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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPoll: Big Bang a big question for most Americans
http://news.yahoo.com/poll-big-bang-big-most-americans-074034813.htmlWASHINGTON (AP) Few Americans question that smoking causes cancer. But they express bigger doubts as concepts that scientists consider to be truths get further from our own experiences and the present time, an Associated Press-GfK poll found.
Americans have more skepticism than confidence in global warming, the age of the Earth and evolution and have the most trouble believing a Big Bang created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.
Rather than quizzing scientific knowledge, the survey asked people to rate their confidence in several statements about science and medicine.
On some, there's broad acceptance. Just 4 percent doubt that smoking causes cancer, 6 percent question whether mental illness is a medical condition that affects the brain and 8 percent are skeptical there's a genetic code inside our cells. More 15 percent have doubts about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines.
About 4 in 10 say they are not too confident or outright disbelieve that the earth is warming, mostly a result of man-made heat-trapping gases, that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old or that life on Earth evolved through a process of natural selection, though most were at least somewhat confident in each of those concepts. But a narrow majority 51 percent questions the Big Bang theory.
Those results depress and upset some of America's top scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, who vouched for the science in the statements tested, calling them settled scientific facts.
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Mz Pip
(27,404 posts)It's really impossible for most people to comprehend how our huge universe exploded from a dense ball smaller than a golf ball. I sure don't understand it but I believe the scientists who are much smarter than me.
Orrex
(63,085 posts)2naSalit
(86,056 posts)in everyday terms of survival? I had to ask.
Avalux
(35,015 posts)When the people do not have the ability to discern truth from fiction because they are ignorant, they are easily manipulated. Science = truth on the physical plane. Without understanding this, the human race will cause it's own extinction.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,085 posts)Will Raj find the right woman?
Are Penny and Leonard in fact right for one another?
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)whistler162
(11,155 posts)one is a theory and a theory that is not provable. While the other iwas a theory that was proven and global warming is a theory that maybe proving itself.
Avalux
(35,015 posts)So in the absence of comprehension, they think the LAWS OF PHYSICS are nonsense, and leave themselves open to manipulation by those who mislead for their own selfish purposes.
Knowledge is power.
It benefits the few at the top to keep the commoners stupid.