Comments on: Darwin’s Birthday Gallup Poll on “Belief in Evolution”

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:58:30 +0000

It isn’t moot. The wording of the question reflects the way the discourse has been framed and it has been framed in a way that distorts the truth. Creationism vs evolution is a false dichotomy. Evolution is the word that denotes the change in species over time due to genetic variation. There was a time when scientists didn’t know about it–and then they figured it out. It isn’t a belief. Creationism isn’t a science. It’s a religious belief. Calling it an ism doesn’t make it science and doesn’t make it reality. If scientists would stop using the words that cater to this false dichotomy, I think it would be a step toward educating the 70% or so of Americans who seem to be woefully in need of it.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:27:23 +0000

Spelling Troll! Spelling Troll!!

Lilian: I know. There are consistent patterns across Gallup, more or less, so they tend to be comparable for tracking from year to year. But the same essential question can be asked very differently.

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:05:12 +0000

There are several things I find weird about this. 1. “believe” 2. “theory” Why is the question ever phrased as a matter of belief? Are they asked “do you believe in air” or “do you believe in gravity”? Why not? And why the word theory. In layman’s English “theory” has the connotation of an idea, something just to throw around. For example the thesaurus lists “speculation, guess, surmise, suspicion” as synonyms and “fact, proof, reality” as antonyms of the word “theory”. Along with education, perhaps a new approach as to the language of writing about evolution (for Americans) would be a good idea.

By: Skysinger

Skysinger — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:03:07 +0000

“surpzising”, “surpizingly”?
Dude – please spellcheck

By: Cal Harth

Cal Harth — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:36:58 +0000

Stubborn ignorance is hard to comprehend. It is like encountering someone who insists that the sun rises in the west. Reasoning with such folks seems pointless.
Paul Sorvino was interviewed on MPR this morning about a human burial site that he and his team discovered in the Sahara desert. The burials occurred during a wetter period about 70,000 years ago.
I was amazed at the questions posed by two callers. One questioned weather dinosaurs had been present at the site with the humans. The other wanted to know if it could have been the biblical Garden of Eden.
Sorvino was too nice to them. I would have laughed out loud.