Sometimes, the bare facts speak for themselves.
From a recent Pew polling release: “In 2009, 54% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats said humans have evolved over time, a difference of 10 percentage points. Today, 43% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats say humans have evolved, a 24-point gap.”
There’s evolving, and then there’s regressing.
Tomorrow it will be 2014–and 57% of Republicans and 23% of Democrats reject long-settled science upon which all biology is based.
Happy New Year.
Why would anyone even think for a moment the New Tea Party Republicans have or even want to evolve. Evolution No, Revolution Yes! both indicate a lack of forward progress or evolution.
It’s not just evolution that Republicans disbelieve; it’s much of science. They don’t believe in climate change, the dangers of fracking, and so forth. And beyond that, it’s the basic underpinnings of science that are problematic. Empirical evidence and algebra are liberal constructs, statistics are “skewed”, scientists have a godless agenda, and so forth. Plus, all of that competes with a Bible that offers contrary “truth” for which proof is not required and contrary evidence us the work of the devil.
I suspect that the demographic differences between the two groups are much more than political labels. The Republican group is probably older and less educated, more rigid and inclined to be authoritarian, but whatever the differences, they probably spell the demise of the Republican party. That’s really too bad, because we need at least two smart, informed and cognitively flexible groups of people to run this show.
My first reaction is to ask why our School Systems have failed so bad that evolution is not seen as a vital Scientific Fact and emphasized accordingly. Evolution is supported by Geology, Archeology and Molecular Evolution. Then we have the Bible Thumpers who would probably gather at the State House and frighten our Legislators into silence if the Educators gave evolution a strong endorsement to be taught as a vital element of the education curriculum, beginning early the education process.
I recall my daughters Science Books in Middle School and High School and word Evolution was hardly mentioned, let alone Human Evolution. The Science Books seemed to be almost designed to kill any interest in Science.
Louie, you can put it in this perspective. Assuming that a biology teacher spends an entire week focused on evolution and the arguments supporting it, that’s five hours. The kid may take biology, but not geology, and certainly not archaeology (and do you think a history teacher is going to even touch evolution??). Let’s say a school day is 6.5 hours, and there are 175 days for four years, that’s 4550 hours of high school instruction–sort of–and five of which, .01%, are spent learning about evolutionary biology. Then, put the school experience in the total perspective: Kids spend about 13% of their time in school. The rest is whatever, and if they are high school kids, of that 13% a lot of that is “whatever”, even during those discussions on evolutionary biology. I’m surprised they learn anything but the occasional pronouncement of some dramatic teacher who gets their attention for 3.8 seconds, after which they can continue thinking about sex, friends, cars and their personal appearance.
Even the 36% of Democrats is a rather frightening number.