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Scientific Illiteracy and the Partisan Takeover of Biology
National Center for Science Education ^ | 18 April 2006 | Staff

Posted on 04/19/2006 3:57:51 AM PDT by PatrickHenry

A new article in PLoS Biology (April 18, 2006) discusses the state of scientific literacy in the United States, with especial attention to the survey research of Jon D. Miller, who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University Medical School.

To measure public acceptance of the concept of evolution, Miller has been asking adults if "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals" since 1985. He and his colleagues purposefully avoid using the now politically charged word "evolution" in order to determine whether people accept the basics of evolutionary theory. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of Americans who reject this concept has declined (from 48% to 39%), as has the proportion who accept it (45% to 40%). Confusion, on the other hand, has increased considerably, with those expressing uncertainty increasing from 7% in 1985 to 21% in 2005.
In international surveys, the article reports, "[n]o other country has so many people who are absolutely committed to rejecting the concept of evolution," quoting Miller as saying, "We are truly out on a limb by ourselves."

The "partisan takeover" of the title refers to the embrace of antievolutionism by what the article describes as "the right-wing fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party," noting, "In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Missouri, and Texas all included demands for teaching creation science." NCSE is currently aware of eight state Republican parties that have antievolutionism embedded in their official platforms or policies: those of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas. Four of them -- those of Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas -- call for teaching forms of creationism in addition to evolution; the remaining three call only for referring the decision whether to teach such "alternatives" to local school districts.

A sidebar to the article, entitled "Evolution under Attack," discusses the role of NCSE and its executive director Eugenie C. Scott in defending the teaching of evolution. Scott explained the current spate of antievolution activity as due in part to the rise of state science standards: "for the first time in many states, school districts are faced with the prospect of needing to teach evolution. ... If you don't want evolution to be taught, you need to attack the standards." Commenting on the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.], Scott told PLoS Biology, "Intelligent design may be dead as a legal strategy but that does not mean it is dead as a popular social movement," urging and educators to continue to resist to the onslaught of the antievolution movement. "It's got legs," she quipped. "It will evolve."


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: biology; creationuts; crevolist; evomania; religiousevos; science; scienceeducation; scientificliteracy
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To: demoRat watcher
Perhaps you should be fighting the existence of government-run and politically-controlled state colleges which seek to "dumb down" debate and strive to control thought and speech on campus.

Perhaps I have been fighting for free expression on campus for the last 20 years.

661 posted on 04/21/2006 9:26:15 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: demoRat watcher
In other words, it is the flaws in the evomaniacs' arguments that have caused the creationists' resistance to the theory of evolution as a whole.

No, it's the conflict with their literalist interpretation of the Bible or the Koran. Most fundamentalists don't know a whole lot of biology, so if there were 'flaws' they wouldn't be able to evaluate them.

As for 'evomaniacs', well, stupid people are often hostile to what they don't understand.

662 posted on 04/21/2006 9:28:59 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: webstersII
the real hard sciences are the ones which have experiments and can be put to the test over and over again in the lab.

You mean, like Newton changing the orbits of planets and observing the result. Oh, wait, he didn't do that. I guess that means he wasn't a real scientist.

And then there's Einstein. Here's a list of the science experiments Einstein ran in his research career.

(begin list)

(end list)

Sorry, Einstein, according to our FR peanut gallery, you don't qualify as a real scientist either.

I've never seen such strong opinions with so little to back them up.

663 posted on 04/21/2006 9:34:38 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: demoRat watcher
Perhaps you should be fighting the existence of government-run and politically-controlled state colleges which seek to "dumb down" debate and strive to control thought and speech on campus.

Please support this claim. I am against censorship and believe that every person has the right to their beliefs. However, the contention over the ToE is not about censoring the idea of ID. It is, rather, a result of repeated attempts by individuals, whose motives are different than they claim, to force science to accept, as science, a notion that has no more evidential support than astrology, tarot-reading, or any of the endeavors of Ms. Cleo.

664 posted on 04/21/2006 9:38:00 AM PDT by LibertarianSchmoe
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To: Right Wing Professor; RadioAstronomer
You can find my c.v. linked off my profile, bozo. So where and in what field did you get your Ph.D.?

Over two hours later, and the only response is the sound of crickets..... as expected.

665 posted on 04/21/2006 9:46:22 AM PDT by longshadow (FReeper #405, entering his ninth year of ignoring nitwits, nutcases, and recycled newbies)
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To: Right Wing Professor

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -EGH


666 posted on 04/21/2006 9:48:09 AM PDT by balrog666 (There is no freedom like knowledge, no slavery like ignorance. - Ali ibn Ali-Talib)
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To: ToryHeartland
I'm not really sure I'm understanding your point here. If you are noting that, say, an astrophysicist mapping distant galaxies has no 'need' for a cladogram of reptiles, or that a geologist prospecting for petroleum has no 'need' for quantum mechanics--well, the point is obvious.

Well, yeah, that was the point I was making. I got my degree in Meteorology and evolution never came into it. There is nothing in that field that hinges on evolution. Biology courses were never required. One could be a great meteorologist and have no clue what evolution is all about. It seems that from what I've read on these threads, that there are some who disagree with this.

Those other branches of science depend on the scientific method of which the ToE is an example, but rejecting the ToE is not rejecting the scientific method; it's just rejecting the conclusions some have arrived at by observing the fossil record.

667 posted on 04/21/2006 9:50:38 AM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Right Wing Professor

Guess those of us that study the stars don't qualify either.


668 posted on 04/21/2006 9:55:49 AM PDT by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: RadioAstronomer
Guess those of us that study the stars don't qualify either.

Deep Impact was an astronomical experiment, for sure.

All you've got to do is send a chunk of metal towards Alpha Centauri, and in a few thousand years, someone else will watch what happens when it hits. And if you're lucky, they'll include you as a middle author :-)

669 posted on 04/21/2006 9:59:09 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor

LOL! :-)


670 posted on 04/21/2006 10:00:35 AM PDT by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: metmom
I got my degree in Meteorology and evolution never came into it.

Had you specialized in palaeoclimatology, it would have.

671 posted on 04/21/2006 10:02:13 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor

I had the fortune of being in the mission control room at JPL for the Magellan launch. (My voice is recorded as saying "go for launch"). :-) My two seconds of fame. LOL!


672 posted on 04/21/2006 10:02:25 AM PDT by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: RadioAstronomer
I had the fortune of being in the mission control room at JPL for the Magellan launch. (My voice is recorded as saying "go for launch"). :-) My two seconds of fame. LOL!

Cool.

673 posted on 04/21/2006 10:04:02 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: wintertime

Hm,,,,likely none.

Except that those cultures, if any, that thought that 2+2=5 apparently didn't make it.

674 posted on 04/21/2006 10:08:10 AM PDT by ml1954 (NOT the disruptive troll seen frequently on CREVO threads.)
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To: RadioAstronomer
My voice is recorded as saying "go for launch"

Come on now. We all know you said: "This is boring; I'm going to go for lunch."

675 posted on 04/21/2006 10:32:28 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Unresponsive to trolls, lunatics, fanatics, retards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: Right Wing Professor

"Sorry, Einstein, according to our FR peanut gallery, you don't qualify as a real scientist either."

There's a number of things that Einstein postulated that couldn't be tested until many years after his death. I'm sure you are aware of that.


676 posted on 04/21/2006 10:37:16 AM PDT by webstersII
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To: demoRat watcher

"In other words, it is the flaws in the evomaniacs' arguments that have caused the creationists' resistance to the theory of evolution as a whole."

Nope.

What I said was, the argument is not over postulates which can be tested in a lab. The argument is solely over the postulates which are jealously held in spite of the ability to reproduce them.

(And, yes, I realize that the above statement doesn't apply to many people on this board. Many of them are still arguing with the results produced in the lab. But I'm not referring to those people).


677 posted on 04/21/2006 10:42:29 AM PDT by webstersII
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To: webstersII
There's a number of things that Einstein postulated that couldn't be tested until many years after his death. I'm sure you are aware of that.

So he wasn't a RealScientistTM until he was dead a few years?

678 posted on 04/21/2006 10:44:37 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: demoRat watcher
Obfiscating the comment by focusing on Wintertime's grammatical flaws in the sentence detracts from the theme of the debate.

I looked back and found no such thing. All of RWP's comments have been relate to documented numbers.

Defend yourself of withdraw the comment.

679 posted on 04/21/2006 10:59:54 AM PDT by js1138 (somewhere, some time ago, something happened, but whatever it was that happened wasn't evolution)
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To: Right Wing Professor

"So he wasn't a RealScientistTM until he was dead a few years?"

Considering the grief he got over some of his ideas when he was alive I'm sure that's what some people said. But he at least he had mathematical proofs for many of his ideas. Proofs can be reproduced and verified on a chalkboard.

History will tell whether you, Darwin, and your colleagues will be held in high esteem or chuckled at for your own ignorance. Modern medicine laughs at medical theories and ideas from the 19th and 20th century. Do you think the people of the 21st and 22nd centuries will think any differently of much of the current scientific knowledge? Of course, the exception to this will be those ideas which can be examined and tested in the lab -- just like any of the experiments Newton, et. al. performed are still being reproduced today.


680 posted on 04/21/2006 11:02:10 AM PDT by webstersII
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