Religious belief interferes with people's understanding of evolution (NPR)
Last edited Tue Jan 24, 2012, 05:26 AM - Edit history (3)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why-do-so-many-have-trouble-with-evolution?sc=fb&cc=fpAnother variable investigated by the same poll was how belief in evolution correlates with church attendance. Of those who believe in evolution, 24 percent go to church weekly, 30 percent go nearly weekly/monthly, and 55 percent seldom or never go
The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. It's in the fossil record, carefully dated using radioactivity, the release of particles from radioactive isotopic decay, which works like a very precise clock. Rocks from volcanic eruptions (igneous rocks) buried near a fossil carry certain amounts of radioactive material, unstable atomic nuclei that emit different kinds of radiation, like tiny bullets. The most common is Uranium-235, which decays into Lead-207. Analyzing the ratio of Uranium-235 to Lead-207 in a sample, and knowing how frequently Uranium-235 emits particles (its half-life is 704 million years, the amount half a sample decays into Lead), scientists can get a very accurate measure of the age of a fossil.
But evidence for evolution is also much more palpable, for example in the risks of overprescribing antibiotics: the more we (and farm animals) take antibiotics, the higher the chance that a microbe will mutate into one resistant to the drug. This is in-your-face evolution, species mutating at the genetic level and adapting to a new environment (in this case, an environment contaminated with antibiotics). The proof of this can be easily achieved in the laboratory (see link above), by comparing original strands of bacteria with those subjected to different doses of antibiotics. It's simple and conclusive, since the changes in the genetic code of the resistant mutant can be identified and studied.
From this article I learned that creationists deny microbial mutation!!! I didn't know they went this far out into the realms of utter stupidity, but they do!
Of course, the person making this claim has NO EVIDENCE to back up her hypothesis - just a desire to maintain an unsupportable belief.
And this reality - the denial of reality, my fellow DUers, is why we can't have good govt.
Support for evolution based upon religious body
edit to add this graph - which is only Christian religious groups, not others mentioned - but others are minorities.
and a graph of the 2008 presidential election - corrected
Importance of religion by state
The percentages of high school graduates.
Political Ideology and Religion:
Income level and religious belief:
(Edited to add other graphs/info in this thread)
Acceptance of Evolutionary Theory by Nation
This link comes from this interesting article excerpted below: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html
The nations that think religion has a positive impact are also the nations with the most people who do not accept evolutionary theory in the original link in this post - I don't think Indonesia was included, however, but the U.S., South Korea, South Africa, Brazil and India are all nations with the most people who deny evolution is real.
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE RESIST SCIENCE?
When faced with this kind of asserted information, one can occasionally evaluate its truth directly. But in some domains, including much of science, direct evaluation is difficult or impossible. Few of us are qualified to assess claims about the merits of string theory, the role in mercury in the etiology of autism, or the existence of repressed memories. So rather than evaluating the asserted claim itself, we instead evaluate the claim's source. If the source is deemed trustworthy, people will believe the claim, often without really understanding it. As our colleague Frank Keil has discussed, this sort of division of cognitive labor is essential in any complex society, where any single individuals will lack the resources to evaluate all the claims that he or she hears.
This deference to authority isn't limited to science; the same process holds for certain religious, moral, and political beliefs as well. In an illustrative recent study, subjects were asked their opinion about a social welfare policy, which was described as being endorsed either by Democrats or by Republicans. Although the subjects sincerely believed that their responses were based on the objective merits of the policy, the major determinant of what they thought of the policy was in fact whether or not their favored political party was said to endorse it. More generally, many of the specific moral intuitions held by members of a society appear to be the consequence, not of personal moral contemplation, but of deference to the views of the community.
Adults thus rely on the trustworthiness of the source when deciding which asserted claims to believe. Do children do the same? Recent studies suggest that they do; children, like adults, have at least some capacity to assess the trustworthiness of their information sources. Four- and five-year-olds, for instance, know that adults know things that other children do not (like the meaning of the word "hypochondriac"
, and when given conflicting information about a word's meaning from a child and from an adult, they prefer to learn from the adult. They know that adults have different areas of expertise, that doctors know about fixing broken arms and mechanics know about fixing flat tires. They prefer to learn from a knowledgeable speaker than from an ignorant one, and they prefer a confident source to a tentative one. Finally, when five year-olds hear about a competition whose outcome was unclear, they are more likely to believe a character who claimed that he had lost the race (a statement that goes against his self-interest) than a character who claimed that he had won the race (a statement that goes with his self-interest). In a limited sense, then, they are capable of cynicism.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Understanding evolution interferes with religious belief.
Last edited Thu Jul 12, 2012, 03:43 AM - Edit history (1)
EDIT TO NOTE: the graphs that were included later in this thread were incorporated into the OP and deleted from this thread.
I weep for my stupid-ass religiously insane country. 
Last edited Thu Jan 19, 2012, 10:08 AM - Edit history (1)
by U.S. map as we draw it, by population density and, by electoral college votes
what I don't respect is people whose belief in god means they have to refuse to accept reality.
this isn't just in the realm of evolution, either. here's another graph
Opinion on global warming and religious belief
Seems ....irrational.
It's kind of hard to get the smart in don't ya think? 
You are not going to change my mind. I am not going to change yours.
this is a paradox - well, only if you think that selfishness is the only motivator... but it's called a paradox.
Red states, on average, are also lower-income states. Because of the progressive federal income tax, states with higher incomes pay vastly higher federal taxes. These payments are unlikely to be matched by federal spending directed back into those states.
In “Rich State, Poor State, Red State, Blue State,” a 2007 paper for the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, four researchers—Andrew Gelman of Columbia, Boris Shor of the University of Chicago, Joseph Bafumi of Dartmouth, and David Park of George Washington University—explain that while richer voters are more likely to be Republican than poorer voters, this tendency is weaker in blue states. Take two equally wealthy people. One lives in a blue state and the other lives in a red state. The data show that the voter living in the richer blue state is more likely to be a Democrat than the one in the poorer red state, although both are more likely to be Republican than a poor resident of either state. Income plays a greater role in determining voter preference in red states than in blue ones. So while voters in red states are more motivated by their financial interests (or perceived financial interests), issues outside of income are more powerful motivators for blue voters. This pattern could help explain why some states vote Democratic despite their wealth and some states vote Republican despite their poverty.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/07/14/the-redblue-paradox
the paradox may also be that those states with religious beliefs that are not consistent with science also appear to worry that they may pay taxes to help out someone else.
something has gone seriously wrong with those beliefs, imo. even if you want to argue that you want charity to help others - that's saying you only want to help those who affiliate with your group.
From YouTube (about 3 minutes):
Also from YouTube, a segment from the movie: "Inherit The Wind" with the late, great Spencer Tracy: (about 3 minutes):
&feature=related
...and this is the year 2012!
Darrow: "Do you claim then that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?"
Bryan: "I believe that everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there; some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God's people."
Darrow got to the heart of it - metaphorical language is the language of religion, not science texts.
Clarence Darrow was a really interesting figure in history. He also represented Eugene Debs in the Pullman Strike and Big Bill Haywood, founder of the IWW. Darrow was also instrumental in the formation of the American Civil Liberties Union. Some of his archives are available online - http://darrow.law.umn.edu/index.php?
there are also tons of sites with factual information available for people who want to learn about evolution and why creationism/intelligent design are not scientific ideas, but religious ones.
but, as far as evolution goes - we have actual video evidence!!!
for favorite movies. (I like a lot of the movies from that era...blunt & gritty and Tracy never failed to deliver!)
I did not know all that about Darrow (or about the IWW for that matter.) I'm learning so much from this thread!
And 
on the Simpson video 
all I can say is 
"Although a federal court had ordered the integration of the school, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus became a white-supremacist folk-hero when he ordered 1200 armed troops to block the black students from entering the school. In response, President Dwight Eisenhower reluctantly sent in the 101st Airborne to escort the students to class and protect them from the mobs of angry, spitting, rock-throwing whites that had surrounded the school. The students, who became known as "The Little Rock Nine", received Congressional Gold Medals in 1999 in recognition of their courage (Lawrence 2000)."
1200 ARMED TROOPS??????? WOW!!!!!!!
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On a related note, here's something (in part) from wiki on 'Human vestigiality':
Human vestigiality
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The muscles connected to the ears of a human do not develop enough to have the same mobility allowed to monkeys. Arrows show the vestigial structure called Darwin's tubercle.
In the context of human evolution, human vestigiality involves those characters (such as organs or behaviors) occurring in the human species that are considered vestigial—in other words having lost all or most of their original function through evolution. Although structures usually called "vestigial" often appear functionless, a vestigial structure may retain lesser functions or develop minor new ones.[1] In some cases, structures once identified as vestigal simply had an unrecognized function[2]
Vestigial characteristics occur throughout nature, one example being the vestigial hind limbs of whales and snakes. Many human characteristics are also vestigial in other primates and related animals. The following characteristics have been or still are considered vestigial in humans.
<snip>
Coccyx
The coccyx, or tailbone, is the remnant of a lost tail. All mammals have a tail at one point in their development; in humans, it is present for a period of 4 weeks, during stages 14 to 22 of human embryogenesis.[8] This tail is most prominent in human embryos 31–35 days old.[9] The tailbone, located at the end of the spine, has lost its original function in assisting balance and mobility, though it still serves some secondary functions, such as being an attachment point for muscles, which explains why it has not degraded further.
In rare cases congenital defect results in a short tail-like structure being present at birth. Twenty-three cases of human babies born with such a structure have been reported in the medical literature since 1884.[10][11]
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_vestigiality
Some people seem to have to have decency forced upon them. Kudos to Eisenhower for standing up to bigotry.
You forgot the 
thingy.
You scientists... with your "degrees" and your "facts" and your "physical evidence" and your "logic" and your "critical thinking" and your "more physical evidence" and your "dna analysis" and your "oh did we mention the FUCKING MOUNTAINS OF PHYSICAL EVIDENCE"....
you think you're so smart!
...
