RE: 99.98% (OR)
Reply to: comm-654467757@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-04-24, 10:00AM CDT
Its really funny that you discredit my source because it is old and from Newsweek. First of all, the fact that it is older and still shows .14% of people believing in evolution speaks even more to the validity of the theory. The human genome as well as several other genomes were not mapped until a few years ago which proved common descent in every instance. The facts in support of evolution that have been uncovered since 1987 are astounding. Meanwhile, Creationism/ID still has not come up with a single shred of evidence or proof of any kind to support even a single claim.
Secondly, the data speaks for itself no matter what source it appeared in. It even tells you how many people were surveyed on the chart. If you fail to believe the facts just because they were posted in Newsweek, then thats your perogative. The facts are still facts whether you accept them or not.
Its also very funny that you mentioned that ID was not a public movement in 1987. Perhaps you are not familiar with the Creation Science Movement that started in 1932? Idiot Fundamentalists have been trying to get intelligent design taught for the better part of a century even though it has no factual basis whatsoever. Inteligent Design is simply Creationism repackaged under a new name, but has the exact same "ideas". Intelligent Design surfaced at the same time as that poll in 1987, so even though ID was a fresh new idea, people still didn't buy it. Now in 2008, since the Creationist/ID movement has had every claim made debunked, even fewer people believe it except for the people that are too dim to understand even the basic concepts of evolution and would rather cling to Bronze Age myths.
Imagine where science and humanity would be if we accepted the hypothesis that a magic man did it without any evidence. Doctors would turn you away and would not do anything to help your sickness if we accepted that sickness was caused by God. There would be no point in trying to forecast the weather if we accepted that it was God's doing. If we became that God was responsible for everything, there would be no need for further discovery. This is why we can't just accept "magic man done it!" as a legitimate explanation for anything.
As far as Dawkins saying aliens created life, you are an idiot. Here is some factual information about what he said:
In Dawkins' interview, the director focused on when Stein asked Dawkins under what circumstances could intelligent design have occurred. Dawkins responded with Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel's tongue-in-cheek example that in the case of the "highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane'."
Lastly, it doesn't really matter what individual people believe. What matters is evidence. I don't doubt that there are plenty of people that have a higher IQ than I do and yet they still believe in God. That is their own decision and is likely either based on false information or childhood imprinting (they were raised Christian). What they should know is that the evidence is overwhelmingly stacked against the chances of there being an invisible man in the sky that judges humans and punishes or rewards people after death.
In case you need the point driven home further, here is some more factual information about the belief in evolution:
The level of support for creationism among relevant scientists is minimal. Only 700 out of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists gave credence to creationism in 1987, representing about 0.146% of relevant scientists. In 2007 the Discovery Institute reported that about 600 scientists signed their A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list, up from 100 in 2001.[130] The actual statement of the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is a relatively mild one that expresses skepticism about the absoluteness of 'Darwinism' (and is in line with the falsifiability required of scientific theories) to explain all features of life, and does not in any way represent an absolute denial or rejection of evolution.[131] By contrast, a tongue-in-cheek response known as Project Steve, a list of scientists named Steve who agree that evolution is "a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences," has 868 Steves as of March 18, 2008. People named Steve make up approximately 1% of the total U.S. population.
The United States National Science Foundation statistics on US yearly science graduates demonstrate that from 1987 to 2001, the number of biological science graduates increased by 59% while the number of geological science graduates decreased by 20.5%. However, the number of geology graduates in 2001 was only 5.4% of the number of graduates in the biological sciences, while it was 10.7% of the number of biological science graduates in 1987.[132] The Science Resources Statistics Division of the National Science Foundation estimated that in 1999, there were 955,300 biological scientists in the US (about 1/3 of who hold graduate degrees). There were also 152,800 earth scientists in the US as well.[133]
Therefore, the 600 Darwin Dissenters represent about 0.054% of the estimated 1,108,100 biological and geological scientists in the US in 1999. In addition, a large fraction of the Darwin Dissenters have specialties unrelated to research on evolution; of the dissenters, three-quarters are not biologists.[134] Therefore, the roughly 150 biologist Darwin Dissenters represent about 0.0157% of the US biologists that existed in 1999. As of 2006, the list was expanded to include non-US scientists, overestimating the number of US scientists that do not accept evolution.[135] Despite the increase in absolute number of scientists willing to sign the dissent form, proportionately the figures indicates the support from scientists for creationism and intelligent design is steadily decreasing, despite an increase in public support.
130. Staff, Discovery Institute (2007-03-08). Ranks of Scientists Doubting Darwin’s Theory on the Rise (english). Discovery Institute. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
131. Evans, Skip (2001-11-29). Doubting Darwinism through Creative License. National Center for Science Education. Retrieved on 2007-12-13.
132. NSF statistics on science graduates 1966-2001 (pdf) (english). Ntional Science Foundation.
133. 1999 SESTAT (Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data) Table C-1 (pdf) (english). National Science Foundation/Science Resources Statistics Division.
134. Chang, Kenneth. "Few Biologists But Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition" (php), The New York Times, 2006-03-21 language = english. ; text available without registering at Skeptical News (html) (english).
135. Crowther, Robert (2006-06-21). Dissent From Darwinism 'Goes Global' as Over 600 Scientists Around the World Express Their Doubts About Darwinian Evolution (html) (english). Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
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