33 percent of Americans reject evolution (page 3)

THE GLADIATOR

I have heard a rumour that Richard Dawkins is to be the next UK prime minister.

jgnat

..and Canadians are just plain loony.

Loonie

cantleave

Jgnat - the Black throated Diver or loon, amazing birds.

I find the ignorance that abounds in the US with regard to science is amazing, it's like there is no desire question anything.

rebel8

The US was first settled by people wanting religious freedom for themselves only, not others. Thus, they were close-minded when it came to different ideas.

Human societal norms are usually very slow to change.

According to a book on American theocracy, fundamentalistism has been a strong feature of American belief since Plymouth Rock. I had to read the book quickly but America has always had its high share of relgious crazies. A lot depends on where you live. Fundamentalists religions are growing in America. He had figures contrasting America with Western Europe.

Apognophos

It's not the education system, guys. The U.S. system is probably about as good as any other. To wit...

During the mid-1960's I was taught in High School that Evolution was an established Scientific Theory

So was I, in the mid-'80s, in the U.S. I wholeheartedly rejected this teaching because I was told by my parents and all the other adults I knew (all JWs) that it was a lie.

rebel8 and Band on the Run hit the nail on the head: it's in our cultural tradition to be super-religious. It's just one of several inherited cultures, the others being less religious. But it's still here, and it's perpetuated from generation to generation. It doesn't matter what your teacher tells you if you're growing up in a bubble of scientific ignorance at home.

Wasanelder Once

Someone has to watch Duck Dynasty.

JeffT

BU2B

There are no credible scientific studies backing the position taken by the anti-vaccine crowd. The only article ever published on the subject in a peer-reviewed journal has been withdrawn by that journal.

We now have sixty-five years of experience with water flouridation and the jury is in on that one as well, the benefits considerably outweigh the risks.

I will accept that animal rights is a personal moral decision (in fact, I support a number of the positions taken by these groups such as proper treatment of animals, and protection of animal habitat). However, many activists use very dubious science to support their positions.

Fencing

According to a book on American theocracy, fundamentalistism has been a strong feature of American belief since Plymouth Rock. I had to read the book quickly but America has always had its high share of relgious crazies. A lot depends on where you live. Fundamentalists religions are growing in America. He had figures contrasting America with Western Europe.

America was literally founded and populated by religious crazies. Public schools in the US don't teach the whole story behind the Puritan migration to the US. They always frame it as this poor, opressed group fleeing religious persecution in England and wanting to a create a land with true religious freedom. And they end the story there, where it picks up sometime around the revolution.

As rebel8 said, Puritans wanted all kinds of freedom of religion, but only for Puritans. And not even for all Puritans. There were Seperatist Puritans, who wanted a clean break with the Church of England, and the non-seperating Puritans who rejected a lot about the Church of England but still wanted to officially be part of it. And they didn't like each other, at all. Rhode Island was founded because the non-seperating Puritans banished a Seperatist Puritan, who was preaching a little too much religious tolerance, from Massachusetts.

Then you had the Quakers, who the Puritans essentially outlawed in their colonies, and even went so far as to hang them for the crime of being a Quaker in Boston. England actually had to intervene, eventually revoking the Massachusetts colonial chater, and sending in their own governor to lay the law down and force compliance with the Toleration Act, which decriminalized being a non-Anglican Protestant.

Yes, England had to force the Puritans to stop persecuting other religions. It's quite the opposite of the story we were told in school.

33 percent of Americans reject evolution