Many Americans Continue To Deny The Evidence

[florduh]

Results of new poll: Religious and/or political beliefs easily trump science, evidence and facts.

 

No surprises here!

 

"When you are putting up facts against faith, facts can't argue against faith," said 2012 Nobel Prize winning biochemistry professor Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/21/big-bang-poll-american-doubt_n_5184931.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

 

 

 

 

 

[LifeCycle]

Disturbing, disappointing, discouraging...

[Thurisaz]

If it's at least a bit of solace for you US folks, I recently heard that Europe ain't the invincible bastion of reason either; we do have less total nutjobs than the States (or so it seems) but there seem to be more than a handful of babblical cretinists here for example.

[midniterider]

"While scientists believe the universe began with a Big Bang, most Americans put a big question mark on the concept, an Associated Press-GfK poll found.

Yet when it comes to smoking causing cancer or that a genetic code determines who we are, the doubts disappear."

 

Accepting or not accepting the Big Bang Theory has little affect on my everyday life. Knowing that smoking can shorten my life is very useful knowledge.

 

The nature of science is that answers change as scientists acquire more (evidence) information. For years soy milk was supposed to be better for me than cow milk. Now science is saying something different. Medical opinions flip flop from decade to decade. It can be frustrating.

 

People don't like adopting new mindsets about what worked so well for many years.

 

That's my guess as to why some people choose religion over science. It's rooted in tradition and doesnt change (too often).

[TrueFreedom]

At least most accepted mental illness as a physical health condition rather than blaming demons.

[SilentLoner]

Disturbing, disappointing, discouraging...

 

Don't you favor vaccine rejectionists?

[Sexton Blake]

The big bang idea has no credible origin and relies on some impossibilities. Believing it because we have nothing better is just ignorance.

 

The jury is still out on global warming. Certainly we have been told many lies about it by people with agendas, people wanting big bucks from dull witted politicians, and various interested companies. Also it was some FIVE DEGREES hotter than now 800 years ago, when Greenland really was green and we have no evidence of worldwide floods so why should we worry about an ALLEGED temperature rise of a degree or two by 2100?

 

As to creationism, a frightening percentage of Americans are various degrees of illiterate so what such ignorant people believe should be of no interest to the rest of us.

[Blood]

Those results depress and upset some of America's top scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, who vouched for the science in the statements tested, calling them settled scientific facts.

"Science ignorance is pervasive in our society, and these attitudes are reinforced when some of our leaders are openly antagonistic to established facts," said 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine winner Randy Schekman of the University of California, Berkeley.

 

 

Look in the mirror if you want to blame somebody. Scientists talk to themselves, and have created a discipline completely removed from the reality of working people. It's no wonder that the people flock to churches, where pastors comfort them with fantasy. You guys helped build this monster through your insularity. 

[Thurisaz]

The big bang idea has no credible origin and relies on some impossibilities. Believing it because we have nothing better is just ignorance.

 

- we can observe that everything out there in space is moving away from everything else. Extrapolate that far enough into the past and you arrive at the conclusion that all this has been at the same place once.

- impossibilities such as...?

- Well if you can offer something that better explains what we can observe about the universe, be welcome to share

 

The jury is still out on global warming. Certainly we have been told many lies about it by people with agendas, people wanting big bucks from dull witted politicians, and various interested companies. Also it was some FIVE DEGREES hotter than now 800 years ago, when Greenland really was green and we have no evidence of worldwide floods so why should we worry about an ALLEGED temperature rise of a degree or two by 2100?

Was it 5 degrees warmer everywhere at that time?

For all I know, yes Greenland was once literally green, but <mild irony> I heard that the world's a little larger than just Greenland. </mild irony>

Besides, "the jury is still out"? If you mean that scientists are still debating about some of the finer details, well yes they are. They do the same about evolutionary theory and I trust none of us here draws the conclusion from there that "therefore ebilushen™ is a lie!"... or do we have some evolution deniers here among us ex-christians?

 

For the record, the overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields relevant to climate/weather agree that global warming is real and human-caused.

[Deidre]

Sadly, many people choose faith over science because it's easier. Many religious people don't understand science (if you've ever debated a creationist you'll see how little he/she knows about evolution) so religion is the easier of the two to submit to.

 

I'm not implying religious people are less intelligent but rather they choose religion because it doesn't require critical thinking. Once a theist starts down the path of critical thinking, they'll more often than not leave religion.

 

That's what happened to me and probably for many of us here.

[buffettphan]

Click on image to enlarge

 

 

 

[Thurisaz]

...I'm not implying religious people are less intelligent but rather they choose religion because it doesn't require critical thinking. Once a theist starts down the path of critical thinking, they'll more often than not leave religion...

 

...Many religious people don't understand science (if you've ever debated a creationist you'll see how little he/she knows about evolution) so religion is the easier of the two to submit to.

 

Agreed inasmuch as "religion" means "dogmatic abrahamic religion" or morontheism as I like to call it.

 

Feel compelled to point out again though... not all religion is morontheism. Hey I'm religious too but I science, even though yes, my religious beliefs aren't exactly rational/scientific either. Important thing here is that I don't demand that everyone else agrees with me regarding my faith and that I don't use my faith to argue about anything with people who don't share it.

 

Okay now I can safely say that I met my quota... thanks for your attention

[francesco]

I agree with de mello about this behavior:

that is not faith, that's blind fanaticism

faith is a courage to test your belief with reality and left the belief that is not match to the reality

[Deidre]

''morontheism'' ...giggle

 

took me a minute to see that.

 

you are religious? The thing is, if your faith doesn't conflict with the truths of science, then no problem there.

[Deidre]

I agree with de mello about this behavior:

that is not faith, that's blind fanaticism

faith is a courage to test your belief with reality and left the belief that is not match to the reality

as a former Christian, I remember being discouraged to test my faith. Because one shouldn't 'test' God. So, you sweep under the carpet any questions or concerns you're having over your faith...and keep on moving.

 

But, eventually ...you decide to stop sweeping, and start getting real with yourself. I honestly believe if more religious people applied critical thinking, they would stop being religious. Not to say that religious people never apply critical thinking. They just don't apply it when it comes to their faith.

[Vigile]

 

Those results depress and upset some of America's top scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, who vouched for the science in the statements tested, calling them settled scientific facts.

"Science ignorance is pervasive in our society, and these attitudes are reinforced when some of our leaders are openly antagonistic to established facts," said 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine winner Randy Schekman of the University of California, Berkeley.

 

 

Look in the mirror if you want to blame somebody. Scientists talk to themselves, and have created a discipline completely removed from the reality of working people. It's no wonder that the people flock to churches, where pastors comfort them with fantasy. You guys helped build this monster through your insularity. 

 

 

They should dumb themselves down?  They are intentionally being cryptic? 

 

Are American scientists somehow worse than European scientists, explaining why Americans flock to church in larger droves? 

[Thurisaz]

''morontheism'' ...giggle

 

took me a minute to see that.

 

you are religious? The thing is, if your faith doesn't conflict with the truths of science, then no problem there.

 

Well the good thing is, not only have I yet to meet any Asatruar who demands something like "literalism" from others, but our "scripture" is a collection of sagas. Just how much metaphorical/spiritual truth may be in there is debatable, but no one can point to any stanza in the Poetic Edda or elsewhere and say "See? This says you must swallow it all hook line and sinker or else!".

 

Besides, I'm rather laid-back even compared to some other Asatruar I've met; unless you meet me on a day when I wear my Mjolnir openly (sometimes but not too often), or when I choose to discuss religous topics with someone else (also rare in everyday life), or you visit my home and see my small altar in the corner, you won't be able to tell I'm in any way religious

 

Doesn't mean there's no nutjobs in German heathenry of course... there are those "ariosophists" who keep trying to claim that Asatru is the true faith of the Aryan Master Race™ (funny how it so often turns out that they are the very same who try to weld jeeebus into the Northern sagas as an integral part of our pantheons... ), and some years ago a total idiot decided to declare himself Alsherjarsgode (kind of like a heathen pope) of all German heathens. The response of everyone I encountered was a heartfelt "go fuck your own mother asshole!"

 

So yeah bottom line... where the sagas collide with science, the winner is clear to me, and it ain't the sagas.

[Neverlandrut]

We're all susceptible to dominate beliefs in our culture and to confirmation bias, hence the reason we have the scientific method, to discern between what seems to be true and what is true.

What bugs me about fundies is that they fail to understand that they are making extraordinary claims. Not only are they making extraordinary claims, but they are making extraordinary, absolute claims. Claims of this caliber require evidence of the same caliber to substantiate it.

[Sexton Blake]

I HAVE ADDED MY FURTHER COMMENTS IN CAPITALS TO DISTINGUISH THEM FROM EARLIER COMMENTS.

 

The big bang idea has no credible origin and relies on some impossibilities. Believing it because we have nothing better is just ignorance.

 
- we can observe that everything out there in space is moving away from everything else. Extrapolate that far enough into the past and you arrive at the conclusion that all this has been at the same place once.
- impossibilities such as...?
- Well if you can offer something that better explains what we can observe about the universe, be welcome to share

 

EXTRAPOLATE THAT BACK FAR ENOUGH AND EVERYTHING IS ABOVE BLACK HOLE DENSITY. BLACK HOLES DO NOT EXPAND, SO HOW DID THE UNIVERSE OVERCOME IT'S OWN LAWS?

 

SO CALLED EXPANSION IS JUST REDSHIFT, THE SAME AS WE SEE LOOKING AT GRAVITATION REDSHIFT. THE UNIVERSE IS FULL OF GRAVITATIONAL SOURCES WHICH AFFECT PHOTONS TRAVELLING ZILLIONS OF LIGHT YEARS BY DRAGGING ON THEM CAUSING THEM TO REDSHIFT. NO NEED FOR ALL THE PROBLEMS THAT COME WITH INFLATION AND EXPANSION, WHICH STARTS WITH A TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE SINGULARITY OR WHAT FUDGE YOU WANT TO CALL IT THESE DAYS.
 

The jury is still out on global warming. Certainly we have been told many lies about it by people with agendas, people wanting big bucks from dull witted politicians, and various interested companies. Also it was some FIVE DEGREES hotter than now 800 years ago, when Greenland really was green and we have no evidence of worldwide floods so why should we worry about an ALLEGED temperature rise of a degree or two by 2100?

Was it 5 degrees warmer everywhere at that time?

For all I know, yes Greenland was once literally green, but <mild irony> I heard that the world's a little larger than just Greenland. </mild irony>

Besides, "the jury is still out"? If you mean that scientists are still debating about some of the finer details, well yes they are. They do the same about evolutionary theory and I trust none of us here draws the conclusion from there that "therefore ebilushen™ is a lie!"... or do we have some evolution deniers here among us ex-christians?

 

For the record, the overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields relevant to climate/weather agree that global warming is real and human-caused.

 

SUCH TEMPERATURES LASTED A FEW HUNDRED YEARS, NOT WEEKS AS IN A HOT SUMMER SOMEWHERE. I PICKED GREENLAND OUT AS AN EXAMPLE.

 

I GUESS WHERE YOU ARE THE PRESS IS GAGGED BY THOSE MAKING BIG BUCKS OUT OF GULLIBLE POLITICIANS WHO WILL BELIEVE ANY NONSENSE SHOVELLED TO THEM. THE BRITISH SAILY MAIL HAS HAD MANY ARTICLES EXPLAINING WHY IT IS A FRAUD, QUOTING SUCH PEOPLE AS NASA, OTHER PEOPLE EXPLAINING THAT GLOBAL TEMPERATURES HAVE BEEN FAIRLY STEADY SINCE 1998 AND ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE 9WHICH EXPOSES SOME TYPICAL LIES OF THE GW CRANKS):

 

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/5/prweb10772757.htm

 

I SUPPOSE YOU'LL HAVE YOUR DECK CHAIR OUT NEXT WINTER AND HAVE A BBQ ON THE PATIO?

[Thought2Much]

 

I HAVE ADDED MY FURTHER COMMENTS IN CAPITALS TO DISTINGUISH THEM FROM EARLIER COMMENTS.

 

The big bang idea has no credible origin and relies on some impossibilities. Believing it because we have nothing better is just ignorance.

 

- we can observe that everything out there in space is moving away from everything else. Extrapolate that far enough into the past and you arrive at the conclusion that all this has been at the same place once.

- impossibilities such as...?

- Well if you can offer something that better explains what we can observe about the universe, be welcome to share

 

EXTRAPOLATE THAT BACK FAR ENOUGH AND EVERYTHING IS ABOVE BLACK HOLE DENSITY. BLACK HOLES DO NOT EXPAND, SO HOW DID THE UNIVERSE OVERCOME IT'S OWN LAWS?

 

SO CALLED EXPANSION IS JUST REDSHIFT, THE SAME AS WE SEE LOOKING AT GRAVITATION REDSHIFT. THE UNIVERSE IS FULL OF GRAVITATIONAL SOURCES WHICH AFFECT PHOTONS TRAVELLING ZILLIONS OF LIGHT YEARS BY DRAGGING ON THEM CAUSING THEM TO REDSHIFT. NO NEED FOR ALL THE PROBLEMS THAT COME WITH INFLATION AND EXPANSION, WHICH STARTS WITH A TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE SINGULARITY OR WHAT FUDGE YOU WANT TO CALL IT THESE DAYS.

 

 

Uh, yeah. Sure. Whatever you say.

 

I don't think you have the slightest clue why it is pretty much universally accepted by scientists in the field of cosmology that the big bang happened more or less the way they think it did. And by "more or less," I mean "pretty damn near exactly, to almost ridiculous levels of precision." There have been far too many physical properties of the big bang predicted by science, only to be observed later (sometimes decades later), to be coincidence.

 

Do you have any sources for your assertions regarding the big bang? (I can't wait to see what you dredge up. This should be hilarious.)

[Sexton Blake]

Flat Earther. You produce no evidence and are just waving your hands and saying the others are right, as they themselves are doing.

 

There is NO evidence of expansion. We have no photos of galaxies moving about. There is just the redshift, which can be explained by gravity, or perhaps you think that a photon can travel for billions of years through a universe full of gravitational sources and not be affected?

 

The big bang singularity is one step from goddidit. It has no remotely credible origin. It is impossible. Inflation is just an idea too. We have no evidence that energy or whatever can move faster than light. Where did all the NEW Dark Energy come from several billion years ago? Did god get bored and decide to speed things up a bit?

 

Again. Run expansion backwards in your mind. The universe gets denser and denser until though still fairly large, it is of black hole density. How did it expand beyond this? Black holes do not expand. This alone disproves the big bang idea and shows how little thought anyone has given to it.

 

Back in 1926, Eddington showed that from (old) starlight alone, we could expect a background temperature for the Universe of 3.K.

 

As to global warming, just listening to the radio. Canada has just had one of it's worst winters in a long time across the country. In Toronto, the temperature was below -20.C on ten different occasions. Winnipeg had some of the worst weather in 75 years.

[Thurisaz]

Oh pleeeeeeease not another BO!

[older]

Sexton:

 

You have quite a knowledge of science. Can you tell us about your studies of redshift? What exactly is redshift? How does it work and how is it measured? Thanks.

[Thought2Much]

Flat Earther. You produce no evidence and are just waving your hands and saying the others are right, as they themselves are doing.

 

There is NO evidence of expansion. We have no photos of galaxies moving about. There is just the redshift, which can be explained by gravity, or perhaps you think that a photon can travel for billions of years through a universe full of gravitational sources and not be affected?

 

The big bang singularity is one step from goddidit. It has no remotely credible origin. It is impossible. Inflation is just an idea too. We have no evidence that energy or whatever can move faster than light. Where did all the NEW Dark Energy come from several billion years ago? Did god get bored and decide to speed things up a bit?

 

Again. Run expansion backwards in your mind. The universe gets denser and denser until though still fairly large, it is of black hole density. How did it expand beyond this? Black holes do not expand. This alone disproves the big bang idea and shows how little thought anyone has given to it.

 

Back in 1926, Eddington showed that from (old) starlight alone, we could expect a background temperature for the Universe of 3.K.

 

As to global warming, just listening to the radio. Canada has just had one of it's worst winters in a long time across the country. In Toronto, the temperature was below -20.C on ten different occasions. Winnipeg had some of the worst weather in 75 years.

 

So, no sources for you assertions, then. Just empty statements. Now I'm just not sure whether or not you're some kind of Poe.

[Sexton Blake]

You are just using denial as an argument.

 

You have answered NONE of the points I raised so not worth bringing up others.