IUBio

brain sizes: Einstein's and women's

John Knight jwknight at polbox.com
Mon Oct 28 21:57:27 EST 2002


"BradHAWK" <BradHAWK at tourette.net> wrote in message
news:3DBBA1DD.B6CA86EC at tourette.net...
> Dave Wilson wrote:
> >
> > BradHAWK wrote:
> > > Cary Kittrell wrote:
> > >>Well, hang around a bit more, and you'll learn that you should
> > >>never accept anything John says without asking to see his
> > >>sources.  For example, he has yet, in spite of many requests,
> > >>revealed to us where he gets that silly "fifty percent of
> > >>scientists" number.  Probably with very good reason.  As
> > >>to the 91% figure, it comes from a Gallup poll -- and once
> > >>again, you never trust anything John says without checking
> > >>his sources.  In this case, we know his sources.  Here you
> > >>go.  Read the results, and then you tell me whether his
> > >>"91%" is a lie or not.


You've been given this reference numerous times, so why do you keep claiming
that you never saw it?  Here is the complete article about the Gallup Poll
which shows that, and I quote:  "Only 10 percent [of Americans] said they
believe in evolution with no participation from God", and "Among scientists,
only 5 percent hold the literal Bible view, 40 percent believe in theistic
evolution and a majority, 55 percent, believe in evolution without help from
God."

What is so HARD to grasp about this, cary?

John Knight

http://christianparty.net/gallupcreation.htm





Views in U.S. Much Different Than Elsewhere

Nearly half of American adults believe in a biblical interpretation of
creation. (Source: The Gallup Organization) (ABCNEWS.com)



By Kenneth Chang
ABCNEWS.com
The decision of the Kansas Board of Education to drop evolution as a
necessary topic in the state's science classes has raised loud protests from
scientists and science educators. But if the curriculum were put to a
popular vote, perhaps Darwin's ideas would be in danger of being dropped in
some places.
     In views that diverge widely from those in other developed nations,
about 45 percent of American adults take the Bible's story of creation
literally.
     Only about one in 10 subscribe to a purely scientific explanation of
evolution.

Scientists' Call to Action


Most Americans do not want creationism to replace evolution in schools.
(Source: The Gallup Organization) (ABCNEWS.com)
"This is a fertile soil for such controversies to continue to thrive," says
George Bishop, a University of Cincinnati political science professor who
has compared different nations' views on evolution. "It just doesn't go
away."
     The controversy has also spurred some to call for scientists to get
more involved in education issues.
     "Creationists won in Kansas, and they are likely to win elsewhere,
simply because they care enough to get elected to school boards," said Fred
Spilhaus, executive director of the American Geophysical Union, in a
statement released last week. "Once again, those who value science and
support the teaching of evolution but were too busy to participate in local
politics lost, and science education will suffer as a result, as will
science itself."

Creation a Mainstream View
That could be an uphill battle.
     In a November 1997 poll by the Gallup Organization that quizzed people
about their views on the origin of humans, 44 percent agreed with the
statement, "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at
one time within the last 10,000 years or so."
     "That's a lot of people," Bishop says. "That's not like it's some small
minority position."
     Another 39 percent subscribed to a "theistic evolution" view, that
humans did develop over millions of years from lower life forms, but God
guided the process. Only 10 percent said they believe in evolution with no
participation from God. Seven percent had no opinion.
     The views have not changed much in recent years. A 1982 Gallup poll,
asking the same question, found a virtually identical distribution of
opinion.
     Among scientists, only 5 percent hold the literal Bible view, 40
percent believe in theistic evolution and a majority, 55 percent, believe in
evolution without help from God.

More Likely to Read Bible Literally
Creation is not the only area where many Americans take the Bible at its
word.
     In a Gallup poll last June, one-third of American adults surveyed
agreed that "The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken
literally, word for word."
     That was the 10th time since 1976 Gallup had asked this question, and
the percentage interpreting the Bible literally has fluctuated only
slightly, between between 32 and 40 percent.
     A 1991 survey asking the exact same question in 17 countries found
adults elsewhere were much less likely to take the literal view.
     In Great Britain, for instance, the percentage was 7 percent.
     "You would think they [the United States and England] would not be very
different as nations," Bishop says. "And here, Americans are almost five
times as likely to take the Bible literally than people in England."
     Germany, Norway, Russia and the Netherlands were also among the nations
where a smaller percentage of adults believed in taking the Bible literally.
"This situation in Kansas, it just wouldn't arise in Western Europe," Bishop
says.

More Religious Freedom a Factor?
According to Bishop, religious freedom in the United States may be one
reason for people's more conservative religious views. "Think of it as a
market," he says. "You have many different denominations competing for
customers. Because of that competition, there's more active recruiting,
proselytizing and other forms of bringing people into their particular fold.
That's one notion why this society is more religious than most developed
nations."
     Spilhaus said the American Geophysical Union was preparing "a call to
arms" to its members to get involved in local school boards. "Scientists
would be well-advised to run for school boards or, at the very least, to
actively support well-informed candidates," he says. "If scientists want to
see good science taught in the schools, they can't just participate as
teachers. They have to get out and get into the policy making aspect of it."
     Spilhaus was dismayed that the Kansas science standards diluted not
only evolution but also left out any mention of the Earth's age. "Boy, if
you start talking about the age of the Earth, you're talking about going
away from something that science considers pretty solid ground," Spilhaus
says. "There's very little doubt in our minds that the Earth is 4½ billion
years old. There is no credible evidence that supports a young Earth or that
supports the so-called creationist science."
     But Spilhaus may not want to take a vote on that.








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