite pejoratives) to try and convince themselves that they are really smarter than everyone else. It is also their justification for tyranny.
BS on top of BS. The writer asserts that 97% of climate scientists
agree that human activity CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING. If you pinned
this doof down he would say that 97% of climate scientists agree
that human activities CONTRIBUTE to CLIMATE CHANGE which is
really ownly slightly less dubious in my book. However, there is a
real distinction.
If the scientists took a vote in 1490 then Columbus would never have
bothered to set sail.
If you believe it is wise to get your annual flu vaccine, then you believe in evolution, whether you know it or not.
Lysenko was dealing with genetics, and Gregor Mendels experiments and those of subsequent geneticists proved Lysenko was wrong. The “Communist Religion” had to one-up the rest of international science with their own dogma. Climate science has nothing to do with genetics, and the Lysenko falacies have nothing to do with climate opinions, facts and falacies. It’s like comparing apples and garlic.
No smoking hot spot1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.
Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.
If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.
Let see 97% of those study to become climate scientists believe there study isn’t junk science.
Ok. Must people do believe their chosen field of study.
Or
97% of climate scientist whose income depends on human activities being the causing global warming.
When your income depends on giving the results the people who pay you want, this could cause some to question it’s accuracy.
Or
97% of climate scientist whose degree would worthless as an degree in the study transgender circus elephants believe that human activities being the causing global warming.
I hope this comment that is meant to be totally ridicules doesn’t start a new field of study a some major university.
Punctuated Equilibrium is loosing adherents as more is known about the effects of catastrophes like major boloid strikes, megavolcanoes, etc. on evolution and climate. For example hominid evolution began about 5 million years ago, and has changed over the years. In the past 100,000 years we have had several large/major events. The eruption of Toba which left a crater about 18 by 65 miles had a very major effect on all the hominid populations 74,000 years ago. Basically, only Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens were left in large enough quantity to continue as populations. Neanderthals died off for whatever reason between 20 and 35 thousand years ago, leaving about 1 to 4% genetic traces in the Sapiens population. They were apparently adapted to northern glacial conditions with pale skin and eyes and red hair. Around 40,000 years ago southern Sapiens mutated a white skin gene which allowed them to move north since their women could absorb enough Vitamin D to develop good child bearing hip structure. About 7 or 8 thousand years ago the genetic capacity for people to continue using milk into adulthood appeared in people moving into Europe from central Asia. This genetic change had strong survival benefits in the people with cattle and cold winters. So evolution is hardly static even for us.
Another more recent event was boloid(s) which hit the Northern Hemisphere about 13,000 years ago, destroyed the Clovis culture and probably started the rapid disappearance of many large northern mammals. Three million years ago North and South American linked up in the Panama area and led to significant biota changes and more evolution.
Please state your sources for the idea that scientists have dropped natural selection as the driver for evolution. Maybe meteorologists have dropped it but certainly not geneticists. When conditions change significantly, natural selection among minor (or occasionally major) varients is what increases their presence in the surviving population—white skin, lactose tolerance, etc.
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