I know that the evolution/creationism battle has been somewhat overplayed on this site, but this article pointed out to me from Emma really got me going. Jon Miller of Michigan State University in East Lansing conducted a survey of 32 European countries along with the US and Japan. The survey consisted of one very simple question… "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals: true or false?" Click the pic to see the full chart.
Out of those 34 countries, Turkey was the only country that less willingly accepted Evolution than the US. Now I’m not going to rip on Turkey, but I don’t see that as a positive thing with respects to religious fundamentalism. I don’t see this particular story as strictly a creationism/evolution argument anymore. What I see is a battle between "healthy" religious beliefs and religious fundamentalism. I see it as an article that shows what countries base beliefs on faith and not fact. I see it as an article that shows the effects of politicizing religion for the gain of a country’s political party and not the greater good of that country’s people. I see it as a tool to control people and divide them.
Honestly, as I read this over I have a difficult time commiting the changes. This to me is just another step towards becoming a nation of fundmentalists, much like the nations that the US is at war with. The only difference is that we are on one side and they on the other. And as far as I’m concerned, both are wrong. I’ve always felt that far left is just as bad as far right. To me life is all about moderation and being tilted either way is unhealthy.
I know I’m slightly rambling on, but I honestly feel this is a warning sign. when I read things like this..
American adults may be harder to reach: nearly two-thirds don’t agree that more than half of human genes are common to chimpanzees.
…I get a little nervous. Is it time to push the panic button, or should we just close our eyes and hope it’s just a bad dream? Or has gasmonso just had too much wine to drink?
BONUS QUESTION: Where did I get the inspiration for this topic’s title?
No related posts.
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!
All those are european countries. It would have been nice to have american countries to compare besides the US. ;)
It is a scary result for the US anyhow.
Exactly what I thought when I read it. And I agre with gasmonso that it should be read as a sort of warning or wake up call to the fact that religious fundamentalism is unhealthy, whatever political side you lean to.
Mind you, if this was a poll conducted in a dodgy way, the results would have been inflated. However, the press release at MSU shows that the way in which the data was collected was aiming to be as unbiased as possible.
http://newsroom.msu.edu/site/indexer/2827/content.htm
Things to think about:
“One in three American adults firmly rejects the concept of evolution, a significantly higher proportion than found in any western European countryâ€
“The total effect of fundamentalist religious beliefs on attitude toward evolution was nearly twice as much in the United States,â€
“There is no major political party in Europe and Japan that uses opposition to evolution as a part of its political platform,†Miller said. “In the United States, there are people who think it is a political advantage to discount evolution.â€
“The growing number of adults who are uncertain about these ideas suggests that current science instruction is not effective.â€
What?!? We are number two to Turkey in yet another thing? They beat us in the per capita incarceration rate AND per capita executions and now THIS?!? Come on America! It’s time we claim our rightful place as #1! We can beat them by jailing all Americans who believe in evolution and executing any scientist who published papers supporting evolution. That way we can fix three problems at once! USA! USA! USA!
Sidfaiwu, when are you running for government ;)?
I have to take back a part of my comment. It seems we’ve taken over the #1 spot in per capita incarceration rates in the industrialized world some time in 2003. Not only that, we’ve taken the #1 spot amongst ALL nations! Good job America!
Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers. I know UHF ripped that from Blazing Saddles, but still, funny stuff.
Oh boy. The more I see stuff like this the more I think maybe its time to move to… hmm Canada isn’t on this list… Can’t be to carefull… time to move to Iceland. Seriously people is it that hard of a concept to understand? Do people wonder why our science scores are so low?
“George, what did you learn today in school?”
“We learned that the universe is 15 billion years old, the earth is round and goes around the sun, and that life evolved over billions of years.”
“Oh, well you just forget that nonsense and remember that god only loves you if you think the earth is flat, stationary, 6000 years old and that everything was made as it is now in 6 days.”
“Thanks mom, that’s alot easier to remember.”
For anyone who hasn’t seen it, Penn and Teller’s Bullshit episode on Creationism is another scary/funny take on this sort of thing. Funny how absurd all the creation information is and scary that these people believe it without question.
You’d think that the evangenicals pushing religion as a source of morality and, by extension, law and order would take the hint that it ISN’T WORKING. Is it just a coincidence that we have the highest religiosity AND the highest incarceration rates in the industrialized world? Hmm, maybe they’ll claim that we are just better at catching criminals.
Or maybe:
“Americans aren’t more violent than the rest of the world. We just have better aim!”
I think the evangenicals pushing religion are only concerned with lining their pockets and keeping their power, it’s the sheep following them that actually believe this crap. How else can you explain that the preachers drive Bentleys and have private planes while their followers live in poverty. I’ve actually considered becoming a preacher, it must take less work than my current job, it definitely pays better.
While gasmonso may have been inspired by Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks got the line from “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre:”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040897/quotes
I thought that quote came from another movie. I’ve been wondering what it was originally from. Thanks devon!
I completely agree about the politicizing of something that should not be an issue at all. And I see that in many more issues, such as prayer in school and gay marriage. Something in our culture I think has made us entirely too arrogant. Maybe it’s being a superpower, not feeling like we need to catch up to or compete with other nations. Anyway, the “I don’t care what other nations think or what the evidence may be” foreign policy that’s become so famous is reflected in our personal beliefs.
It is time to push the panic button. How can 2/3 of Americans not agree that we share genes with chimps? In fact, how can you ask someone if they agree or disagree with that? It’s not an opinion. If 2/3 of Americans said that the sky was the color of strawberries and always had been… I guess I don’t understand how the disconnect can remain stable.
And I take no issue with saying that moderation between the extreme left and extreme right is good, but there are some places where ‘moderation’ is misused. Evolution is one of them… maybe to reach some people we need to try and understand their views, but to my mind moderation is not some comprimise of teaching in schools “well, or it could be that god did some of it”. Not all points of view are created equal, and where there can be an objective truth you don’t find it by mixing peoples viewpoints.
Matthew, you may find others agree that religion is a blight on society: http://neuralgourmet.com/religionblight
I think in America the problem is that creationism versus evolution has become a simple battle of good and evil. God is good, and anything that doesn’t follow him absolutely is evil. Science never claimed to be a religion, doesn’t try to be, and even bases itself on the idea that it’s not infallible (like religions usually claim to be) and yet, because it doesn’t agree with the Bible, it is a new evil. Those who are fighting evolution typically won’t even bother to investigate it to see what the situation is. That is bigotry at the basest level. And the really bad part is that many of the people who think like this are proud of it. If anything, we need to teach people to open themselves up to more than one point of view first.
Blazing Saddles *OR*!!!!
The Vidiot from UHF!!!
“Badgers? We don’t need no stinking Badgers!”
:)
From the same source:
US Department of Education ‘overlooks’ evolution
Evolutionary biology is mysteriously missing from the list of undergraduate subjects eligible for a US federal grant.
more here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9833?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn9833
i almost want to leave the states after studying all these shocking facts.
[...] Evolution? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Evolution! [...]
we share half our dna with bananas, does that make us evolved from fruit?
despite teaching evolution as fact in our schools for many years now, with the media on side and ramming it down everyone’s throats, good to see common sense has prevailed.
everyone has the inbuilt “sense of eternity” given to them by god, you cant take that away no matter how hard you try
If Religion is an invention of sick perverted freaks and degenertaed weirdos, who managed to get all the sons of bitches at that time and managed to kill all the great scientists of that time, then Atheists are just other idiots who are against Religion.
As the matter of fact, the gread idocy of Atheism is that if someone is claiming to be an Atheist this doesn’t make the Atheist a normla person automatically.
Charls Darwin is a great example, of how an iodt an atheist can be. He invented an unplausible bullshit about the bloody monkeys being the progenitors of humans.
If you ask someone normal – sane in mind and body, he will always easily explain, that the most plausible theory, is that humans were born toghetehr with all the animals, but nature decided that humans are the most evoluted species on earth mentally, therefore their bodies are th emost evoluted in odrer to fit their mental capacity.
As the matter of fact, there are two natural mechanisms able to regulate life on earth, they are called “Natural selection” and “Natural evolution”.
Natural selection and Natural evolution are the basises of normla society, which is a Democratic Republic, based on Meritocracy, Technocracy, Nationalism and Federalism.
If somebody doesnt still know, all this was allready explained almost 2000 years ago by Greek and Roman normal, mentally sane scientists, all dead by the conspiracy of Perverts and Degeerates, who actually created the insane Dictatorship of Religion and Monarchy.
So if you see some idiots that claim to be Atheists, fighting Religious mindless bullshit with their own mindless pseudo scientiphical bullshit, always remember that there is only one kind of normal people, they are called mentally sane people, and they are easily recognisable, they all look sane in mind and body, and they never say bullshit pretending to be serious as hell.
This is to explain that even if the Religious idiots are the dominant evil on earth, it doesnt mean that any other idot thta is against religion in some unnatural way can become automatically an ally of normal people.
Its been observed by many people that the US is becoming a religious fundamentalist state. When you start throwing around statements like the “axis of EVIL” it is pretty plain to see. And prayer before meetings in the white house. What ever happened to the separation of church and state?
That poll has just two options, and you are automatically assuming that those who chose to believe in evolution are not religious. There should have been a third option on the poll for the vast number of people (including myself) who believe that evolution was God’s way of creating human beings. It’s a pretty simple explanation that makes sense. Yes, the Bible says that everything was created in 7 days. But you have to understand that the Bible is a very metaphorical book that shouldn’t be taken literally. Besides, if people don’t believe in Evolution, it doesn’t mean that the country is going to the dogs. They just require more proof and knowledge on the subject, just as Atheists require more proof on the existence of God. There is nothing wrong in questioning theories. And Evolution is not fact, it’s a theory…make no mistake about that.
Kent kent kent
Yer dish ain’t full o the word that matters. The country ain’t goin to the dogs. It be going to the Pirates. Pirates, matey, Pirates. Remember that.
Evolution is both theory and fact, and Pirates and Pasta are too. Religion is not even theory, except for the one true saucy religion. Read all about it here
http://venganza.org
Clench yer fork between yer teeth and say
Yarrrrrrr. Pasta be comin yer way.
http://venganza.org
“I’ve always felt that far left is just as bad as far right.” Of course! No intelligent person denies this. But our current “right” is what used to be called “far right”.
And it’s GIBBERING!!!