Conchobar

I have noted in prior posts that cultural religiosity varies inversely with the level of scientific literacy. In the UK, Netherlands, Scandinavia, France, New Zealand, and Japan, where religiosity is weak and no longer a clear majority but the people are highly informed on science. Even the Irish Republic and Poland where Christianity remains a big majority the same majority accept modern science (evolution, plate tectonics, brain behaviourals science.)

In the USA, where over 90% are theists, the rate of science literacy is very low, the lowest of the "western world."

A recent study by the (American) National Science Foundation showed that 70% of Americans were ignorant of fundamentals of natural sciences and mathematics. American humourist, Jay Leno, on his show commented on the study. He reported that "30% (of Americans) don't even know what 70% means."

Only 48% of Americans knew that electrons are smaller than atoms.

Only 45% could define the essentials of DNA in inheritance.

Only 22% could define a "molecule."

Only 33% understood the "scientific process" and how to conduct an experiment.

Jay Leno asked random people on the street the following:

Leno: "What keeps the Earth orbiting around the Sun?"
Sarah from Cleveland: "The gravitational pull of the Moon."

Leno: "Who invented pasteurisation?"
Kerry from Denver: "Um, some agriculture person...from Nebraska."

25% of all US professionals with Doctoral degrees are now foreign born, 45% for Computer Science and Engineering, 27% in Biological Sciences.

The USA will need to and will depend on a foreign supply of science professionals into the future. Hazeltine, of the Human Genome Sciences, Inc., comments "as economic conditions improve abroad, its less likely that these foreign scientists will come to the United States." His very important research company, if foreign scientists stop going to America, would drop productivity by about 50% by his own estimate.

The problem as viewed by the National Science Foundation is in the school system. 31% of Math teachers and 20% of science teachers in grades 7-12 lack a major or minor in those subjects.

While Fundamentalists are gob$hiting about mandated prayer in the schools (putting God back), they are missing the point. You don't need God or forced prayer in your schools. You need to invest money to train bright high school graduates to major in science and math. Then you would have enough graduates to enter Ph.D. science programs. But in order to achieve this, you have to pay teachers competitive salaries, test their skills regularly, and invest more in grants to qualified American students who will enter Ph.D. programs in Geology, Molecular Biology, Neuroscience, Evolutionary-molecular Genetics, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

You need to fix this problem for two reasons; one is the maintenance of American standards of living, being competitive in the market of ideas and scientific achievement. The other reason is that the general pathetic level of science illiteracy makes people gullible. That is why they believe in UFO's, Bigfoot, ghosts, ESP, and religious fundamentalism. The latter would threaten the freedom of women, the rights of free speech, and various areas of personal freedoms reminiscent of the 12th century European Christian Monarchies. Remember that they were famous for perfecting methods of torture, painful executions for suspected religious dissent, and women for the flimsiest of reasons, and the abuse of children.

Act before it is too late. Fix your schools in order to fix the rampant mass superstition and ignorance of the population. Ignorance is NOT bliss; it is a ticket into the Third World.

Conchobar

Zira_C

Hey Coragyps, thanks, for the props.

Conchobar. Again I think you hit the nail on the head. I think creationists greatest success is in stifling the education system w.r.t. evolution. They have nothing to offer science. They manufacture misconceptions about the current state of evolutionary biology in particular, and science in general, in order to erect conceptual walls in front of students. The current state of science education is unprepared to teach through the mountain of misconceptions that the evolution evidence deniers (ID-ationists?) keep manufacturing on a daily basis (with every book and web page they put out).

Conchobar

What really intriques me is that Creationists by constructing ideas with absolutely no basis, and essentially dreaming up fantasy stories against science, are unequivocally lying. And they must know that they are lying. How could they not know Creationism is all lies unless they woefully ignorant and uneducated, or are mentally deranged? Many who seem smart must have rational blinders that keep them from seeing the bullshit in their ideology.

I know we are supposed to "respect" people's beliefs. But these are not Stone Age tribesmen in New Guinea. They are people who attended as many as 12 to 16 years of schooling yet display stone age ignorance of the natural world. I have great difficulty respecting that. Stupidity in a society of the informatiion age is not something to excuse. For a naked tribesman in New Guinea, belief in a 6000 year earth and creation by a Sky Giant is OK. New York businessman should feel deep shame over such belief and lack of rational thinking.

Conchobar

BigBadShrubbery

...I'm just waiting for the Creationists to say something...

Mageth

Zira_C:

Well said, and welcome to the board.

You're right disproving evolution does nothing to prove special creation. What it does though is leave you with an unexplained phenomenon, a gap in knowledge. A gap big enough to drop your miracle, and therefore your God, into.

Also consider that if you dispose of the natural explanations (abiogenesis + Darwinian evolution, or any replacement natural theories for the origin and diversity of life on earth) and leave only the miraculous or magickal explanations, the gap is wide open for any miraculous explanation. There's really no reason to accept Genesis creation over any other creation myth - once magick is accepted as the cause, one magickal explanation is as good as another.

braces_for_impact

Survival. We form beliefs as a vital part of our ability to survive, so the brain has become "sticky" with regards to dropping these beliefs, even in the face of unequivocable evidence.

Here is a good article on the subject.

Eric H

I was watching a program on evolution the other night with Richard Dawkin. He said there where many things about evolution that could not be explained at the moment.

What was needed was a fertile imagination. The imagination was to look at problems and try and imagine how a theory could explain the evolution of complex organs like an eye.

If science is to earn respect then I feel there is the need to be truthful as to what is a fact, and what is still a theory.

I can respect the simplicity Of Darwin’s natural selection and survival of the fittest in a species, while they are struggling for limited resources. This has been around for a long time and stood the test of much investigation.

But I still feel that evolution on its own, can not give all the answers.

Peace

Eric

Godless Dave

Science is truthful about these things. But the people you are getting information from are not. They consistently distort what the theory of evolution says and what science is about.

Salmon of Doubt

I would say that instead, you need to be more clear on the distinction between fact and theory. The whole of evolution is a theory, and if something better comes along, the theory will be rejected. However, there is so much supporting evidence for evolution, it is treated as a fact, because so far it fits the evidence.

Where would you make distinctions between 'fact' and 'theory', and how do you define them?

Mageth

If science is to earn respect then I feel there is the need to be truthful as to what is a fact, and what is still a theory.

Evolution as in descent with modification from a common ancestor, is generally accepted in science as fact, as the evidence in support of it is overwhelming.

How this evolution occurs, how descent with modification from a common ancestral form occurs, encompasses the Theory of Evolution (e.g. Darwinian, Neo-Darwinian, etc.).

I think Science is quite truthful about that.

But I still feel that evolution on its own, can not give all the answers.

To what questions? No one I know claims that evolution can answer all questions about existence.

Of course there are questions about life on earth that are as of now unanswered by Evolutionary theory. Many if not most of them, however, may well be answered in the future.