This fascinating chart on faith and climate change denial has been reinforced by new research

[IDemo]

Last week, I blogged about a striking figure created by evolutionary biologist Josh Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education, plotting U.S. based faiths and denominations based on 1) their members’ views about the reality of human evolution and 2) those members’ support for tough environmental laws.

The figure (below) has created much discussion, both because of what it seems to suggest about the unending debate over the relationship between science and religion, but also because of how it appears to confirm that more conservative leaning denominations harbor a form of science resistance that extends well beyond evolution rejection and into the climate change arena.

Because let’s face it — we already knew that conservative religiosity in the United States was closely tied to denying evolution. What wasn’t so obvious was why views of global warming, or the environment, would seem to so closely track views on where we humans (and the rest of all life on Earth) come from. Yet it seems they do:



I’m writing on this again now because after posting about Rosenau’s work, I learned about a new academic study that seems highly consistent with his research, even as it also casts new light on the environmental side of things.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/05/29/this-fascinating-chart-on-faith-and-climate-change-denial-has-been-reinforced-by-new-research/

[Coventina]

1. HA! Why am I not surprised to see Assemblies of God in the bottom corner?

They're all just waiting for the Rapture to solve all their problems.

[JoePhilly]

2. Everytime science explains something that used to be explained by "God" ...

.... "God" becomes less and less powerful.

And think about that ... how can an all powerful God "lose" power?

If God is not ACTIVELY controlling the movement of the Sun and the planets, not ACTIVELY controlling what it means to be a human, not ACTIVELY controlling the weather ... just what the hell IS God doing?

Not much. And this terrifies some of them. God can not be constrained by the laws of science, even if God created those laws in the first place.

They see science as a threat to God's power.

[IDemo]

3. He's helping to score all those touchdowns, for one thing

[Brickbat]

4. .

[Johonny]

5. God abandoned him when on the Jets

because God hates the Jets, but we all knew that.

[JoePhilly]

6. Hey, even God needs a Hobby ... he also spends lots of time ...

... telling the craziest of the Republicans that he wants them to run for President.

God is a big practical joker.

[awoke_in_2003]

8. No longer in the NFL

some god

[MisterP]

7. it's most definitely a dialectic or a feedback cycle between denomination and identity

people even convert based on politics now, while at the same time evolution and the environment are turned into badges of one's group affiliation: you do/don't "believe" in X or Y because of who you run with

and look how BUNCHY it is, too--there's the populist conservatives, the mainstream (under 50% in the US now), and that interesting group up at the 1.0/1.0 cross

I'm piqued now: I wanna see a graph from before the Baptist coup, or from other countries--my devout European Catholic relatives can only stop and stare when I casually mentioned that 50% of the US thinks the Earth's 6,000 years old: this process just doesn't happen on the Continent, or even Brazil, Canada, or Britain (which have more DIY and charismatic lineages)

[Solly Mack]

9. K&R