By now you’ve heard of the Pew research poll testing American’s knowledge of religion. You may not have learned about the poll’s evolution and creationism questions, as they’ve gotten much less press. In the poll…
[r]espondents were asked, “Which of these people developed the theory of evolution by natural selection?” and offered the choice of Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Clarence Darrow. Seventy-one percent of respondents selected the correct answer of Darwin, 6% selected Freud, 3% selected Darrow, and 20% said that they didn’t know. (In a 2009 survey conducted by the British Council, 84% of American respondents said that they had heard of Darwin.)
Respondents were also asked, “And which of these court trials focused on whether evolution could be taught in public schools?” and offered the choice of the Scopes trial, the Salem witch trials, and Brown vs. Board of Education. Only 31% of respondents selected the correct answer of the Scopes trial, 36% selected Brown vs. Board of Education, 3% selected the Salem witch trials, and 30% said that they didn’t know.
Interesting
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Over at All Things Wildly Considered, there’s an atheist quiz:
http://allthingswildlyconsidered.blogspot.com/2010/09/atheist-quiz.html
Not taken it yet, but will be doing so.
First, sleep.
Night Greg and readers.
I think that the creationists and other anti-Darwinians have done us all a great service, by making evolution far more visible than it was…
Sixty-six percent of respondents did not know what SCOTUS ruled in Brown v. Topeka B.O.E.?
Not to mention depressing, discouraging, disconcerting and terrifying.
I would love to talk with some of those people. I would be fascinated about the (non) thought processes of people who have their heads so far up their own asses.
I’m hoping the 3% are either people saying “WTF are you asking me such a stupid question” or “Evolution is witchcraft”. That is, joking or insane.
After having returned to “college,” it would be disingenuous of me to be surprised at all about the results. There are times when I believe the vacuum inside the skulls of some students have sucked all the atmosphere right out of the room.
Huff-Po has actually reproduced 15 of the questions from the survey, which you can answer and then have compared to the 3412 people who actually took the PEW survey. I scored 93%, and I fit into the ‘agnostic’ category of respondents.
See how you do.
These “person in the street” surveys are always disappointing because they show just how clueless the general population is about their own history, as well as the cultures of the peoples that make up our society. It’s a depressing reflection on the state of public education.
Athiests and agnostics score higher presumably because one is not born into being an atheist or agnostic, nor is there prominent social-conditioning to grow up athiest/agnostic in the same way there is to grow up as a member of one of the world’s major religions.
Athiesm and agnosticism are personal choices coming after questioning matters relating religion and spirituality, indicating that athiests and agnostics have therefore studied different religions.
If you are simply born into a certain religion, or brought up in a traditonally religious family and community, you don’t have to study. It’s already been figured out for you. To the extent your social interaction is limited only to others sharing your religion, you don’t need to know anything about any other religions.
Again we see the level of education positively associated with an increase of atheism and agnosticism.
The dynamic is skewed for professionals – i.e priests, preachers, religious scholars, etc, because their profession demands that they have detailed knowledge of at least one religion, and many scholars and priests have also been exposed to the basic tenets of religions other than their own theough their professional activities.
When I last visited the Philippines, I had a long conversation with the local priest in the village I was stayting in. He seemed quite comfotable with my agnosticism, and we talked very realistically about the interface between the social customs of the village and the local Church.
Such a discussion with the locals would have been impossible, because they had never actually studied religion, they had just always gone to Church services and participated in Church social funcions.
In that kind of an isolated community, one would not expect the people to know anything except the basic tenets of their own religion. I suspect that such is the condition in most of the third world, where people die near where they were born, and all their social interactions are with people inside their local community.
Sorry, I forgot to link to the Huff-Po page with the quiz on it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/how-much-do-you-know-abou_n_742636.html
Went to HP, did the quiz, got 93% and thought “A little biased towards Americans, but very basic”.
There is a major issue, it seems, with the religious education system in the USA.
But yeah, they really know who invented the Myth of Evilution!!