What can you say about the news that an increasing number of self-identified conservatives/GOPers do NOT "believe in" Evolution? Even using the construction "believe in" to describe their attitude toward this scientific fact is strange, since it's like saying one doesn't "believe in" the theory of gravity. It's absurd.
But more absurd is the disturbing increase in the percentage of Republicans who stubbornly refuse to accept the fact of evolution. On the bright side, young people of all political affiliations do not believe evolution is a lie like the big bang, straight from the pit of hell.
Evolution is a fact. But the anti-science segment of the GOP has managed to outdo itself in its rejection of facts in favor of, what? superstition? ignorance? Both? It seems so. That may explain their eagerness to believe in and embrace any rumor or lie about President Obama.
"Each generation of Americans, Pew found, is increasingly more likely to accept natural human evolution; Americans 18-29 do so by a 68-27 margin, while the number for seniors (65+) is 49-36.
Likewise, white evangelical protestants are the group most likely to reject evolution, while the religiously unaffiliated are by far the most likely to accept it.
The winnowing of self-identified Republicans to these demographic groups has been dramatic in recent years. The overall number of Americans who identify as Republicans hovered around 29 percent from from 2008-2012 as American seniors became dramatically more Republican, the pro-GOP margin shifting from 35-34 in 2008 to 39-29 in 2012.
White evangelicals have become similarly more Republican at the same time. So on one look, the decline in Republican belief in evolution is perfectly consistent with one of the most fundamental trends in American politics: a greying, born-again Republican Party increasingly out of step with the rest of America’s political views." --Think Progress
USAToday:
"While nearly two-thirds of Americans say humans have evolved over time, a third of U.S. adults disagree, according to new survey results from the Pew Research Center.
The Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project report...found that 33% think "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."
Sixty percent agreed with evolution. Among those who agree with human evolution, about half attribute it to "natural processes such as natural selection."
Whereas, 24% of adults say "a supreme being guided the evolution of living things." The survey also found disagreement across political and religious lines.
Among white evangelical Protestants, 64% say that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."
Surprising Number Of Americans Don't Believe In Evolution
There's good reason the GOP is seen as the anti-science party. The recent poll on the number of GOPers who do not accept Evolution explains that reason.
And don't miss this:
Bill Nye To Debate Evolution At Kentucky Creation Museum
UPDATE:
P.E. commenter, B.B.Idaho, linked to this interesting article on why only 6% of scientists identify with the GOP (and B.B.I. wondered why that number was so high).
"One of the great political shifts in the past decade has been the move of scientists toward the Democratic Party, a casualty of the Republican Party’s war on reality. It’s not about politics for scientists, it’s about the fact that only one party accepts scientific findings on everything from global warming to evolutionary theory to what does and doesn’t prevent pregnancy.
Only 6 percent of scientists identify as Republican, whereas 55 percent identify as Democratic.
In October of 2012, 68 Nobel-winning scientists co-signed a strong endorsement of Obama, saying the President “has delivered on his promise to renew our faith in science-based decision making.
"Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun." --Richard DawkinsAnd don't miss this:
Bill Nye To Debate Evolution At Kentucky Creation Museum
UPDATE:
P.E. commenter, B.B.Idaho, linked to this interesting article on why only 6% of scientists identify with the GOP (and B.B.I. wondered why that number was so high).
"One of the great political shifts in the past decade has been the move of scientists toward the Democratic Party, a casualty of the Republican Party’s war on reality. It’s not about politics for scientists, it’s about the fact that only one party accepts scientific findings on everything from global warming to evolutionary theory to what does and doesn’t prevent pregnancy.
Only 6 percent of scientists identify as Republican, whereas 55 percent identify as Democratic.
In October of 2012, 68 Nobel-winning scientists co-signed a strong endorsement of Obama, saying the President “has delivered on his promise to renew our faith in science-based decision making.
****************
"So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the world." --E. O. Wilson
"If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve." ---Jello Biafra
13 comments:
Natural selection at work within politics?
Survival of the fittest?
If so the GOP faces eventual extention.
Certainly in its current form.
Have you changed your e-mail address Shaw?
But more absurd is the disturbing increase in the numbers of Americans who stubbornly refuse to accept the fact of evolution.
Actually, the percentage of Americans who accept evolution is increasing. 60% is the highest figure I've seen. Of course, anyone who claims to accept evolution but believes that "a supreme being guided the evolution of living things" doesn't understand what evolution is, but it's better than rejecting it completely.
What is increasing is the percentage of Republicans who reject evolution, and I suspect what's happening there is that a steady stream of Republicans who understand science are giving up on the party in disgust, leaving it, and no longer self-identifying as Republicans in these surveys. It's increasingly just the anti-science ignorantsia that remain Republicans.
Good catch, Infidel753. I will correct what SHOULD have read: "increase in the PERCENTAGE OF REPUBLICANS..."
Blogging on the fly yesterday and today.
RN, my email is the same as always. Why?
Creation/evolution is concerned with where we have been. I'm more concerned with where we are going.
6% of scientists are Republicans . Why is that number so high?
I am hoping to evolve...some day. no hurry...... being primitive rather suits me.
hope you dug out of snow alright.
weather here has been dreadfuly cold and it is headed your way. tomorrow's HIGH temp is expected to be -18. I think god is changing the climate...I mean, it certainly could not be the fault of humans, right
One trick pony cons still blubbering about Benghazi! That's all they got and they got nuthin'. Meanwhile PBO's approval numbers are improving and people are signing up for Obamacare. This will make them meaner and meaner. They hate success, especially when a Democrat is in office.
The numbers are improving everywhere, stock market, manufacturing, housing, unemployment.
Watch out for hate-filled comments being lobed all over the con blogs!
INCOMING...1, 2, 3...
Still a classic
If you didn't catch Ken Ham in Jesus Camp give it a look. Frightening.
George: Way to go: you shifted discussion from something the GOP types are dead wrong on, to something they are correct on (Benghazi).
and on evolution, the amazing thing is, the number of Democrats who are dead wrong on this is shockingly high also, while still a little less than the Wrong-O GOPers.
According to the poll you linked to a whopping 52% of Republicans believe "God created humans in the present form within the past 10,000 years. That's shocking.
For Democrats and Independents, it's the same percentage 34%. Still too high, but not as shocking as 52%
So 66% of Independents and Democrats do NOT believe humans were created by a god in their present form 10,000 years ago.
G.C. can speak for himself, but where is the evidence that Benghazi was anything but a terrible, terrible tragedy? If the GOPers had any solid evidence of a cover-up or scandal or whatever they conjure up to ensnare Mr. Obama's administration, it would have come out by now. Good investigations would have uncovered what they hoped for by now, as the investigation into, say, Watergate did. Darrell Issa's best efforts have come up empty.
Horrible, tragic things like this happen in every administration. That doesn't mean there's a scandal behind every tragedy.
The Benghazi murders were probably partly the result of a screwed up government operation to secure weapons we gave rebels in Libya.
Doherty and Woods were contractors who were securing MANPADS, or shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, and destroying them.
Stuff goes bad. I get that. Not a scandal. But come clean. All is forgiven. Just come clean.
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