Uncommon Descent

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8 December 2009

Food For Thought

Barry Arrington

From Blake Hounshell

Percentage of Americans who believe in angels: 55

Percentage of Americans who believe in evolution: 39

Percentage of Americans who believe in anthropogenic global warming: 36

Percentage of Americans who believe in ghosts: 34

Percentage of Americans who believe in UFOs: 34

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This entry was posted Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Intelligent Design. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

8 Responses

1

Retroman

12/08/2009

6:04 pm

What do those numbers show?


2

GilDodgen

12/08/2009

6:24 pm

It would be interesting to see what the “evolution” percentages would be if evolution were to be clearly defined in standard Darwinian terms: 1) Inanimate matter spontaneously self-generated and came to life as the first cell through chemical processes and chance (don’t give me any BS about how Darwinian theory is not ultimately premised on this underlying assumption and assertion), and 2) Once the first cell came into being it progressed to become everything in biology (including human beings and human minds) through a process of random errors, with the good errors being preserved and the bad errors being thrown out by the mechanism of natural selection.

If Darwinian theory were presented as it really is, as opposed to how it is sold, the average person would probably ask, and rightly so, Are you kidding me?


3

waterbear

12/08/2009

7:15 pm

Percentage of Americans who are baseball fans: 36
Percentage of Americans who said the U.S. made the right decision to invade Iraq: 37
Percentage of Americans who who accept ESP: 48
Percentage of Americans who say they’ve heard God speak to them: 20
Percentage of Americans who say they have witnessed miraculous healings: 25
Percentage of Americans who believe the moon landings were faked: 6


4

Berceuse

12/08/2009

7:58 pm

Gil, I agree. I think when Darwinism is presented in the most general of terms, many people will think it’s somewhat reasonable (especially with what our schools teach us).

However, playing devil’s advocate here, one could also ask a question about God/Jesus in a way that would probably entice some people to say they don’t believe it.


5

Mung

12/08/2009

10:55 pm

Percentage of Americans who believe survey results about what Americans believe: 12


6

IrynaB

12/09/2009

5:20 am

Wow, it appears the evidence for angels must be very strong, assuming the opinion of Americans is strongly correlated with reality.


7

O'Leary

12/09/2009

9:52 am

Re belief in angels: Angels are a teaching of all the major ethical monotheist traditions, and most of the minor ones. So we should not be surprised that a much higher number of people believe in them than believe in, say, UFOs – which are not taught by any seriously regarded institution.

Man-caused global warming is different. Despite the fact that the most important pundits and the biggest governments are strenuously fronting the idea, people still just don’t believe. The belief is down there with the UFOs rather than up there with the angels.

That may relate to the snowstorm raging outside, as I type this. The only people global warming would be bad news for around here are snow plow operators.

If the Catholic Church can more easily get people to believe in angels than the US government can get them to believe in man-caused global warming, you can be pretty sure it is a hard sell.

I predict many civil liberties fights in the future.


8

Mung

12/09/2009

5:15 pm

Percentage of Americans who believe it’s best not to believe in anything: 28