Why are people in this country still so ignorant about evolution?

[hyphenate]

Here's another good reason why some people are actually proud of their ignorance. The writer of this op-ed piece tries to fit many fallacies into one article to discredit evolution, and quotes from people who are supposed to have participate in the massive hoax that is "evolution." It's just disgusting, and people are buying it all, without using critical thinking of their own.

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2010/05/08/opinion/nh2461978.txt

Evolution or creation? That is the question.

There are millions of fossils in the museums today. Yet there is not one of the missing links of the evolution to be found. Yet some have resorted to make one.

Piltdown Man was such. Parts of the man’s and ape’s skull were manufactured to fit together. Think that over 500 doctoral dissertations were made of that fraudulent skull. Piltdown Man was all over in our textbooks as an authentic piece of evidence for evolution.

Another fabrication of the missing link was Nebraska Man. One tooth fossil was found (out of a wild pig) and man was drawn from that. Nebraska Man was used as the evidence for evolution at Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925.

What about DNA? Does it support evolution or creation? I read that DNA is an extremely complex living molecule. It is so tin and long that just one person’s DNA unwound would reach to the moon an untold number of times. Why would anyone say that DNA has come about by the purposeless, random chance that is evolution?

By the way, DNA helix co-discoverer, Nobel Prize winner Sir Francis Crick, said that the Earth was seeded by aliens coming here on a rocket ship and sowing spores. Is this science?

rest at link

[EFerrari]

1. When I read cr@p like this, I begin to believe we have been visited by aliens.

lol

[depakid]

2. Part of the problem is the culture of lies created by the US media

They publish these outright fabrications without s second thought and in many cases actively promote scientific illiteracy and willful ignorance.

[EFerrari]

3. It's enough to give you whiplash if you're old enough to remember

how this culture embraced science in the 60s and 70s. We couldn't get enough.

[depakid]

9. Newspapers, TV and radio also had a sense of ethics- and credibility was their stock in trade

Reputable (meaning most every mainstream) publication wouldn't have published the sort of rubbish that fill today's media on a daily basis. Moreover, guests and host caught repeatedly lying would have been blackballed from the industry.

This quite aside from the lack of lack of science literacy (or interest) among editors and reporters.

[Dulcinea]

57. That's because rubbish sells advertising.

Science doesn't. More's the pity.

As we all know, the major media in this country is all owned by conglomerates that expect it to turn a huge quarterly profit, just like everything else. So we get crap instead of real reporting.

[nebenaube]

10. tell me about it...

that was pathetic.

[Wednesdays]

30. Embracing science was pathetic?

:shrug:

[nebenaube]

46. You are mis-reading me...

T'was my bad that it wasn't clear that I was agreeing that the subject argument in the op was pathetic.

[Odin2005]

61. the 60s and 70s was when Science-bashing became a popular pastime by all sides.

first came the New Age woo-woos, then came the Born-Agains. Both spewing hate towards "Soulless Secular Scientism".

[panzerfaust]

16. Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

by Charles P. Pierce

There are some answers here.

[Arkansas Granny]

27. The US media covers controversial subjects in order to increase their audience which, in turn,

increase their income. Their prime concern is making money, not providing facts and knowledge.

[Golden Raisin]

4. Remember this old song?

Give me that old time religion
give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me

My question is: how come the Tyrannosaurus Rex pair on Noah's Ark didn't kill and eat all the other animals? Or, along with all the other dinosaurs, sink the damn thing? :sarcasm:

[realisticphish]

6. you ignorant fool

the ark was BLESSED BY GOD. DUH.

And the dinosaurs were all evil. So God killed them, too.





WHOA. What if it wasn't a flood of water, but a flood of dinosaurs! Much cooler way to destroy the world

[Quantess]

7. Noah was a Dinosaur Whisperer, that's why.

But nobody has explained why men don't actually have one fewer rib than women. I suppose it's one of Satan's illusions that male and female skeletons have same number of ribs?

[realisticphish]

8. obviously

men started out with more ribs.

[CrispyQ]

43. Becasue they only took baby dinos.

That's the explanation I heard. Like it would be easy to capture a baby T-rex! :rofl:

[realisticphish]

5. I grow weary of these pieces

Piltdown Man? Nebraska Man? Seriously? Again, the hoaxes and mistakes were discovered by SCIENTISTS STUDYING EVOLUTION, not creationists.

Evolution is NOT random, blah, blah, blah.

And man, leading with the fucking "no missing link" argument

I'm so damn tired of it. James Randi (i think) referred to "unsinkable rubber duckies."

You can smack one down, and then the next creationist drags out the same old, ancient, dusty arguments.

[Luminous Animal]

11. Religion. The ignorance springs from religion.

[panzerfaust]

18. and Religion springs from Ignorance

Seems that few escape this cycle

[GreenPartyVoter]

25. Not just ignorance. Agressively willfully chosen ignorance. The worst kind.

[hyphenate]

50. Totally in agreement

I've seen it at work. And I've seen how one person alienates nearly their whole family by becoming a fundie. Lost contact with all her nieces and nephews, and even her brother. How can one person so embrace that entire idiocracy* without realizing the devastation they have caused?



















*A new word I've just coined. Its meaning is pretty clear. ;)

[Warren DeMontague]

12. The last paragraph of that piece is one of the most cogent arguments for voting Democratic I've seen

The final support for or against evolution comes from you and me, the voters. To vote Republican is to vote for God’s creation. To vote Democrat is to vote for evolutionary atheism.

Beyond that, let's cut to the chase- the guy is trying to say with a straight face that dinosaurs existed six thousand years ago.

dinosaurs now seem to be only 6,000 years old and not 68 million like our school children are falsely taught.

Someone makes a dumb fucking assertion about something like that, and their veracity about everything down to what color underpants they have on is called into serious question. For good. So he calls evolution 'fraudulent' and proceeds to bleat about assorted Horny Huxleys? (It always comes down to sex, for these nutjobs. Sex, sex, sex! :rofl: :eyes:) Eh. Whatever, genius.

Arguing with this dude would be like arguing with a carrot, a mushroom, or an old piece of drywall. Pointless. Seriously, the best thing to do with something like this is wait for its own idiocy to eat itself. I have no doubt Northern Ohio has plenty of bright, thinking people who will take this turd of an 'argument' apart, piece by piece. If you feel like it, write a rebuttal yourself. If you have the time and inclination.


...

'Ben Esso lives in Painesville.' --he obviously doesn't live in 'brainsville'.

[nosmokes]

13. god wills it so.

argue with that! of course, it's only a theory...

[seeviewonder]

14. I took an Intro to Evolution class last semester

since I needed some upper division credit hours outside of my major (chemistry). I have read several books on atheism by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et al and I consider myself to be an atheist. The reason I'm pointing this out is that several of the people in this class were either middle age Christians or just ignorant younger people like myself who chose not to believe in evolution for religious reasons. Two people actually ended up dropping the class because they thought everything was a lie since God created everything and that evolution couldn't have happened since He made everything. There were a couple of people like me (meaning they believed in evolution) in the class so it made it easier to go there and argue for evolution with their aid but the class as a whole was decidedly against evolution. I'm not even sure why they were taking the class to be honest unless they truly were that naïve.

[mwb970]

20. I always have trouble with the concept of "not believing in" scientific truths.

I get that one can choose whether or not to "believe in" religious fairy tales, because there is no way to disprove them and people want them to be true. But what is with this idea that one can simply "not believe in" conclusions arrived at through evidence, facts, and logic? Where do they get the idea that it's up to them whether or not a scientifically proven fact is true? Do they "believe in" gravity? That's "just a theory" too, you know.

This is hopeless.

:shrug:

[Marr]

40. I know a man with a degree in Biology who thinks the same way.

He once remarked to me how "evolution is just a theory", and we had the whole discussion of what "theory" denotes in science. In the space of about five minutes, it became clear that he knew nothing about the subject he majored in. He gave me the "missing link" argument, the "irreducible complexity" argument, and a few other classic bits of religious stupidity.

Blew me away.

[opihimoimoi]

15. Its Them NeAnder dudes engaging in copulation competition with the CRO MAGNONS and LOST

DNA research shows only white people with the NeAnder brain strain....

Meaning, a possible link and reason for white people to be more susceptible to BS...they are easier to FOOL

About 10 T0 15% have Neander blood lines....thus, explaining the antics of the GOP Party..

Could this be the REVENGE OF THE NEANDERTHALS??? The GOP is infected with stone age mentality...oh my lord....whad a thought...

Their lack of logic, reason, common good, Sanity, Clarity, Generosity sez it all and confirms....the 15% est level of involvment....

Those HiTechie CaveMen seen on TV...its an AD using Humor

[howard112211]

17. It goes deeper than only evolution. The core question is

whether one believes in a causal nature that follows specific laws, or whether one believes in a "magical" reality where things just happen because god, ghosts, or some force that is beyond human understanding "wants" them to.

The later type of worldview has broad acceptance in the US, even among many who don't consider themselves Christian per se. I personally think it is a type of anti-intellectualism: It allows people who are unwilling to work hard to gain real knowledge to consider themselves on equal footing with those who chose to undertake the long and hard path to knowledge. If "everything goes" and "who knows", then what are the twenty years of busting ones ass that the scientist undertook worth?

[Pholus]

19. Actually, evolution is responsible for ignorance about evolution.

When the conservatives originally got in bed with the religious fundamentalists to get votes, they had to agree with the crazy talk about evolution. At the time the conservatives felt it was okay since all they were doing was appealing to the rubes to get votes. But over time the rubes got more sophisticated, could advance their own candidates, and were still insisting that evolution was a hoax. This pressure made politics more tribal and your identity with the tribe was based on adherence to purity. I blame the gunloons and anti-abortionists for this -- I remember my Baby Boomer brother ranting about how he didn't care what a politician stood for ON ANYTHING ELSE as long as he (I don't use the generic s/he here because my brother also was really pretty sexist/racist) voted the "right" way on guns. Even at age 12, I could see how easy it would be to for politicians to do what they wanted just as long as they told him what he wanted to hear! Again, the conservative elites had a whole platform they wanted to advance, so throwing a bone that would never go anywhere on a couple of hot-button issues was a no brainer to them. They since have learned about their folly -- there are not a lot of conservative intellectuals left of the stature they had when they started this game. They're extinct.

The problem IS evolution! The same mathematical underpinnings of a genetic algorithm have driven the conservative party to anti-intellectualism through selection (though in this case I'd say it isn't TOO natural ;)

Each successive generation of conservatives could not hope to succeed without the rabid base support and so their positions always had to be dogmatic on evolution, guns and abortion. These positions (along with pro-wealth) started to define what it meant to be conservative. RINO as a term really describes someone who has not evolved their position to match the purity threshold needed to survive in the tribe. There is now a core set of non-negotiable beliefs to belong to the conservative tribe and so the ignorance is willful for people looking for an identity in their politics. So in the end the extreme position ended up being what you needed to adapt to in order to survive -- evolutionary pressure!


Initially, logic reason and science had a lot of credibility to debunk this cr*p because of the space program. In the 70's the greatest generation were swayed by logical arguments because they had seen the advances made possible by science. But there were lots of science/corporate missteps in the 60's-80's, we as a nation got dispirited by our loss in Vietnam and our retreat in space and the social problems growing in the cities. Science lost its luster, helped by spoiled Boomers who felt entitled to remain ignorant since they could maintain a high standard of living without education and we imported talent from other countries and educated them here.

The conservatives latched on to science's failures as a way to discredit all it as an enterprise. After the space program a lot of people felt pretty small and insignificant compared to the universe and there was a retreat among many to the comforting "truths" in the Bible. After all, we were also living under the shadow of a world-ending nuclear Armageddon! Evolution allowed the conservatives to become immune to science. The tribal response in the new conservatives was to create their own reality -- they would not arguing with scientists rationally because scientists are educated and education IS the problem. Back to my 70's childhood and my Boomer brother's favorite phrase "Educate them enough and they get too dumb to come in out of the rain." Conservatives as a result developed an immunity to reason that we mock now but that will cost us so much before we're done.

Wow, now I just scared myself because I don't see a way out of this... ;)

[postulater]

21. You scared me too.

The thing that will make it better is evolution also. The survival of the fittest. Anti-intellectualism is not survival oriented.

Just accepting that the apple falls up because the Bible told you so won't help when you're buried in apples.

When it comes down to it, we will work ourselves out of this using our intellect. The scientific thought process is going to be the foundation of our solutions.

Thanks for the analysis. A nice stimulating post to go with my coffee (no donuts, this AM).

[Rabrrrrrr]

62. Anti-intellectualism is not survival oriented - that is true. But it doesn't mean it will die out.

Too often, it means that it will destroy the entire culture.

The only hope is for intellectualism and reason and compassion and love to live long enough for all the anti-intellectual xenophobe theology-of-hate fuckers to die or be quieted down enough that they effectively disappear again.

[CBR]

22. People are stupid. nt

[marmar]

23. Religious dogma

[RainDog]

24. because the religious right is a group of scum-sucking mother fuckers

who lie to make money.

they rely upon the stupidity of those who attend their services to stay in biz.

the religious right is a cancer in American society.

[Dr Morbius]

26. The thing is, one can accept evolution and Genesis simultaneously...

...if one only overcomes a need for Biblical Literalism, that "every word" of the Bible is true, even when taken out of context.

If you're a person of faith you believe that the Lord sent a portion of His divinity down for a visit some two thousand years ago, and when He did He was fond of parables. Parables are stories with a moral to them; it appears the Big Guy likes to tell stories. When one views Genesis as a parable, a story, the conflict entirely ceases.

One can believe (to borrow from Devo) that God made man, but a monkey supplied the glue.

[pipi_k]

31. Only some people, though..

It takes a certain kind of mentality to be able to hold conflicting ideas in the mind at one time. With a lot of people, it has to be black OR white. Either/or.

Shades of gray make them crazy.

[MattBaggins]

32. So your saying you can take that book of nonsense

and twist it, turn it and stretch it to make it say what ever silly thing you want?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

37. One can accept the Smurfs and evolution simultaneously if one doesn't care what one believes

[Marr]

41. That's a type of rationalization which has become more and more popular

popular as scientific knowledge has expanded. When one of the Bible's claims becomes impossible to believe literally, people start to call it allegory.

Here's the problem. The Bible is full of, and built upon, unbelievable claims. Is the virgin birth allegory? How about Moses? Is God himself an allegory? If so, why bother reading the Bible? What's more, if your own faculties are good enough to let you know when the Word of God should be taken seriously, and when it can be ignored, why do you need an instruction manual?

[seabeyond]

44. remember back in the day, when it was a given that the bible were "stories" so lessons could be

learned.

when i grew up in the 60's i had always learned that the bible were stories to help further understand journeys in life. no one i knew took the bible literally. granted, i was not religious, but found religion interesting and explored different ones. i also lived in calif, so i didnt meet up with fundamentalist until i moved to texas a couple decades ago. what an eye opener. i dont know if they have always been literal, but back in my day, and in my family, the bible was never literal. not even a consideration in taking the bible literally

[Solly Mack]

28. Too complex to be understood (by him, the writer means)..so if it's too complex

for him to understand, it can't be evolution...has to be a god......can't be his ignorance...oh no....has to be a god.

Damn.




and a god is born....

[mr blur]

29. Could be worse - you could live in Turkey:

[MattBaggins]

33. That chart actually makes me want to cry.

Are we as Americans really that fucking stupid?

[Stevenmarc]

34. Because Evolution hasn't caught up with the knuckle draggers

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

35. Why can't we find missing links?

Because they are missing.

We have, however, found zillions of links. We do not call those zillions of evolutionary transitional fossils missing link because they... are... not... missing.

The statement is similar to, "When you lose your car keys they're always in the last place you look." Yes, they are. Pretty much by definition. Why would you keep looking after you found them?

So yes, you will not find any missing links in museums. You will also not find any missing gems, missing meteorites, missing elements, missing species...

[FBI_Un_Sub]

36. American Values

America does not really value educational or intellectual attainment. In fact, we "off shore" it to Bangalore and Beijing.

[Marr]

38. Religion teaches that belief in the face of contradictory evidence is a virtue.

That's a very effective mental barrier.

[mnhtnbb]

53. Yes, that's how Inquisitions happen.

[rug]

39. Give them time. Their opinions will change.

[earth mom]

42. I had a Neanderthal tell me that they call it EVIL-LUTION.

:wow:

This from a knuckle dragger who is supposedly a teacher! :yoiks:

[certainot]

45. here's as good an explanation as i've ever seen

..... in a 2min you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwY978MTvaE

[Codeine]

47. We're ignorant about science in general, across the political spectrum.

Just look at the woo-woo bullshit that gets big play around DU. We're tremendously scientifically ignorant in this country, and far too many on the Left AND the Right revel in that ignorance.

[Posteritatis]

48. Definitely true, though evolution and a few other truths are denied for political reasons

There's a reason you don't see self-described libertarians ever recognizing climate change, for instance.

The left is definitely infested with woohead BS though, you're tragically right there.

[Posteritatis]

49. Obligatory useful relevant link:

The TalkOrigins Archive's Index of Creationist Claims, a comprehensive taxonomy of, as best as I can tell, every anti-evolution argument there is. Each link there is a seperate argument, the anti-evolution arguments are sourced so you can't just claim the site's tearing down straw men, and then the arguments are refuted in varying levels of detail. It's great.

Basically whenever I get into an argument about evolution, I just direct the deniers to that site. If there's anything they have to say that isn't on that list, it's a new enough argument to at least warrant a look. It hasn't happened yet, though, at least in my experience.

[Greyhound]

51. One word; Religion.

[Cartoonist]

52. Mirrors

Don't these people ever look in a mirror? If they do, don't they find it odd that they don't resemble neanderthals or cro-magnon people? How do they explain that to themselves?

[Iggo]

54. Religion. (n/t)

[Initech]

55. To quote Bill Hicks: Ever notice how the people who dont believe in evolution look really unevolved?

[Better Believe It]

56. Is the teaching of evolution a requirement in all public and charter schools?

Or does the right-wing also control many of our textbooks?

[Individualist]

58. Willful ignorance

Some people are so ignorant that if facts don't conform to what they want to believe, they choose to deny the facts.

[Odin2005]

59. Willful ignorance encouraged by Postmodernist garbage.

The whole "you have your opinions and I have mine" response anytime one brings up facts. We are no longer a society that respects facts anymore. Everyone has their own "facts" and of you don't "respect the opinions of others" you are called "close-minded".

the BS woo on DU shows that this is not a right-wing thing, Postmodernist brain-rot is infecting all Western Culture.

[ShamelessHussy]

60. "and Hitler, a socialist, killed tens of millions" - YIKES

hitler was a lefty, who knew?