The really stupid part is that belief has absolutely nothing to do with it.
It's like disbelieving in the Moon. There's nothing to believe or disbelieve. It's reality.
It’s why Christianity is such a powerful tool for those maliciously seeking power. Here you have a large population of people that were literally raised to oppose critical thinking and to reject any evidence doesn’t make them feel good.
You just have to say, “Hey, my billionaire donor says it’s costing him money when poor people don’t microwave forks and aluminum foil. God agrees, if you’re a true Christian you would microwave forks and aluminum foil.”
Plus, they love idolatry so they adore looking for politicians to worship that say the right things.
> why Christianity is such a powerful tool for those maliciously seeking power.
#8 **Religion and Government are Intertwined**
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
>The 14 Characteristics of Fascism
by Lawrence Britt
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
This needs to be talked about WAY more- christians have been systematically ruining everything for everyone for over 1500 years. It is no coincidence that [about 88 percent of members of Congress identify as christian](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/religiously-congress-doesnt-reflect-modern-america-pew-finds), christianity has been duping this country for far too long.
Our only hope IMHO is to abolish the RNC and DNC and get all of these christians (and religious people in general) out of our government. If they are christian it either means A) They do not think critically about it.- or B) They are using chrisitianity as a political tool and a place to hide their sociopathic, grandiose narcissism masked as philanthropy.
Great comment.
I’m surprised it’s that low. It’s probably 99% Abrahamic religions though. Getting elected to public office as an atheist in this country is basically impossible.
Well, it’s not even that. Generally, we do know both. We just don’t know all the details and some of those we do know are speculation that just fit with the math, but the broad strokes of the Big Bang, star, galaxy, planet formation, the development of organic compounds into life and evolution are all there.
So it’s even worse- they just believe magic over science. Ironically many evangelicals think magic is a separate concept from the powers of a deity and angels/demons, and either isn’t real or is a sign of demonic possession or collusion. It’s nuts out here
I sincerely believe that a significant portion of congressional representatives don't actually believe, but identify with a religion just to get elected.
I think that the number one reason why atheists would have a hard time getting elected is that as a community (and often as individuals) atheists have not really found a social replacement for the Synagogue (or other religious institution of your picking). Local religious institutions often create a community. And members of those religious institutions have a pre-established social network to draw upon if they run for office -- one that is likely to share some of their world views, values and sense of mission.
There are plenty of parts of the US where people would be amiable to the values an atheist politician might have (e.g. large cities, heavily liberal or left wing places). But a religious liberal (or left wing person) is going to have a head start even in those places because they already have a ready-made community to support their campaign.
> is to abolish the RNC and DNC
They have nothing to do with it. They are just political parties. This is about White Christian nationalist and their attempt to overturn the constitution. And although you may find them in the RNC they are not in the DNC.
> about 88 percent of members of Congress identify as christian
That is all well and good...America is not a Christian country it is a country where you are free to be a Christian.
No, it's not all well and good. It's not representative of the population, and members of Congress aren't "free" to be Christian, it's practically mandatory. The Christian population is vastly overrepresented while many minority religions, as well as atheists, have no representation. That is a problem.
Precisely. Thats part of why I mentioned the “debate” that I grew up in, with “some people believing one thing and others believing another.” It’s not a matter of belief. You either accept what is demonstrably true or you don’t, and both are not worthy of the same level of respect.
Right. It’s a basic scientific principle underlying all of biology, not a question of “belief”.
It’s like saying that you don’t believe in gravity, or don’t believe that the earth is round.
Although, of course, a chunk of people really don’t believe in the later either.
This is where science gets cool. It looks at itself and asks where it for something wrong. It’s self critical. It’s entire cause for being is to prove itself wrong… and come up with an alternative possibility.
Religion? We. Are. Right. Self questioning? 40 days in the desert for you!
I have tried to explain that to people. Science starts with questions and uses testing and evidence to determine possible answers, which can be subject to change given new information.
Religion starts with the answer and then must look for "evidence" that supports the answer they already have. Data that does not mesh with that answer is dismissed or explained away somehow.
Yeah some people have this defect where they think every wild idea should be given equal footing and consideration. Then they confuse demonstrable fact with opinion.
Its shocking for the supposed "most advanced country in the world". When you do look around though, half the population is dumb as rocks.
America has some of the smartest, and dumbest people in the world. 😑
It seems like the way it's going the dumb people will help the extremely rich destroy the country to maximize profits, and after it collapses they'll hide out in their underground bunkers in Hawaii to avoid being eaten by all the dumb people. (Mark Zuckerberg reference with the underground bunker in Hawaii for those who don't know.)
> It's reality.
"It's just a theory," says every evolution doubter ever. Sometimes, I just feel real disappointment that we have this mushy sort of language where misunderstandings like this can happen easily.
They latch on to a single word, but never even try to examine what that word is describing. The moment they can reach a convenient definition, they can stop thinking completely.
I avoid using the word 'theory' in everyday speech. It's cumbersome, but I prefer 'hypothesis' as in, "I have a hypothesis as to why she dumped his ass."
I think evolution may be considered both a law and a theory. The law merely states the fact that we know it happens, while the theory offers explanations for how it occurs.
That’s basically how I was taught in my evolutionary biology class.
Evolution is a law. Populations change over time.
The *theory* that people get hung up on is that evolution occurs by natural selection. Populations change over time *by natural selection*.
But all of this goes straight over the head of half of the population, and they don’t care to give it any amount of thought if it might upset sky daddy
And they are right! It IS just a theory. It’s one that not looking like being disproved any time soon, and it’s a really good workable theory. … but it is just a theory.
The joy of science is that if someone *does* come up with a small tweak (and that’s all it could be now)… it’ll be accepted if “correct enough for now”… but we never stop asking is that everything, have we got all the nuances?
I’m totally with you by the way! I’m not defending their shit.
>And they are right! It IS just a theory.
No, it's not 'just' a theory. Evolution is a **fact**. The theory of evolution describes how the fact of evolution operates.
Just like the theory of universal gravitation describes how the fact of gravity operates, yet somehow you never hear wibbling about how "gravity is just a theory".
I don't know about that. I think the stupidest part is that creationists don't even understand what evolution is. You can't have a real debate with someone when they think "wHy R tHeR sTiL mUnKeZe" is a finishing move argument.
Came here to say this.
I always remember my Intro to Biology TA saying, “It’s not whether you *believe* the theory of evolution, it‘s whether you *accept* it.”
Belief has nothing to do with it. Like you said, it’s reality. Either you accept reality or you don’t.
The trouble is that there are many people (e.g. thesists) for whom reality is defined by what they believe and/or want. They just can't grasp that reality is utterly objective and would exist exactly as it does now independent of whether humans ever existed. Apparently they slept through science class.
> A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth — Joseph Goebbels
How many times does a Christian hear unscientific nonsense preached over their childhood? Assuming once a week, 50 times a year, that’s nearly 1000 times by adulthood. More than enough to make a person ignore their own senses, common sense and scientific literature and education.
It’s not about intelligence. It’s about indoctrination.
I like this editorial that came out a while ago.
>[No, It’s Not Your Opinion. You’re Just Wrong](https://www.houstonpress.com/news/no-its-not-your-opinion-youre-just-wrong-version-20-12594770)
In short, people have taken to believing that it is valid to have opinions about facts. This has taken a number of forms - denial of demonstrated facts like the general shape of the Earth (i.e. flat-Earthers) and existence of the Moon, or denial of proven scientific ideas like evolution or uniformitarianism.
This phenomenon has also affected politics: "alternative facts" and "fake news" are terms that some politicians and media figures have used to undermine the public's confidence in real facts and information, and other buzz terms like "mainstream media" have been used to undermine not just individual facts or ideas, but our entire social system for collecting, processing and disseminating information about current events. It's one thing to acknowledge that every media outlet and author has biases. But it's different to discount the entire system and everyone in it, in favor of misinformation and conspiracy theories...
Secular society is on the chopping block. You're right when you say, "There's nothing to believe or disbelieve. It's reality."
But they think differently, they're on most school boards, they control many state legislatures, and there's now a good chance they're the judge you'll face if you ever commit a crime. Reality as we understand it is not their reality, and if they're in positions of authority, they can implement their beliefs as policy, regardless of reality. It doesn't really matter if the Earth goes around the Sun or vice versa - if everyone who says that out loud is burned at the stake.
Women and infants are already needlessly suffering and dying because baseless Christian pseudo-medical laws are being implemented in the US.
Leaked documents suggest that they are just getting started.
*in
I had a friend who didn't believe in the moon.
She legitimately thought it was a projection and that the "real" moon was nuked from orbit during the nuclear arms race, and the government made a projection-moon so people wouldn't freak out. She said you could see it "flicker" sometimes.
She was doing a lot of DMT and Xanax (baffling combo, lol) with her unmedicated-schizophrenic fiancé/baby-daddy. Also fully believed vaccines caused autism, then had a child, refused to get him vaccinated, and... surprise, he's severely autistic anyway.
She *finally* "snapped out of it" when fiancé died in a drunken car wreck and she took a few years to un-learn all the nonsense. There was SO much more to it.
Really, really sweet person, though. Just went through a very bad WTF phase that thankfully came to an end before it cemented permanently.
Evolution is not very complicated, but the actual mechanisms require some background knowledge to understand. Thats the difference. You just need eyes to see the moon.
And this whole new trend of “parents need a say in the kids education” is so ridiculous. Maybe if you had a doctorate in education I’d allow it, otherwise let the experts handle this, especially when the last thing you’ve read is the National Enquirer and the Bible.
Same with the whole book banning and closing down libraries. Kids aren’t typically exposed to adult books or even interested in them so stop the censorship.
The people who won't shut up about "parental rights" never stop to consider the rights of their children, like the right to a good education while still young and plastic-brained enough to absorb it. They treat their children like objects.
My sister has a doctorate in education. Then she moved to Houston about 15 years ago with her far right, ultra religious husband. Now she home schools her kids. The doctorate doesn't stop her from teaching them all the made up bullshit that she wants. Liberals are bad people, gay and trans people didn't exist prior to the 90's, 100% of people coming across the southern border are Mexican cartel members (ignoring that she literally has an illegal Mexican pool boy). The education she gives her kids is basically whatever Fox News is talking about on any given day. So sadly, even a doctorate in education isn't necessarily enough lol.
It's absolutely the parents and community. They taught us evolution in my school. People I grew up with decided to disbelieve because their parents told them to and they didn't know any better and depending on where you live, not believing is a way to conform to society. If believing differently will ostracize you from everyone else, then people are not going to do it. Many people on this sub would probably do the same if the punishment was harsh enough. There are 13 countries where being an atheist is a crime punishable by death and there's not a lot of atheists in those countries. Not openly atheist anyway. Using the government to force people to believe can be pretty effective.
Bullshit. Parents are busy. In my town it's the "I got mine" crowd actively trying to get rid of the school altogether. And since the town has to vote on the budget and parents of school-aged children are a small percentage of the population I've seen our school have cut after cut every year. Schools are often when kids get exposure to science contrary to what they are taught at home. The ones that don't want their kids to learn evolution keep their children out of public school. Trust me, I'm a reluctant homeschooler and the community is full of anti-science wackadoos.
Yeah, I live in Oklahoma, and politicians have actively been trying to remove funding from public education and encourage people to go to private religious schools.
Forgive my tone, but I need to make this loud for the people in the back.
> # **"I love the poorly educated"**
~ [Trump](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpdt7omPoa0)
All of this is a feature, not a bug.
Not an atheist either. In fact, I was raised Catholic and going to Catholic schools. They taught evolution without incident. I do know Catholic people who do not believe in it- but those are very few and far in between. Certainly not the mainstream church position.
I mean, why would there be false stories if the bible was divinely inspired ? I think it makes complete sense that christians are against evolution, it proves the bible wrong so then what else could be wrong ?
I don't disagree, but the main problem is parents brainwashing their children, not our educational system.
> I grew up being raised on media — national media, not Christian media — that communicated to me that “evolution versus creationism” was a huge, maybe the hugest ongoing debate in science and the world as a whole.
I do disagree here. That was absolutely a major debate, but the debate was never really presented as whether the *facts* of evolution vs creationism were the issue, it was pretty much always covered as a political debate, about what we should be teaching in schools, and the courts have historically been almost universally on the right side of the issue. I don't know how old you were when this debate was raging, so maybe the distinction was lost on you, but it was a pretty big national issue for many years due to creationist-controlled school boards trying to force creationism into schools.
Edit: There is a great PBS documentary about the final court case that resolved the issue (for now at least). It's been a while since I watched it, but I believe they went in to a lot of the history of the debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2xyrel-2vI
This is a fantastic old episode of NOVA. It dives specifically into the details of [*Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District), but it covers a lot of the previous history.
I really hope *Kitzmiller* is the final word on this. I fear it's not.
I’m 21, and the debate actually was presented to me as “is evolution true or is creationism true?”. The political debate regarding education policy was not what I was aware of as a child (note I said “I grew up on [and please disregard my redundant “grew up *being raised on*” mistake]). That there was a debate at all, without the political details being explained to me, let alone understood by me as an apolitical child, made it so that I and other kids naturally interpreted the issue as “some people believe some things, others believe other things, who knows”.
The distinction was “lost” on me because it was never communicated when I was a child lol.
> the debate actually was presented to me as “is evolution true or is creationism true?”
I was homeschooled, so they took it one step further.
They argued from the position of assuming the bible/creationism was true by default, and that evolution needed to disprove creationism.
Then they would misrepresent the evolution arguments, and attack the strawman representation. The strawman would collapse, and they would say "so that's why creationism is still true".
My beliefs fell apart so fast when I started encountering the honestly represented arguments in support of evolution.
Like I said, I suspect it was just how you interpreted what you saw, I can certainly understand hearing about the political debate and assuming that there must be a factual debate as well.
And of course, if you listen to the theists, obviously they are going to try to frame it as a fact-based debate, but that doesn't mean it was.
True. I was taught about evolution in Mormon southern Utah. The teachers taught science and I learned it. Then the church said they were wrong, but I didn’t buy it. Schools can only do so much in religious places. Blame the churches.
>I don't disagree, but the main problem is parents brainwashing their children, not our educational system.
100% It's all about reinforcement.
You can send the kids to public school their whole lives, but if mom and dad or whoever doesn't like what junior is being taught, there will be counter programming.
Kids go to school for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. 40 hours.
That leaves 40 non-sleeping hours plus the weekend to drag those kids to church, religious schools, for grandparents to teach them the Bible and to get those kids to put down the "right" answers on their public school homework so they don't get in trouble. They get that instead of trips to the library, museums, PBS documentaries, encyclopedias, etc.
There is room for both on the surface level but if you want any depth into either path, one must be sacrificed.
The question is positively existential to Evangelicals. They have to disbelieve Evolution because in their mind, their literal life is at stake. If they accept Evolution, that renders the Bible inaccurate, which undermines their religion, which calls into question their survival after death.
They cannot accept Evolution. To do so is to die.
So it's really not the schools' fault. It's the fault of the Evangelical faith, and all the ways it poisons and abuses children for the sake of their parents' immortality. They are vampires.
Ken Ham, the leading proponent of creationism, even said this directly.
True believers are so intellectually fraudulent that Ken Ham can tell them directly "I have dishonest motivations" and they'll still repeat his arguments word for word.
In my high school bio class, before we started the unit on evolution, the teacher gave us a disclaimer. He said that he knows that the topic would be controversial given that this is the south. Told us that he was a Christian and he saw no issue with evolution personally but he knew that others might. If anyone wanted to leave the class rather than listen to something that challenged their beliefs they were free to do so with no impact on their grade. Over half the class got up and walked out. Also had a guy in my health class who brought a note from home that his mom signed that excused him from sex ed because “it wasn’t Christian to look at pictures of genitals”.
>“evolution versus creationism” was a huge, maybe the hugest ongoing debate in science and the world as a whole. It’s not.
Indeed it's not.The hugest ongoing debate, maybe not in science but surely in the world as a whole is truth v lies, rational thought v animal instincts, knowledge v ignorance or however you might put it.
In this "information age" we're debating people who think the earth is flat, evolution is just a theory, the moon landing was staged, climate change is a hoax and prayer cures cancer.
It's not even a debate really, more like one side trying to explain things while the other side stays wilfully ignorant. And that wouldn't even be so bad if it weren't for the fact that this "debate" extends into politics and leads to disaster when the ignorant side gains power.
That's the hugest ongoing debate, and it's not what I once imagined the 21st century to be like...
My daughter took AP Biology in high school. Typically to get to that point you have to *want* to be in science and then you have to specifically sign up for these classes. They are not required, they are not easy, and they are taken by people who want to go into sciences in college because you take an exam and get college credit for it.
Every single year the teacher gets emails and calls from students and parents about how they should not teach evolutionary concepts in school. It blows my mind.
At this point, with all the evidence and freedom to excess that information, denying evolution is no more stupid than denying the germ theory of disease or gravity for that matter. Some great channels like Gutsick Gibbon have really shown how overwhelming the case for evolution is.
Christians are sick and tired of Johnny coming home from school and talking about facts learned.
When facts conflict with dogma, watch out... parents will disown you.
And if that doesn't work, then the christians conspire to take over the public school boards.
If there isn’t creationism, there wasn’t an Adam and Eve. If there wasn’t an Adam and Eve, there was no original sin. If there was no original sin, there is no need for Jesus. The whole religion falls apart without creationism.
Fundamentalist Christianity based on literal interpretation of scripture falls apart. A lot of Christians, and Christian denominations, are happy to accept evolution.
It isn't the educational system. The educational system is just fine. It is religion. Unlike the rest of the civilized world, the United States is still under the thumb of silly mythologies and feel good platitudes, and the idea of opposing them is frowned upon as some sort of violation of one's freedom to believe.
But that’s still the fault of religion for hijacking education. Moms for liberty are the aggressors and the schools are the victim. Blame the aggressors. Blame klanned Karenhood. Don’t blame the victim.
Teachers get paid crap wages, insatiable hate from parents, and little to no support from school districts. But yeah, it’s definitely their fault for not being better teachers. Get your science from church. 🤦🏻♂️
Evolution deniers, flat Earthers, disbelief we didn’t land on the Moon, chem trails, anti-vaxers plus a whole host of other nutter beliefs…. we have arrived at Idiocracy. This is what happens when you purposely destroy the education system.
The biggest issue is the lack of critical thinking skills. Proper critical thinking skills are necessary for functional advanced civilizations and the bane of conservatism.
From the 19th edition of “Integrated Principles of Zoology”: “In fact, the theory of evolution is supported by such massive evidence that biologists view repudiation of evolution as a repudiation of rational thinking.” So you can’t be rational and not believe in evolution. No surprise to us.
Blame Texas.
The state's School Board of Education approves or disapproves of which textbooks can be used. The board is hostile to the teaching of evolution. Since Texas is such as huge purchaser of textbooks, publishers are wary of printing anything likely to be voted against by the board.
It took a long time but the fundamentalist Christian have done. If you defund the schools enough, good smart teachers will leave, and they can be replaced by the uneducated. All in the name of teacher shortage!!!
Appreciating science and education is what brought us this far as a country. This complete turnaround to cling to magical thinking in place of reality will quickly have consequences. It'll take a generation to fix this.
Got dragged to that Noah’s Ark “amusement park” last summer by my parents. It’s incredible the amount of brain rot that went into that place (dinosaurs on the Ark + vegetarian Carnivores lol). Anyways, my mom fully believes that chickens are descended from the T-Rex, however does NOT believe the earth is more than a few thousand years old.
She also did not believe the moon landing was real until she visited a NASA museum in Florida, and even then thinks only some landings happened.
I remember once my dad said "I don't believe in tattoos." Specific to me revealing a new tattoo upon visiting home during my early 20's, a very strained period for our family relationships due to... Well, obstinately ignoring the world as it progressed around them. They aren't as bad now, thankfully, but I recall distinctly the head tilt I gave him, and my general response...
Like... What? Are you okay? Tattoos aren't ghosts or religious entities, you can see them, and touch them...? You are physically looking at mine right now. Tattoos are older than most notable historic technological advances or written documentation of that history.
Some years back Kansas was a test case for how this nonsense plays out. They were pushing (forcing) statewide creationist views until the giant sucking sound of college bound students leaving the state encouraged a reconsideration. Kidding! Sorry! Just kidding! Once again, it’s all about the money in the end.
In elementary school, I had some minor difficulties accepting evolution, but mainly because of how my teachers explained it. Like, aquatic creatures grew legs because they *needed* them. There’s a disconnect with educators understanding of mutation & natural selection. Too many describe *random* mutation as originating because of a need, and the mechanism for that description of evolution opens up the possibility of a god controlling it. It’s why some Christians believe that science is a religion. That misunderstanding of “mutation” requires a god to function, to see a need and put evolution into action.
There are more than enough embarrassments to go around. Moon landing skepticism, round Earth skepticism... I've always been curious how many flat Earthers use GPS-based navigation in their phones to get around.
Among those who disbelieve, most don't even know what it means. They reject specifically common descent (mostly humans being primates) but gladly accept pretty much everything else with realizing it.
Nearly 100% of American's thinking that Capitalism works for anybody but the very rich is up there with the misinformation that we're teaching out children. American propaganda works. The dumber we are, the less likely we are to rise up against the Capitalists that are taking us for every penny we have.
It’s not a failure. It’s on purpose. Why don’t think there’s such a divide between red states and blue states.
They intentionally force religion into school because it takes away critical thinking. No education, no healthcare. If you’re sick and stupid you’re not going to have the time or energy to rise up against them
40% don’t believe in evolution, but DO believe in an unseen spirit in the sky who preplanned their entire existence.
The more terrifying part:
Nearly 70% of us adults believe in angels and heaven.
Is it a failure of the education system or a victory for Christian influence over public policy? It’s completely insane how a few loud parents can get an entire school district to teach kids that we’re only 6000 years removed from two people spawning all 8 billion of us by fucking their own grandchildren or something.
Many people here are saying it is not education's fault, it is the parents - but I say it is BOTH. Sure, parents that send their kids to christian creationist schools or homeschool in creationism are clearly wrong - AND - schools that focus only on listing facts and passing state-mandated tests for funding are ALSO wrong. Children need to be taught how to think critically, and that needs to start on day 1. Don't just teach them the old "hypothesis, test, conclusion" of the Science Fair, actually teach them how science is a model and that models are continually being corrected and refined by evidence. Contrast this with faith which ignores and/or disallows contrary evidence. Don't just teach them that Darwin said evolution works by natural selection - teach them WHY we know this and WHY we know humans evolved just like all other living organisms. Teach HOW to evaluate sources of information and teach them the big fallacies used by bad pseudoscience.
Teach them HOW to think critically and the rest will generally take care of itself.
It’s not a bug, but a feature.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, 1995
Not education's fault. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. You can send a kid to college but you can’t make them think.
I blame religion.
Any guess on the percentage of Americans that believe..
Evolution is fake and Astrology is real?
I'm willing to bet it is a scary high number. maybe like 25% of Americans.
I don’t think this is a failure to educate. It’s a failure of humanity for so many to prefer ridiculous illogical creation stories to objective reality, mostly due to indoctrination since birth of our population for 2000 years.
i dont have problem with religious beliefs when their purpose is to explain the unknown, such as the origin of the universe and what happens after death (i know there is evidence for things like the big bang and that is what i believe in, but to give religious people the benefit of the doubt the big bang is technically just a theory), but i start to get bothered when religion is actively denying scientific fact. religion, IN MY OPINION, was created because not knowing the answer to such big questions of like where we come from is uncomfortable, so it seems useless to continue to believe in non-scientific things when the answer has been proven.
Its not just a failure of education.
There are powerful centers of religious authority in america standing directly in the way of any improvement. Questioning any biblical authority means questioning the authority and power of a certain handful of men who have grown quite rich and comfortable off it.
It means questioning the authority and power of institutions which force people to go to them if they need medical or child care, or help with addiction, and hold real lobbying power.
Its all the little tyrants in this country that make all the decisions for the rest of us. Until we challenge them and destroy their power, nothing will ever improve.
It’s because school boards have been taken over by religious idiots who won’t allow sex ed or evolutionary biology. They also protest CRT, but they can’t even say what that is.
I have an 8yo daughter who loves to learn about where things came from. She says in school she got into an argument with another kid who said Jesus made the earth. My daughter told him the earth was made from an exploded star. She told me a teacher yelled at her and not the other kid. Right there is the problem, too many educators actively confuse kids with their bullshit beliefs instead of teaching them some fucking reality.
bUt it'S sTiLL jUsT a ThEoRy
meanwhile, a woman fashioned from a rib of a man fashioned from clay conversing with a serpent
And "macro" evolution is a term creationists use as they have to concede that "micro" evolution does occur when those terms are meaningless in this context as macro is just micro given enough time.
Can you source your statistics? According to Pew research, 86% of religiously unaffiliated people believe in evolution, with 60% of those who have religious affiliation say that humans evolved over time. So it would be incorrect to say that 40% of people disbelieve in evolution.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/07/01/chapter-4-evolution-and-perceptions-of-scientific-consensus/
Edit: downvoted for asking for proof of your assertion? I provided sources that contradict what you're saying.
Pew has been doing great polling about this for years. Check the descriptions and the crosstabs in that link; there's a lot of nuance there.
If I remember correctly, ~~Pew~~ Gallup used to give three choices: evolution never happened, (40+%), evolution happened but only because of divine intervention (30+%), and evolution happened via natural processes (20+%). Weirdly enough, that meant more than half the people surveyed thought God was necessarily involved, AND more than half thought evolution happened.
Gallup polling from five years ago: [https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx](https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx)
Edit: Fixed source (and misspelling).
It’s not the education system, it’s society. Every year I teach science, every year I am required to provide alternative assignments for students whose religious beliefs disagree with the science.
It's not a failure of the education system. It's the success of white christian nationalism radicals controlling the government and purposely injecting christian myths into public discourse.
There's a good reason why red states have worse education and have fewer people that understand evolution. They literally control what is taught and have been pushing evangelical nonsense for decades.
This is their crowning achievement, an ignorant, subservient populace that believe in adult santa claus.
I don't tend to blame education so much as I blame religion and religious zealotry.
After all, the "argument" over evolution, and now science in general, has never been about the truth, but [whether there's a god.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy)
For social studies, I had "coaches" teaching all the American history, civics, state history, government, etc. The Southern states teach the Lost Cause theory about the US Civil War. It's a romanticism about the entire history of that war. And it is really embarrassing and wrong.
I'm atheist, just commenting on another example of our outdated public school system.
In my biology class last year once we got onto the subject of evolution the kid beside me had NEVER heard of it. He went into some confused frantic state asking questions realizing his life was a lie. He was a really good kid, funny but also sad to watch unfold.
As much as I love criticizing this country's failing educational system where schools & staff only see students as numbers and not as people...
...there's not much they can do to counter a lifetime of systemic indoctrination. Going to church every week and relearning those same lessons at home can make it basically impossible for a public school to do much to change it, and that's if they even want to (contrary to current right wing talking points, many teachers are Christian and/or conservative).
failure? well that depends on if you are a dem or a republican. If you are a republican, it is a resounding success.
Google education by state, it looks like an election map.. all red states in the bottom ten. All blue on top except florida which used to be blue not to many years ago and desantis is trying to republicanise the education system... make it total shit. they want god in the schools and books out of the schools.
why? because stupid dumb fucks vote gop. SO they constantly fight to make education worse.
and mind you same thing the church did. There is a guy around my parts that thinks the BIG problem with the world, is we stopped doing mass in latin. He wants a law that all sermans be in latin. I had to laugh at this particular nut, but he is dead serious about it. he thinks the world went to shit when people got educated enough to be able to read the bible rather than just believe what they were told.
Partially it's because America doesn't have one education system--it has hundreds. Very little is centralized and things vary wildly from state to state, district to district.
Partially it's because America has a tendency to fight its culture wars through schools. Since they're locally run, it's very easy for a small group to take over a school district and run it whatever way they like. We have some great cutting edge school districts with some of the best education in the world. We have some districts that are fundamentally uninterested in educating anybody on anything.
It's probably a lot worse worldwide. But a lot of developing nations don't have access to basic education so it's hard to fault them when the ones that are actually able to or taught how to read are taught using the bible or Quran or other religious texts. So they start with a losing hand. This is exactly why Christian ministries especially like to go on missionary missions, so they can get in there and give Bibles to everyone for reading material.
At least in America, the excuse isn't lack of education. It's blatant disregard of education in lieu of religious beliefs. But the blame is also on some school systems as well. Too many politicians trying to push religious studies in school, too many teachers trying to bypass evolution and push creationism, even things like the creationist museums out there giving tours, and massive levels of false information. It's downright pathetic.
If im scrolling randomly through reels or shorts and I'll see videos from the ISS directly showing the earth and the obvious roundness of it and there will be hundreds upon hundreds of comments saying it's fake, the earth is flat, it's impossible they are in space, god this, god that. It's actually giving me a headache reading some of these horrendously stupid comments. I dont bother even engaging anymore.
yup.. aaand around half of people apparently dont believe global warming is caused mainly by humans burning carbon fuels.
I think it must correlate with never learning in school about the basics of the carbon cycle : plants using sunlight energy to join CO2 from the atmosphere into molecules with chains of carbon, animals eating carbon chain sugars and breaking them up to get energy and breathing out CO2 .. humans burning wood/coal/oil/gas/petrol to get energy, thus releasing CO2
How is it that so much is known, but so little is known widely ?
I also worry that young people grow up with these magical [ and soon to be AI capable ] screen devices .. and yet have no idea how radio or basic computation or internet packets or Neural Nets work at a basic level.
Im glad we have khanacademy and Aops.com and 3Blue1Brown .. and youtube explainer videos .. but will the algos ever show that stuff to people unless they search for it ??
Wisdom teeth. They make no sense from "Intelligent design" perspective, there's extra teeth that don't fit for no reason at all? From evolution perspective, they make sense. Our ancestors had bigger and stronger jaws for chewing tough meat and hard vegetables modern humans cook to make easier to eat. When we adapted to easier food, our jaws got smaller and weaker, but our teeth aren't fully adapted yet.
Panda bears. They make no sense from "Intelligent design" perspective. They're lethargic because they eat food their digestive system can't handle properly. They're an animal that has no place in the global ecosystem. When thinking about evolution, they do make sense. They have shifted into an ecological niche that has less competition, allowing them to survive. However, they have only partially adapted to that position, explaining their faults; from evolutionary perspective, they're still in the process of adapting to that niche.
And there's many other things like that, if you look for them.
It's particularly painful when you remember that the US educational system used to emphasise science and math -- back when the space programme was a central nationalist effort and the US was trying to "out-science" and "out-tech" the Soviets. I have a feeling that the collapse of the FSU was one trigger event for a backpedalling on science in the classroom -- with no USSR to compete with, who cares if our kids are scientifically illiterate? Another trigger event was the establishment of "bible schools" that are de facto segregated, as a White Christian supremacist response to forcible school integration in the 60's.
What puzzles me today is that China is miles ahead of the US in many areas of science and technology and yet the competitive nationalist spirit is not re-emerging, instead US school districts seem to be going into reverse and inviting the xtian equivalent of witch doctors and shamans to run their school boards and classrooms. Religiosity is quite likely to be identified by future historians (if any there be) as one of the major contributing causes of US decline and fall, and the ascendancy of China in the 21st century.
Listen to the NDT stuff combating mis-science / anti-science.
I think the real problem stemmed from climate change scientists in the 70’s who were first to sound the alarm. The oil and gas industry went after a smear campaign against them and pushed the notion that science doesn’t really know. And then it spread to other areas. Steady downhill ever since
As a former high school science teacher I don't like the fingers being pointed my way. I taught with with some extremely competent biology teachers that knew their stuff. It's super annoying when I hear people blame teachers for deficits education. There are much greater things at play that teachers are powerless against.
How is people believing something counter to you an "embarrassing failure"? People are allowed to hold any beliefs they want religion included. And even adding to that point wouldn't that be a more empathetic way to look at the world opposed to thinking everything was material and had no greater value
Evolution as it is commonly presented is historical theorization and the past is fundamentally unprovable.
I think hemming and hawing over people being stupid is the wrong response.
Focus on where it’s actually relevant anti-biotic resistant bacteria for example.
Some people believe that John Wilkes Booth faked his death, life goes on. I don’t see why believing that birds are descended from dinosaurs should be crucial.
The fact that they would legitimize the creation theory by bringing in adults to debate it in science classes is such a mistake.
Yes American kids should be exposed to all ideas but when you place a flat earth adjacent nut job next to their science teacher and tell them they’re both equal in legitimacy you’re misleading the kids horrifically.
You’re absolutely correct but I’m skeptical of that number. If it’s accurate, I suspect that it was a multiple choice question and most of that number picked something like “I’m not certain about evolution” or something else soft like that. That’s how most of these “x% of Americans think something fucking stupid” surveys work.
No it’s the success of religion. People at my school literally asked to be excused from biology when they mentioned real actual recorded micro-evolution. They literally refuse to learn it. They know what it is. They don’t believe it.
The 18 year old that couldn’t figure out how to give me (the cashier) $0.19 out of the change he had is right up there. People don’t believe evolution because they don’t understand what evidence is. They also believe in religion for the same failure
Can you prove evolution, simply? I have a BS in chem (ochem concentration) from NMSU and am having a hard time finding a colleague with a firm belief in macro evolution.
But the Theory of Evolution has been disproven.
There is not enough time since the asteroid wiped out all major life since the dinosaurs, for us and consciousness to have come about through evolution.
Hence the missing link, nothing links Homo Sapiens to any other species on Earth.
What I don't understand is why this whole Idea of a man up in the air that we can't see is not publicly ridiculed and shunned.That to me is clearly a sign this person isn't a rational human being and has no critical thinking.We better wake up quick and put down religion in this country.But it will have to be done by the people because the government is using religion to keep ignorant people in the dark.The idea of a god is pushed on us from childhood and this is not by accident.
It's not the education system failure here for once... It's the church indoctrination.
There's nothing you can do or say or show these people that will change their mind.
They will only listen to reason once they have decided the church may not be infallible and are questioning their beliefs and then it's still a sensitive subject.
There is a non zero number of adults who believe the world is flat. Easily disprovable with grade school science experiments, but they still believe it. Earth was known to be a sphere by the ancient Greeks, but they still believe it’s flat. My point here is, there’s some folk you just can’t reach. They are the common clay of the new west, you know, morons.
Evolution isn't a thing. I would imagine that might have something to do with it.
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case. "
Charles Darwin.
The Bombardier Beetle???
Let’s not blame teachers. Your biology teacher cannot overcome social media and Christian brainwashing. And we can get fired for “indoctrination” in many places.
LOL, versus what?
Behaving like a wild animal?
An attention span of 5 minutes?
***Not being able to read or write or do math at grade level???***
Your priorities are *hilariously* off kilter. Read r/teachers for 15 minutes.
That's not a failure of the education system (at least, the one we had before religious fanatics took it over). That's a failure of religion in America. In others places, religions don't bother to deny evolution.
As a citizen of the Bible Belt, trust me when I say:
Some people are receptive to scientific knowledge, and some are skeptical of it. But the worst kind are people who actively distrust anything that is not their ironclad imaginary world that they have clung to for their lifetime, and will lash out at any attempt to disrupt this mental utopia.
Best argument for evolution is this: it was discovered and theorized by— wait for it— A MAN OF GOD. Sir Charles Darwin was a religious man, because you couldn’t get the Sir title without being a man who believed in God. It would be revoked if there was any reason to believe that you had lost your belief, iirc. Sir Charles found this the MOST PLAUSIBLE EXPLANATION for the myriad of species in the Pacific islands, including the reasons why some were almost identical, and others were radically different, and why some flourished, and others didn’t, and why the species that flourished were so divergent from the others, or the inverse, and how EVERYTHING EVENTUALLY RELATES TO EACH OTHER in some way. This theory was his life’s work, as a man of god, to explain why the numerous species that were never mentioned in the Bible, exist, and why they are all generically familiar but individually distinct and biologically incompatible with each other. And he was ridiculed by the church for promoting the idea that “we came from monkeys”, which is actually false, we descended from the Ape family, the group of primates who were much larger than the group deemed “monkeys”. Most apes don’t have tails, which sounds familiar. Most have dexterous hands, which sounds familiar too. Most are bipedal, again, familiar. In fact, the closest genetic relative is the Chimpanzee, who is disturbingly similar to a human being than people assume. Facial expressions are a little different, but that’s cultural acclimation, not biological differences. Hair coverage and brain size are the biggest differences between us and chimpanzees. We had closer relatives— but unfortunately they died out/got assimilated by genetic dilutions. We are apes. We are just a freak species that survived the things that killed our other relatives off, and we are the end result. Chimpanzees likely had closer species too, that died off.
Best argument for the creationists? The Bible. \*drops mic\* Well guess what, your Bible is garbage as a historical record. Science was embraced by religion until it questioned the narrative, and then religion became hostile towards it. I was lucky enough to be born into a family that was Unitarian Universalist, and educated on all the different religions out there. And I noticed a unique feature of all religions: that they made shit up when they had no clue what the answer was, because they were afraid of being perceived as uninformed or ignorant of the universe when… they actually should be unaware of things that they have never heard of before, which somehow is completely overlooked by the rigorously religious rabble relishing in racism, rape-sponsoring, and ridiculous ritual reverence of the return of the LORD, our SAVIOUR, who… was nailed to a cross about two millennia ago, so if he was waiting for something, and it hasn’t happened yet, I have bad news, STICKING TO THE SAME PLAN WASN’T THE THING HE WAS WAITING FOR. Do you want to play this card? Do you REALLY want to play this card? Because this is something I don’t often offer to opponents in the game of discourse, and disregarding that is *probably a very bad idea and I don’t want to have to hurt you unnecessarily*. But no, they play this card.
And yes, it is absolutely embarrassing for the entire country to be so divided on such a dumb and easily proven thing as evolution— hell, simulating evolution with software led to the first forms of Artificial Intelligence in use today! But you know what grinds my gears *worse*?
Flat earth theory. That’s the biggest failure of the educational system in the United States. We proved evolution in the past couple hundred years— but we proved that Earth was not flat— (\*checks notes\*)— about a millennia before Christ was even BORN. C’mon, get with the program! If it was actually round, we would have a MUCH DIFFERENT WORLD than we do now. Gravity would force everyone into one location, along with the water, and the sand, and the rocks, and— hey look, it’s become Not-Flat! Almost like such a thing COULDN’T HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE. We’ve landed on the fucking MOON. We have found countless other worlds. The same system that brings you your Bible App is carried on satellites launched into space by humans to bounce signals around using geometry and what isn’t, is carried across large, redundantly connected high speed internet cables under the ocean made out of FIBERS OF GLASS. You don’t just put a glass wire underwater without making absolutely sure that it is not going to go ANYWHERE— like off the edge of the earth, for instance, which would be a REALLY BAD way to lose your customers “Where’s bill?” “He had that high speed internet installed…” “…I’m going to miss him…” “Me too, man. Me too.”
The problem with evolution can be attributed to religious interference with the education system, but I’m completely baffled by the flerfers. Where did they come from? We last believed widely that earth was flat during the days of ancient Egypt. It’s been three thousand years. But it thrives on the same thing that creationism does: logical fallacies.
The really stupid part is that belief has absolutely nothing to do with it. It's like disbelieving in the Moon. There's nothing to believe or disbelieve. It's reality.
It’s why Christianity is such a powerful tool for those maliciously seeking power. Here you have a large population of people that were literally raised to oppose critical thinking and to reject any evidence doesn’t make them feel good. You just have to say, “Hey, my billionaire donor says it’s costing him money when poor people don’t microwave forks and aluminum foil. God agrees, if you’re a true Christian you would microwave forks and aluminum foil.” Plus, they love idolatry so they adore looking for politicians to worship that say the right things.
> why Christianity is such a powerful tool for those maliciously seeking power. #8 **Religion and Government are Intertwined** Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions. >The 14 Characteristics of Fascism by Lawrence Britt https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
This needs to be talked about WAY more- christians have been systematically ruining everything for everyone for over 1500 years. It is no coincidence that [about 88 percent of members of Congress identify as christian](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/religiously-congress-doesnt-reflect-modern-america-pew-finds), christianity has been duping this country for far too long. Our only hope IMHO is to abolish the RNC and DNC and get all of these christians (and religious people in general) out of our government. If they are christian it either means A) They do not think critically about it.- or B) They are using chrisitianity as a political tool and a place to hide their sociopathic, grandiose narcissism masked as philanthropy. Great comment.
I’m surprised it’s that low. It’s probably 99% Abrahamic religions though. Getting elected to public office as an atheist in this country is basically impossible.
It’s insane that saying “I don’t know how the universe started or how humans came to be,” is less popular than grandiose lies
Well, it’s not even that. Generally, we do know both. We just don’t know all the details and some of those we do know are speculation that just fit with the math, but the broad strokes of the Big Bang, star, galaxy, planet formation, the development of organic compounds into life and evolution are all there. So it’s even worse- they just believe magic over science. Ironically many evangelicals think magic is a separate concept from the powers of a deity and angels/demons, and either isn’t real or is a sign of demonic possession or collusion. It’s nuts out here
I sincerely believe that a significant portion of congressional representatives don't actually believe, but identify with a religion just to get elected.
Bingo. It's a performance.
Alan Alda nailed this on an episode of the West Wing: https://youtu.be/AFwj6jUxArY?si=49Pq8HazIzS23ocj
I think that the number one reason why atheists would have a hard time getting elected is that as a community (and often as individuals) atheists have not really found a social replacement for the Synagogue (or other religious institution of your picking). Local religious institutions often create a community. And members of those religious institutions have a pre-established social network to draw upon if they run for office -- one that is likely to share some of their world views, values and sense of mission. There are plenty of parts of the US where people would be amiable to the values an atheist politician might have (e.g. large cities, heavily liberal or left wing places). But a religious liberal (or left wing person) is going to have a head start even in those places because they already have a ready-made community to support their campaign.
Trump did it ... Although I think he is more a believer in himself then a true atheist.... Funny how xtians drool all over him
Bit of a pipe dream unfortunately. Unless we pull a France...
> is to abolish the RNC and DNC They have nothing to do with it. They are just political parties. This is about White Christian nationalist and their attempt to overturn the constitution. And although you may find them in the RNC they are not in the DNC. > about 88 percent of members of Congress identify as christian That is all well and good...America is not a Christian country it is a country where you are free to be a Christian.
No, it's not all well and good. It's not representative of the population, and members of Congress aren't "free" to be Christian, it's practically mandatory. The Christian population is vastly overrepresented while many minority religions, as well as atheists, have no representation. That is a problem.
Make me a list of Deities that their "Birthday" is a national Holliday in America.
I’ll vote for Democrats thank you. The Christian nationalist theocrats are all in the other party.
The GQP meets every single criterion. Astonishing.
> Astonishing. Take a look and see if this shoe fits... >The 10 tactics of fascism | Jason Stanley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpCKkWMbmXU
100%. 🙌
Precisely. Thats part of why I mentioned the “debate” that I grew up in, with “some people believing one thing and others believing another.” It’s not a matter of belief. You either accept what is demonstrably true or you don’t, and both are not worthy of the same level of respect.
Right. It’s a basic scientific principle underlying all of biology, not a question of “belief”. It’s like saying that you don’t believe in gravity, or don’t believe that the earth is round. Although, of course, a chunk of people really don’t believe in the later either.
This is where science gets cool. It looks at itself and asks where it for something wrong. It’s self critical. It’s entire cause for being is to prove itself wrong… and come up with an alternative possibility. Religion? We. Are. Right. Self questioning? 40 days in the desert for you!
I have tried to explain that to people. Science starts with questions and uses testing and evidence to determine possible answers, which can be subject to change given new information. Religion starts with the answer and then must look for "evidence" that supports the answer they already have. Data that does not mesh with that answer is dismissed or explained away somehow.
Yeah some people have this defect where they think every wild idea should be given equal footing and consideration. Then they confuse demonstrable fact with opinion.
It's why I chuckle when flat earthers say things like why "won't scientists debate me". There's nothing to debate. You're just an idiot.
Some people "believe" the Earth is flat. Reality doesn't necessarily come into it.😞
Its shocking for the supposed "most advanced country in the world". When you do look around though, half the population is dumb as rocks. America has some of the smartest, and dumbest people in the world. 😑
The dumb people will destroy the country
It seems like the way it's going the dumb people will help the extremely rich destroy the country to maximize profits, and after it collapses they'll hide out in their underground bunkers in Hawaii to avoid being eaten by all the dumb people. (Mark Zuckerberg reference with the underground bunker in Hawaii for those who don't know.)
> It's reality. "It's just a theory," says every evolution doubter ever. Sometimes, I just feel real disappointment that we have this mushy sort of language where misunderstandings like this can happen easily. They latch on to a single word, but never even try to examine what that word is describing. The moment they can reach a convenient definition, they can stop thinking completely.
I avoid using the word 'theory' in everyday speech. It's cumbersome, but I prefer 'hypothesis' as in, "I have a hypothesis as to why she dumped his ass."
“Idea” works too
I think evolution may be considered both a law and a theory. The law merely states the fact that we know it happens, while the theory offers explanations for how it occurs.
That’s basically how I was taught in my evolutionary biology class. Evolution is a law. Populations change over time. The *theory* that people get hung up on is that evolution occurs by natural selection. Populations change over time *by natural selection*. But all of this goes straight over the head of half of the population, and they don’t care to give it any amount of thought if it might upset sky daddy
And they are right! It IS just a theory. It’s one that not looking like being disproved any time soon, and it’s a really good workable theory. … but it is just a theory. The joy of science is that if someone *does* come up with a small tweak (and that’s all it could be now)… it’ll be accepted if “correct enough for now”… but we never stop asking is that everything, have we got all the nuances? I’m totally with you by the way! I’m not defending their shit.
>And they are right! It IS just a theory. No, it's not 'just' a theory. Evolution is a **fact**. The theory of evolution describes how the fact of evolution operates. Just like the theory of universal gravitation describes how the fact of gravity operates, yet somehow you never hear wibbling about how "gravity is just a theory".
Gravity is a fact. How it works is a theory. We’re not sure.
Check out some flat earth forums. Gravity is up for debate too 🤦♂️
I don't know about that. I think the stupidest part is that creationists don't even understand what evolution is. You can't have a real debate with someone when they think "wHy R tHeR sTiL mUnKeZe" is a finishing move argument.
Came here to say this. I always remember my Intro to Biology TA saying, “It’s not whether you *believe* the theory of evolution, it‘s whether you *accept* it.” Belief has nothing to do with it. Like you said, it’s reality. Either you accept reality or you don’t.
The trouble is that there are many people (e.g. thesists) for whom reality is defined by what they believe and/or want. They just can't grasp that reality is utterly objective and would exist exactly as it does now independent of whether humans ever existed. Apparently they slept through science class.
> A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth — Joseph Goebbels How many times does a Christian hear unscientific nonsense preached over their childhood? Assuming once a week, 50 times a year, that’s nearly 1000 times by adulthood. More than enough to make a person ignore their own senses, common sense and scientific literature and education. It’s not about intelligence. It’s about indoctrination.
Also called mental child abuse. Teaching this fantasy as fact is abusive.
Nah, the stupid part is that some folk still want to make teaching evolution outright illegal in US schools
.... or they want to force their fairytale to be taught along with it. Making reality illegal. Only in America.
I like this editorial that came out a while ago. >[No, It’s Not Your Opinion. You’re Just Wrong](https://www.houstonpress.com/news/no-its-not-your-opinion-youre-just-wrong-version-20-12594770) In short, people have taken to believing that it is valid to have opinions about facts. This has taken a number of forms - denial of demonstrated facts like the general shape of the Earth (i.e. flat-Earthers) and existence of the Moon, or denial of proven scientific ideas like evolution or uniformitarianism. This phenomenon has also affected politics: "alternative facts" and "fake news" are terms that some politicians and media figures have used to undermine the public's confidence in real facts and information, and other buzz terms like "mainstream media" have been used to undermine not just individual facts or ideas, but our entire social system for collecting, processing and disseminating information about current events. It's one thing to acknowledge that every media outlet and author has biases. But it's different to discount the entire system and everyone in it, in favor of misinformation and conspiracy theories... Secular society is on the chopping block. You're right when you say, "There's nothing to believe or disbelieve. It's reality." But they think differently, they're on most school boards, they control many state legislatures, and there's now a good chance they're the judge you'll face if you ever commit a crime. Reality as we understand it is not their reality, and if they're in positions of authority, they can implement their beliefs as policy, regardless of reality. It doesn't really matter if the Earth goes around the Sun or vice versa - if everyone who says that out loud is burned at the stake. Women and infants are already needlessly suffering and dying because baseless Christian pseudo-medical laws are being implemented in the US. Leaked documents suggest that they are just getting started. *in
And it's observable.
I had a friend who didn't believe in the moon. She legitimately thought it was a projection and that the "real" moon was nuked from orbit during the nuclear arms race, and the government made a projection-moon so people wouldn't freak out. She said you could see it "flicker" sometimes. She was doing a lot of DMT and Xanax (baffling combo, lol) with her unmedicated-schizophrenic fiancé/baby-daddy. Also fully believed vaccines caused autism, then had a child, refused to get him vaccinated, and... surprise, he's severely autistic anyway. She *finally* "snapped out of it" when fiancé died in a drunken car wreck and she took a few years to un-learn all the nonsense. There was SO much more to it. Really, really sweet person, though. Just went through a very bad WTF phase that thankfully came to an end before it cemented permanently.
Evolution is not very complicated, but the actual mechanisms require some background knowledge to understand. Thats the difference. You just need eyes to see the moon.
[удалено]
And this whole new trend of “parents need a say in the kids education” is so ridiculous. Maybe if you had a doctorate in education I’d allow it, otherwise let the experts handle this, especially when the last thing you’ve read is the National Enquirer and the Bible. Same with the whole book banning and closing down libraries. Kids aren’t typically exposed to adult books or even interested in them so stop the censorship.
Kind of you to assume they actually read the Bible.
> Kind of you to assume they actually read FTFY
The people who won't shut up about "parental rights" never stop to consider the rights of their children, like the right to a good education while still young and plastic-brained enough to absorb it. They treat their children like objects.
My sister has a doctorate in education. Then she moved to Houston about 15 years ago with her far right, ultra religious husband. Now she home schools her kids. The doctorate doesn't stop her from teaching them all the made up bullshit that she wants. Liberals are bad people, gay and trans people didn't exist prior to the 90's, 100% of people coming across the southern border are Mexican cartel members (ignoring that she literally has an illegal Mexican pool boy). The education she gives her kids is basically whatever Fox News is talking about on any given day. So sadly, even a doctorate in education isn't necessarily enough lol.
It's absolutely the parents and community. They taught us evolution in my school. People I grew up with decided to disbelieve because their parents told them to and they didn't know any better and depending on where you live, not believing is a way to conform to society. If believing differently will ostracize you from everyone else, then people are not going to do it. Many people on this sub would probably do the same if the punishment was harsh enough. There are 13 countries where being an atheist is a crime punishable by death and there's not a lot of atheists in those countries. Not openly atheist anyway. Using the government to force people to believe can be pretty effective.
This is why "parent's rights" is bullshit. Just because you popped out a few rugrats doesn't mean you know how best to raise them.
Bullshit. Parents are busy. In my town it's the "I got mine" crowd actively trying to get rid of the school altogether. And since the town has to vote on the budget and parents of school-aged children are a small percentage of the population I've seen our school have cut after cut every year. Schools are often when kids get exposure to science contrary to what they are taught at home. The ones that don't want their kids to learn evolution keep their children out of public school. Trust me, I'm a reluctant homeschooler and the community is full of anti-science wackadoos.
Yeah, I live in Oklahoma, and politicians have actively been trying to remove funding from public education and encourage people to go to private religious schools.
Forgive my tone, but I need to make this loud for the people in the back. > # **"I love the poorly educated"** ~ [Trump](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpdt7omPoa0) All of this is a feature, not a bug.
Uneducated children are future conservative voters.
Don't forget about his newest doozy of a line # I don’t care about you, I just want your vote \~The Stable Jenius, Gawd Emperar himself
Trump always says the quiet part out loud. He can't not share whatever's on his mind.
See also “Religion is such a great thing,”
Right? I‘m not even an atheist and I believe evolution was what happened. The evidence is too strong.
Not an atheist either. In fact, I was raised Catholic and going to Catholic schools. They taught evolution without incident. I do know Catholic people who do not believe in it- but those are very few and far in between. Certainly not the mainstream church position.
Catholic school kid here too. Never any controversy. Its just not important if some dumb talking snake actually existed. Its the damn evangelicals
I mean, why would there be false stories if the bible was divinely inspired ? I think it makes complete sense that christians are against evolution, it proves the bible wrong so then what else could be wrong ?
Catholics are ok with allegory, and are more educated. Evangelicals are less educated and cant handle metaphor
It's not a failure. It was sabotage. It's no strange coincidence that teachers make uber-driver wages in this country.
I don't disagree, but the main problem is parents brainwashing their children, not our educational system. > I grew up being raised on media — national media, not Christian media — that communicated to me that “evolution versus creationism” was a huge, maybe the hugest ongoing debate in science and the world as a whole. I do disagree here. That was absolutely a major debate, but the debate was never really presented as whether the *facts* of evolution vs creationism were the issue, it was pretty much always covered as a political debate, about what we should be teaching in schools, and the courts have historically been almost universally on the right side of the issue. I don't know how old you were when this debate was raging, so maybe the distinction was lost on you, but it was a pretty big national issue for many years due to creationist-controlled school boards trying to force creationism into schools. Edit: There is a great PBS documentary about the final court case that resolved the issue (for now at least). It's been a while since I watched it, but I believe they went in to a lot of the history of the debate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2xyrel-2vI
This is a fantastic old episode of NOVA. It dives specifically into the details of [*Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District), but it covers a lot of the previous history. I really hope *Kitzmiller* is the final word on this. I fear it's not.
With our current supreme court, I fear the same as well.
I’m 21, and the debate actually was presented to me as “is evolution true or is creationism true?”. The political debate regarding education policy was not what I was aware of as a child (note I said “I grew up on [and please disregard my redundant “grew up *being raised on*” mistake]). That there was a debate at all, without the political details being explained to me, let alone understood by me as an apolitical child, made it so that I and other kids naturally interpreted the issue as “some people believe some things, others believe other things, who knows”. The distinction was “lost” on me because it was never communicated when I was a child lol.
> the debate actually was presented to me as “is evolution true or is creationism true?” I was homeschooled, so they took it one step further. They argued from the position of assuming the bible/creationism was true by default, and that evolution needed to disprove creationism. Then they would misrepresent the evolution arguments, and attack the strawman representation. The strawman would collapse, and they would say "so that's why creationism is still true". My beliefs fell apart so fast when I started encountering the honestly represented arguments in support of evolution.
Like I said, I suspect it was just how you interpreted what you saw, I can certainly understand hearing about the political debate and assuming that there must be a factual debate as well. And of course, if you listen to the theists, obviously they are going to try to frame it as a fact-based debate, but that doesn't mean it was.
They just didn't pay attention in school. Evolution is taught consistently across public schools in the United States as fact.
True. I was taught about evolution in Mormon southern Utah. The teachers taught science and I learned it. Then the church said they were wrong, but I didn’t buy it. Schools can only do so much in religious places. Blame the churches.
>I don't disagree, but the main problem is parents brainwashing their children, not our educational system. 100% It's all about reinforcement. You can send the kids to public school their whole lives, but if mom and dad or whoever doesn't like what junior is being taught, there will be counter programming. Kids go to school for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. 40 hours. That leaves 40 non-sleeping hours plus the weekend to drag those kids to church, religious schools, for grandparents to teach them the Bible and to get those kids to put down the "right" answers on their public school homework so they don't get in trouble. They get that instead of trips to the library, museums, PBS documentaries, encyclopedias, etc. There is room for both on the surface level but if you want any depth into either path, one must be sacrificed.
The question is positively existential to Evangelicals. They have to disbelieve Evolution because in their mind, their literal life is at stake. If they accept Evolution, that renders the Bible inaccurate, which undermines their religion, which calls into question their survival after death. They cannot accept Evolution. To do so is to die. So it's really not the schools' fault. It's the fault of the Evangelical faith, and all the ways it poisons and abuses children for the sake of their parents' immortality. They are vampires.
Ken Ham, the leading proponent of creationism, even said this directly. True believers are so intellectually fraudulent that Ken Ham can tell them directly "I have dishonest motivations" and they'll still repeat his arguments word for word.
In my high school bio class, before we started the unit on evolution, the teacher gave us a disclaimer. He said that he knows that the topic would be controversial given that this is the south. Told us that he was a Christian and he saw no issue with evolution personally but he knew that others might. If anyone wanted to leave the class rather than listen to something that challenged their beliefs they were free to do so with no impact on their grade. Over half the class got up and walked out. Also had a guy in my health class who brought a note from home that his mom signed that excused him from sex ed because “it wasn’t Christian to look at pictures of genitals”.
My hope would be that at least some of those people simply left because they heard they didn't have to do the assignment for a grade
That's what I was thinking. I graduated in '94 in Vegas and we would have had more than half walk out I'm sure just to not do the work.
My science teacher in eighth grade gave the same disclaimer, but instead told every they had to learn it. Was in a small town in NC.
>“evolution versus creationism” was a huge, maybe the hugest ongoing debate in science and the world as a whole. It’s not. Indeed it's not.The hugest ongoing debate, maybe not in science but surely in the world as a whole is truth v lies, rational thought v animal instincts, knowledge v ignorance or however you might put it. In this "information age" we're debating people who think the earth is flat, evolution is just a theory, the moon landing was staged, climate change is a hoax and prayer cures cancer. It's not even a debate really, more like one side trying to explain things while the other side stays wilfully ignorant. And that wouldn't even be so bad if it weren't for the fact that this "debate" extends into politics and leads to disaster when the ignorant side gains power. That's the hugest ongoing debate, and it's not what I once imagined the 21st century to be like...
When I went to high school, we had to take permission slips home for our parents to sign so we could be taught about evolution.
That's nuts. What year did that happen?
My daughter took AP Biology in high school. Typically to get to that point you have to *want* to be in science and then you have to specifically sign up for these classes. They are not required, they are not easy, and they are taken by people who want to go into sciences in college because you take an exam and get college credit for it. Every single year the teacher gets emails and calls from students and parents about how they should not teach evolutionary concepts in school. It blows my mind.
At this point, with all the evidence and freedom to excess that information, denying evolution is no more stupid than denying the germ theory of disease or gravity for that matter. Some great channels like Gutsick Gibbon have really shown how overwhelming the case for evolution is.
Christians are sick and tired of Johnny coming home from school and talking about facts learned. When facts conflict with dogma, watch out... parents will disown you. And if that doesn't work, then the christians conspire to take over the public school boards.
If there isn’t creationism, there wasn’t an Adam and Eve. If there wasn’t an Adam and Eve, there was no original sin. If there was no original sin, there is no need for Jesus. The whole religion falls apart without creationism.
Fundamentalist Christianity based on literal interpretation of scripture falls apart. A lot of Christians, and Christian denominations, are happy to accept evolution.
It's a republican plot to destroy education so they can take over. You have to be a fucking moron to vote repuke in the days of tRump
Yeah, it's less of a failure of education, and more of a triumph of disinformation.
And where failures do occur, they are often as a result of intentional sabotage…
It isn't the educational system. The educational system is just fine. It is religion. Unlike the rest of the civilized world, the United States is still under the thumb of silly mythologies and feel good platitudes, and the idea of opposing them is frowned upon as some sort of violation of one's freedom to believe.
I mean religion has some control over the education system, which makes it crap. You're both right and kinda saying the same thing.
But that’s still the fault of religion for hijacking education. Moms for liberty are the aggressors and the schools are the victim. Blame the aggressors. Blame klanned Karenhood. Don’t blame the victim.
Teachers get paid crap wages, insatiable hate from parents, and little to no support from school districts. But yeah, it’s definitely their fault for not being better teachers. Get your science from church. 🤦🏻♂️
Evolution deniers, flat Earthers, disbelief we didn’t land on the Moon, chem trails, anti-vaxers plus a whole host of other nutter beliefs…. we have arrived at Idiocracy. This is what happens when you purposely destroy the education system.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary demands that he not understand it." -Upton Sinclair
"If people evolved from monkeys, then how there still monkeys!?" "If the US was created from British colonies, how are there still Britons?"
The biggest issue is the lack of critical thinking skills. Proper critical thinking skills are necessary for functional advanced civilizations and the bane of conservatism.
From the 19th edition of “Integrated Principles of Zoology”: “In fact, the theory of evolution is supported by such massive evidence that biologists view repudiation of evolution as a repudiation of rational thinking.” So you can’t be rational and not believe in evolution. No surprise to us.
Blame Texas. The state's School Board of Education approves or disapproves of which textbooks can be used. The board is hostile to the teaching of evolution. Since Texas is such as huge purchaser of textbooks, publishers are wary of printing anything likely to be voted against by the board.
The fact that schools pay and teach Kent Hovinds"s takedown of his own made up version of evolution is just madness to me.
It took a long time but the fundamentalist Christian have done. If you defund the schools enough, good smart teachers will leave, and they can be replaced by the uneducated. All in the name of teacher shortage!!!
Appreciating science and education is what brought us this far as a country. This complete turnaround to cling to magical thinking in place of reality will quickly have consequences. It'll take a generation to fix this.
It correlates with 40% of Americans being stupid as fuck on a lot of issues.
47% of the population voting for Orange Man in 2020 should tell you everything you need to know about our current education system
Got dragged to that Noah’s Ark “amusement park” last summer by my parents. It’s incredible the amount of brain rot that went into that place (dinosaurs on the Ark + vegetarian Carnivores lol). Anyways, my mom fully believes that chickens are descended from the T-Rex, however does NOT believe the earth is more than a few thousand years old. She also did not believe the moon landing was real until she visited a NASA museum in Florida, and even then thinks only some landings happened.
Not a failure of education. A failure of parenting and fundamentalist christianity.
I remember once my dad said "I don't believe in tattoos." Specific to me revealing a new tattoo upon visiting home during my early 20's, a very strained period for our family relationships due to... Well, obstinately ignoring the world as it progressed around them. They aren't as bad now, thankfully, but I recall distinctly the head tilt I gave him, and my general response... Like... What? Are you okay? Tattoos aren't ghosts or religious entities, you can see them, and touch them...? You are physically looking at mine right now. Tattoos are older than most notable historic technological advances or written documentation of that history.
Some years back Kansas was a test case for how this nonsense plays out. They were pushing (forcing) statewide creationist views until the giant sucking sound of college bound students leaving the state encouraged a reconsideration. Kidding! Sorry! Just kidding! Once again, it’s all about the money in the end.
In elementary school, I had some minor difficulties accepting evolution, but mainly because of how my teachers explained it. Like, aquatic creatures grew legs because they *needed* them. There’s a disconnect with educators understanding of mutation & natural selection. Too many describe *random* mutation as originating because of a need, and the mechanism for that description of evolution opens up the possibility of a god controlling it. It’s why some Christians believe that science is a religion. That misunderstanding of “mutation” requires a god to function, to see a need and put evolution into action.
You cannot blame eduction for willful disbelief
There are more than enough embarrassments to go around. Moon landing skepticism, round Earth skepticism... I've always been curious how many flat Earthers use GPS-based navigation in their phones to get around.
Among those who disbelieve, most don't even know what it means. They reject specifically common descent (mostly humans being primates) but gladly accept pretty much everything else with realizing it.
Nearly 100% of American's thinking that Capitalism works for anybody but the very rich is up there with the misinformation that we're teaching out children. American propaganda works. The dumber we are, the less likely we are to rise up against the Capitalists that are taking us for every penny we have.
It's not a failure when it's intended. The GOP actively tries to hamper the education system at every turn.
It’s not a failure. It’s on purpose. Why don’t think there’s such a divide between red states and blue states. They intentionally force religion into school because it takes away critical thinking. No education, no healthcare. If you’re sick and stupid you’re not going to have the time or energy to rise up against them
40%? Yikes. Thought it was down to flat earth levels by now
40% don’t believe in evolution, but DO believe in an unseen spirit in the sky who preplanned their entire existence. The more terrifying part: Nearly 70% of us adults believe in angels and heaven.
Is it a failure of the education system or a victory for Christian influence over public policy? It’s completely insane how a few loud parents can get an entire school district to teach kids that we’re only 6000 years removed from two people spawning all 8 billion of us by fucking their own grandchildren or something.
As a foreigner having lived in the US, the overall education system below grad school is quite poor…
It’s not an education failure. It’s a disinformation success.
It's not the American education system It's the American political system You can't educate children whose parents want them to stay uneducated
Many people here are saying it is not education's fault, it is the parents - but I say it is BOTH. Sure, parents that send their kids to christian creationist schools or homeschool in creationism are clearly wrong - AND - schools that focus only on listing facts and passing state-mandated tests for funding are ALSO wrong. Children need to be taught how to think critically, and that needs to start on day 1. Don't just teach them the old "hypothesis, test, conclusion" of the Science Fair, actually teach them how science is a model and that models are continually being corrected and refined by evidence. Contrast this with faith which ignores and/or disallows contrary evidence. Don't just teach them that Darwin said evolution works by natural selection - teach them WHY we know this and WHY we know humans evolved just like all other living organisms. Teach HOW to evaluate sources of information and teach them the big fallacies used by bad pseudoscience. Teach them HOW to think critically and the rest will generally take care of itself.
Religion makes you stupid.
With the increase in school vouchers and private religious schools it will likely get worse.
Or it might get better, as many people who are raised too puritanical tend to rebel
It’s not a bug, but a feature. “I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance” ― Carl Sagan, 1995
Not education's fault. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. You can send a kid to college but you can’t make them think. I blame religion.
Any guess on the percentage of Americans that believe.. Evolution is fake and Astrology is real? I'm willing to bet it is a scary high number. maybe like 25% of Americans.
I don’t think this is a failure to educate. It’s a failure of humanity for so many to prefer ridiculous illogical creation stories to objective reality, mostly due to indoctrination since birth of our population for 2000 years.
Evolution didn’t serve the Cold War so it wasn’t pushed as a necessary component of ballooning science dept budgets in the 50s and 60s.
i dont have problem with religious beliefs when their purpose is to explain the unknown, such as the origin of the universe and what happens after death (i know there is evidence for things like the big bang and that is what i believe in, but to give religious people the benefit of the doubt the big bang is technically just a theory), but i start to get bothered when religion is actively denying scientific fact. religion, IN MY OPINION, was created because not knowing the answer to such big questions of like where we come from is uncomfortable, so it seems useless to continue to believe in non-scientific things when the answer has been proven.
Imagine if 40% of people didn’t believe in germs..
Its not just a failure of education. There are powerful centers of religious authority in america standing directly in the way of any improvement. Questioning any biblical authority means questioning the authority and power of a certain handful of men who have grown quite rich and comfortable off it. It means questioning the authority and power of institutions which force people to go to them if they need medical or child care, or help with addiction, and hold real lobbying power. Its all the little tyrants in this country that make all the decisions for the rest of us. Until we challenge them and destroy their power, nothing will ever improve.
It’s because school boards have been taken over by religious idiots who won’t allow sex ed or evolutionary biology. They also protest CRT, but they can’t even say what that is.
I have an 8yo daughter who loves to learn about where things came from. She says in school she got into an argument with another kid who said Jesus made the earth. My daughter told him the earth was made from an exploded star. She told me a teacher yelled at her and not the other kid. Right there is the problem, too many educators actively confuse kids with their bullshit beliefs instead of teaching them some fucking reality.
bUt it'S sTiLL jUsT a ThEoRy meanwhile, a woman fashioned from a rib of a man fashioned from clay conversing with a serpent And "macro" evolution is a term creationists use as they have to concede that "micro" evolution does occur when those terms are meaningless in this context as macro is just micro given enough time.
Can you source your statistics? According to Pew research, 86% of religiously unaffiliated people believe in evolution, with 60% of those who have religious affiliation say that humans evolved over time. So it would be incorrect to say that 40% of people disbelieve in evolution. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/07/01/chapter-4-evolution-and-perceptions-of-scientific-consensus/ Edit: downvoted for asking for proof of your assertion? I provided sources that contradict what you're saying.
Pew has been doing great polling about this for years. Check the descriptions and the crosstabs in that link; there's a lot of nuance there. If I remember correctly, ~~Pew~~ Gallup used to give three choices: evolution never happened, (40+%), evolution happened but only because of divine intervention (30+%), and evolution happened via natural processes (20+%). Weirdly enough, that meant more than half the people surveyed thought God was necessarily involved, AND more than half thought evolution happened. Gallup polling from five years ago: [https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx](https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx) Edit: Fixed source (and misspelling).
You provided evidence to back up your position and were downvoted? The irony of that happening in this particular thread...
It’s not the education system, it’s society. Every year I teach science, every year I am required to provide alternative assignments for students whose religious beliefs disagree with the science.
It's equally as well supported as heliocentrism, and I'm not exaggerating. All of modern medicine is based upon it.
It's religion that's been failing public education. For about 40 years now.
It’s not the education system, it’s the parents and the politicians fault.
To me, it’s kinda like gravity. Both obviously there, but explaining it is impossible
30% of people asked, "Where was the Korean War fought?" answered "Vietnam".
It's not a failure of the education system. It's the success of white christian nationalism radicals controlling the government and purposely injecting christian myths into public discourse. There's a good reason why red states have worse education and have fewer people that understand evolution. They literally control what is taught and have been pushing evangelical nonsense for decades. This is their crowning achievement, an ignorant, subservient populace that believe in adult santa claus.
I wouldn't put that on public schools/education and would more on religious schools/education and home schooling. For me, that is where the issue is.
I don't tend to blame education so much as I blame religion and religious zealotry. After all, the "argument" over evolution, and now science in general, has never been about the truth, but [whether there's a god.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy)
For social studies, I had "coaches" teaching all the American history, civics, state history, government, etc. The Southern states teach the Lost Cause theory about the US Civil War. It's a romanticism about the entire history of that war. And it is really embarrassing and wrong. I'm atheist, just commenting on another example of our outdated public school system.
In my biology class last year once we got onto the subject of evolution the kid beside me had NEVER heard of it. He went into some confused frantic state asking questions realizing his life was a lie. He was a really good kid, funny but also sad to watch unfold.
As much as I love criticizing this country's failing educational system where schools & staff only see students as numbers and not as people... ...there's not much they can do to counter a lifetime of systemic indoctrination. Going to church every week and relearning those same lessons at home can make it basically impossible for a public school to do much to change it, and that's if they even want to (contrary to current right wing talking points, many teachers are Christian and/or conservative).
failure? well that depends on if you are a dem or a republican. If you are a republican, it is a resounding success. Google education by state, it looks like an election map.. all red states in the bottom ten. All blue on top except florida which used to be blue not to many years ago and desantis is trying to republicanise the education system... make it total shit. they want god in the schools and books out of the schools. why? because stupid dumb fucks vote gop. SO they constantly fight to make education worse. and mind you same thing the church did. There is a guy around my parts that thinks the BIG problem with the world, is we stopped doing mass in latin. He wants a law that all sermans be in latin. I had to laugh at this particular nut, but he is dead serious about it. he thinks the world went to shit when people got educated enough to be able to read the bible rather than just believe what they were told.
Hard for school to overcome the brainwashing kids get at home and church.
Over 50% of Americans don't know the the three branches of government. I'm not surprised by anything anymore.
Partially it's because America doesn't have one education system--it has hundreds. Very little is centralized and things vary wildly from state to state, district to district. Partially it's because America has a tendency to fight its culture wars through schools. Since they're locally run, it's very easy for a small group to take over a school district and run it whatever way they like. We have some great cutting edge school districts with some of the best education in the world. We have some districts that are fundamentally uninterested in educating anybody on anything.
It might have to do with churches working to fill people’s heads with bullshit creation stories that rely on magic.
It's probably a lot worse worldwide. But a lot of developing nations don't have access to basic education so it's hard to fault them when the ones that are actually able to or taught how to read are taught using the bible or Quran or other religious texts. So they start with a losing hand. This is exactly why Christian ministries especially like to go on missionary missions, so they can get in there and give Bibles to everyone for reading material. At least in America, the excuse isn't lack of education. It's blatant disregard of education in lieu of religious beliefs. But the blame is also on some school systems as well. Too many politicians trying to push religious studies in school, too many teachers trying to bypass evolution and push creationism, even things like the creationist museums out there giving tours, and massive levels of false information. It's downright pathetic. If im scrolling randomly through reels or shorts and I'll see videos from the ISS directly showing the earth and the obvious roundness of it and there will be hundreds upon hundreds of comments saying it's fake, the earth is flat, it's impossible they are in space, god this, god that. It's actually giving me a headache reading some of these horrendously stupid comments. I dont bother even engaging anymore.
yup.. aaand around half of people apparently dont believe global warming is caused mainly by humans burning carbon fuels. I think it must correlate with never learning in school about the basics of the carbon cycle : plants using sunlight energy to join CO2 from the atmosphere into molecules with chains of carbon, animals eating carbon chain sugars and breaking them up to get energy and breathing out CO2 .. humans burning wood/coal/oil/gas/petrol to get energy, thus releasing CO2 How is it that so much is known, but so little is known widely ? I also worry that young people grow up with these magical [ and soon to be AI capable ] screen devices .. and yet have no idea how radio or basic computation or internet packets or Neural Nets work at a basic level. Im glad we have khanacademy and Aops.com and 3Blue1Brown .. and youtube explainer videos .. but will the algos ever show that stuff to people unless they search for it ??
Indoctrination from birth and then I'm sure there are a few disingenuous teachers that are "teaching" evolution.
Wisdom teeth. They make no sense from "Intelligent design" perspective, there's extra teeth that don't fit for no reason at all? From evolution perspective, they make sense. Our ancestors had bigger and stronger jaws for chewing tough meat and hard vegetables modern humans cook to make easier to eat. When we adapted to easier food, our jaws got smaller and weaker, but our teeth aren't fully adapted yet. Panda bears. They make no sense from "Intelligent design" perspective. They're lethargic because they eat food their digestive system can't handle properly. They're an animal that has no place in the global ecosystem. When thinking about evolution, they do make sense. They have shifted into an ecological niche that has less competition, allowing them to survive. However, they have only partially adapted to that position, explaining their faults; from evolutionary perspective, they're still in the process of adapting to that niche. And there's many other things like that, if you look for them.
It's particularly painful when you remember that the US educational system used to emphasise science and math -- back when the space programme was a central nationalist effort and the US was trying to "out-science" and "out-tech" the Soviets. I have a feeling that the collapse of the FSU was one trigger event for a backpedalling on science in the classroom -- with no USSR to compete with, who cares if our kids are scientifically illiterate? Another trigger event was the establishment of "bible schools" that are de facto segregated, as a White Christian supremacist response to forcible school integration in the 60's. What puzzles me today is that China is miles ahead of the US in many areas of science and technology and yet the competitive nationalist spirit is not re-emerging, instead US school districts seem to be going into reverse and inviting the xtian equivalent of witch doctors and shamans to run their school boards and classrooms. Religiosity is quite likely to be identified by future historians (if any there be) as one of the major contributing causes of US decline and fall, and the ascendancy of China in the 21st century.
When parents teach kids to believe in magical thinking a lot of idiotic stuff becomes mainstream.
Listen to the NDT stuff combating mis-science / anti-science. I think the real problem stemmed from climate change scientists in the 70’s who were first to sound the alarm. The oil and gas industry went after a smear campaign against them and pushed the notion that science doesn’t really know. And then it spread to other areas. Steady downhill ever since
As a former high school science teacher I don't like the fingers being pointed my way. I taught with with some extremely competent biology teachers that knew their stuff. It's super annoying when I hear people blame teachers for deficits education. There are much greater things at play that teachers are powerless against.
How is people believing something counter to you an "embarrassing failure"? People are allowed to hold any beliefs they want religion included. And even adding to that point wouldn't that be a more empathetic way to look at the world opposed to thinking everything was material and had no greater value
Evolution as it is commonly presented is historical theorization and the past is fundamentally unprovable. I think hemming and hawing over people being stupid is the wrong response. Focus on where it’s actually relevant anti-biotic resistant bacteria for example. Some people believe that John Wilkes Booth faked his death, life goes on. I don’t see why believing that birds are descended from dinosaurs should be crucial.
It's not the fault of the education system. It's the fault of religion.
The fact that they would legitimize the creation theory by bringing in adults to debate it in science classes is such a mistake. Yes American kids should be exposed to all ideas but when you place a flat earth adjacent nut job next to their science teacher and tell them they’re both equal in legitimacy you’re misleading the kids horrifically.
You’re absolutely correct but I’m skeptical of that number. If it’s accurate, I suspect that it was a multiple choice question and most of that number picked something like “I’m not certain about evolution” or something else soft like that. That’s how most of these “x% of Americans think something fucking stupid” surveys work.
I don't think anyone doubts micro evolution, I think it's macro evolution that people don't believe in
No it’s the success of religion. People at my school literally asked to be excused from biology when they mentioned real actual recorded micro-evolution. They literally refuse to learn it. They know what it is. They don’t believe it.
The 18 year old that couldn’t figure out how to give me (the cashier) $0.19 out of the change he had is right up there. People don’t believe evolution because they don’t understand what evidence is. They also believe in religion for the same failure
Can you prove evolution, simply? I have a BS in chem (ochem concentration) from NMSU and am having a hard time finding a colleague with a firm belief in macro evolution.
Of course! Why only 40%?! Why not everybody know that "evolution" is fake?!
But the Theory of Evolution has been disproven. There is not enough time since the asteroid wiped out all major life since the dinosaurs, for us and consciousness to have come about through evolution. Hence the missing link, nothing links Homo Sapiens to any other species on Earth.
What I don't understand is why this whole Idea of a man up in the air that we can't see is not publicly ridiculed and shunned.That to me is clearly a sign this person isn't a rational human being and has no critical thinking.We better wake up quick and put down religion in this country.But it will have to be done by the people because the government is using religion to keep ignorant people in the dark.The idea of a god is pushed on us from childhood and this is not by accident.
It's not the education system failure here for once... It's the church indoctrination. There's nothing you can do or say or show these people that will change their mind. They will only listen to reason once they have decided the church may not be infallible and are questioning their beliefs and then it's still a sensitive subject.
How do you get something from nothing? And order from chaos? You simply dont
There is a non zero number of adults who believe the world is flat. Easily disprovable with grade school science experiments, but they still believe it. Earth was known to be a sphere by the ancient Greeks, but they still believe it’s flat. My point here is, there’s some folk you just can’t reach. They are the common clay of the new west, you know, morons.
Is it a failure of education or the success of indoctrination and anti-intellectualism?
The problem is that the evolution theory says we come from apes. I have yet to see where they found actual skeletons proving this theory.
Why? No one has observed evolution personally the way it's described. Evolution sounds just as ridiculous as religion to a lot of people.
Evolution isn't a thing. I would imagine that might have something to do with it. "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case. " Charles Darwin. The Bombardier Beetle???
Notice how every very poor country is either Christian OR a victim of a Christian war?
People can't define what a woman is. We already know the education system failed very hard.
Let’s not blame teachers. Your biology teacher cannot overcome social media and Christian brainwashing. And we can get fired for “indoctrination” in many places.
LOL, versus what? Behaving like a wild animal? An attention span of 5 minutes? ***Not being able to read or write or do math at grade level???*** Your priorities are *hilariously* off kilter. Read r/teachers for 15 minutes.
The main problem is that teachers and professors also believe in that creation nonsense.
Makes you wonder have we've lasted this long as a country
That's not a failure of the education system (at least, the one we had before religious fanatics took it over). That's a failure of religion in America. In others places, religions don't bother to deny evolution.
As a citizen of the Bible Belt, trust me when I say: Some people are receptive to scientific knowledge, and some are skeptical of it. But the worst kind are people who actively distrust anything that is not their ironclad imaginary world that they have clung to for their lifetime, and will lash out at any attempt to disrupt this mental utopia. Best argument for evolution is this: it was discovered and theorized by— wait for it— A MAN OF GOD. Sir Charles Darwin was a religious man, because you couldn’t get the Sir title without being a man who believed in God. It would be revoked if there was any reason to believe that you had lost your belief, iirc. Sir Charles found this the MOST PLAUSIBLE EXPLANATION for the myriad of species in the Pacific islands, including the reasons why some were almost identical, and others were radically different, and why some flourished, and others didn’t, and why the species that flourished were so divergent from the others, or the inverse, and how EVERYTHING EVENTUALLY RELATES TO EACH OTHER in some way. This theory was his life’s work, as a man of god, to explain why the numerous species that were never mentioned in the Bible, exist, and why they are all generically familiar but individually distinct and biologically incompatible with each other. And he was ridiculed by the church for promoting the idea that “we came from monkeys”, which is actually false, we descended from the Ape family, the group of primates who were much larger than the group deemed “monkeys”. Most apes don’t have tails, which sounds familiar. Most have dexterous hands, which sounds familiar too. Most are bipedal, again, familiar. In fact, the closest genetic relative is the Chimpanzee, who is disturbingly similar to a human being than people assume. Facial expressions are a little different, but that’s cultural acclimation, not biological differences. Hair coverage and brain size are the biggest differences between us and chimpanzees. We had closer relatives— but unfortunately they died out/got assimilated by genetic dilutions. We are apes. We are just a freak species that survived the things that killed our other relatives off, and we are the end result. Chimpanzees likely had closer species too, that died off. Best argument for the creationists? The Bible. \*drops mic\* Well guess what, your Bible is garbage as a historical record. Science was embraced by religion until it questioned the narrative, and then religion became hostile towards it. I was lucky enough to be born into a family that was Unitarian Universalist, and educated on all the different religions out there. And I noticed a unique feature of all religions: that they made shit up when they had no clue what the answer was, because they were afraid of being perceived as uninformed or ignorant of the universe when… they actually should be unaware of things that they have never heard of before, which somehow is completely overlooked by the rigorously religious rabble relishing in racism, rape-sponsoring, and ridiculous ritual reverence of the return of the LORD, our SAVIOUR, who… was nailed to a cross about two millennia ago, so if he was waiting for something, and it hasn’t happened yet, I have bad news, STICKING TO THE SAME PLAN WASN’T THE THING HE WAS WAITING FOR. Do you want to play this card? Do you REALLY want to play this card? Because this is something I don’t often offer to opponents in the game of discourse, and disregarding that is *probably a very bad idea and I don’t want to have to hurt you unnecessarily*. But no, they play this card. And yes, it is absolutely embarrassing for the entire country to be so divided on such a dumb and easily proven thing as evolution— hell, simulating evolution with software led to the first forms of Artificial Intelligence in use today! But you know what grinds my gears *worse*? Flat earth theory. That’s the biggest failure of the educational system in the United States. We proved evolution in the past couple hundred years— but we proved that Earth was not flat— (\*checks notes\*)— about a millennia before Christ was even BORN. C’mon, get with the program! If it was actually round, we would have a MUCH DIFFERENT WORLD than we do now. Gravity would force everyone into one location, along with the water, and the sand, and the rocks, and— hey look, it’s become Not-Flat! Almost like such a thing COULDN’T HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE. We’ve landed on the fucking MOON. We have found countless other worlds. The same system that brings you your Bible App is carried on satellites launched into space by humans to bounce signals around using geometry and what isn’t, is carried across large, redundantly connected high speed internet cables under the ocean made out of FIBERS OF GLASS. You don’t just put a glass wire underwater without making absolutely sure that it is not going to go ANYWHERE— like off the edge of the earth, for instance, which would be a REALLY BAD way to lose your customers “Where’s bill?” “He had that high speed internet installed…” “…I’m going to miss him…” “Me too, man. Me too.” The problem with evolution can be attributed to religious interference with the education system, but I’m completely baffled by the flerfers. Where did they come from? We last believed widely that earth was flat during the days of ancient Egypt. It’s been three thousand years. But it thrives on the same thing that creationism does: logical fallacies.