Click here to download the full report
Posted on 07/02/2009 5:04:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Just a few months before the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a newly released Zogby poll shows that the American public overwhelmingly rejects Darwinian theory in favor of intelligent design. When asked if life developed “through an unguided process of random mutations and natural selection,” a standard definition of Darwinism, only 33 percent of respondents said they agreed with the statement. But 52 percent agreed that “the development of life was guided by intelligent design.”
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The poll results come from one of four questions commissioned by Discovery Institute for a national Zogby telephone survey conducted earlier in 2009. Results from the other three questions were released previously to coincide with the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth. The new results are highlighted below, and the full report is available here (http://www.evolutionnews.org/zogby09poll063009%20%282%29.pdf)
Question about Intelligent Design
Now, I am going to read you two statements about the development of life. Please tell me which statement comes closest to your own point of view—Statement A or Statement B?
Statement A: The development of life came about through an unguided process of random mutations and natural selection.
Statement B: The development of life was guided by intelligent design.
Statement A 33%
Statement B 52
Neither 7
Other/Not sure 8
Einstein believed in intelligent design. Understanding the intricacies of nature leads to awe of a first mover.
METHODOLOGY
Zogby International conducted the omnibus telephone survey of 1,053 likely voters earlier this year, which marks the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth as well as the anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species. The margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.1 percentage points.
I think it’s more a combination of the two. I see no reason why God couldn’t have used evolution to create life. I find it sort of limiting of people’s faith that they insist God had to create the world with a flash of light and puff of smoke, or there is no God. I don’t think humans are entirely a product of evolution, however. Evolution in theory can only endow a species with the ability to survive, which can’t explain why we can build computers or fly to the moon. Something else had to give us those abilities.
I think people simply preferred the words “guided” and “intelligent” to “unguided” and “mutation.” A different choice of words may have produced the opposite results.
So, science is now up for a vote?
Well, that is what led to the panic about global cooling, uh global warming, uh the ice caps reducing, uh the ice caps expanding.
Popular culture isn’t a good place to process science.
But, given the Universities these days, I don’t know where is.
>>Einstein believed in intelligent design. Understanding the intricacies of nature leads to awe of a first mover.<<
Not the way ID is presented today. To be theistic is not the same as believing in ID (which is merely creationism in a spiffy suit).
Wonder what a “Godhood status” poll of Egyptions in 500BC would tell us about the sun.
Interesting. Sorry to see the ID number is so low, though.
Nevertheless...encouraging that not everyone in society drinks Darwins’ Kool-Aid.
The problem for the creationists is that the Biblical story of creation is so dated. It gives us a pretty good picture of the state of knowledge 2000 years ago, but of course God knew much more. It would have been compelling if Genesis had said “God created the the universe 13.7xx billion years ago.”
“The earth revolves on its axis once each day. It takes one year to complete its orbit around the sun.”
“The speed of light is 186,xxx miles per second.”
“E=mc2”
“Dinosaurs ruled the earth from 230 million years ago until 66 million years ago (when a giant meteor wiped them out?)
If God had revealed these things in the Bible 2,000 years ago, there wouldn’t be all this debate about God’s role in creating the universe.
You could probably do a similar poll that would reveal that most people think that the sun goes around the earth.
Of course, most people, or at least most young people, couldn’t even tell you who the first president was, or what the foundation of law in the country is, or what the three branches of government are.
The Discovery Institute designs misleading polls to get the result they want, hires Zogby to conduct them, and then flogs the results as a “Zogby Poll” as though the Zogby organization had made up the questions themselves. I admire their cleverness, if not their honesty.
well in general maybe, but... not for Darwin WINNERS
How's that "Jesus had knowledge of Origin Of The Species but chose to speak in terms his audience could understand" meme coming along, lol?
OK, whatever.
?
Short term memory loss doesn’t appear to be a beneficial mutation, freedumb2003.
>>Of course, most people, or at least most young people, couldn’t even tell you who the first president was, or what the foundation of law in the country is, or what the three branches of government are.<<
I saw that today — frightening.
>>Short term memory loss doesn’t appear to be a beneficial mutation, freedumb2003.<<
Neither is the inability to communicate. Effective communications is a mutation that has proven itself to be beneficial many times over. The prairie dog that says “The Yak is blue on Wednesday” doesn’t survive well.
Which is pretty much what I translate your post as saying.
No offense — it just doesn’t make any sense.
No, it doesn’t make any sense. That’s why I found it so amusing when you made that claim. Would you like a link?
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