Since 1979, he says, the proportion of scientifically literate adults has doubled—to a paltry 17%. The rest are not savvy enough to understand the science section of The New York Times or other science media pitched at a similar level. As disgracefully low as the rate of adult scientific literacy in the United States may be, Miller found even lower rates in Canada, Europe, and Japan—a result he attributes primarily to lower university enrollments.
But that really is only a crumb. Rather more telling, perhaps, is this observation:
As time went on, more people said they had a good understanding of stem cells—21% in 2004, up from 9% in 2003—but only 9% of respondents could define the term when asked, compared with 8% in 2003.
In other words, over half the folks who believed themselves to have a "good understanding" of a scientific concept were in fact incapable of even a basic definition of something they believed they understood.
Not unlike a number of critics of Darwin's ToE, who busily refute strawmen without demonstrating the most basic understanding of what Darwin actually wrote and (accurately) predicted.
What I still don't understand is, why is your Republican Party embroiled in this? Over here, the Conservative Party is staunch in its support of both enterprise and science--how can you support one without the other?
What I still don't understand is, why is your Republican Party embroiled in this? Over here, the Conservative Party is staunch in its support of both enterprise and science--how can you support one without the other?You've got two main contributers to this issue (in my estimation). One, the poor state of basic scientific education. I do not mean what is the scientific method. The SM is important, but merely memorizing the steps and not fully grasping the application of it is pointless. The basic philosophy of science that underlies good scientific reasoning is also not even mentioned, discussed, or elluded to in basic education; so you'll have mainstream newspapers proclaiming that science has proven something or the other. Nevermind science is not in the business of proving anything. There is evidence for a theory or claim, and degrees of confidence that should accompany that evidence, but there isn't definitive proof of anything. This hurts the scientific enterprise when something is "disproven", say the recent trend of serious psychologists to reject multiple-personality disorder's either prevalence (because a huge portion of the case are diagnosed by a very few doctors) or existence or something along the lines of diety discoveries (omega-3 fatty acids' benefit for the heart have recently been called into question). So people cannot even understand what is being told to them, and absolutely do not have a justifiable critical eye towards such matters.
An excellent point. Science is inherently conservative, in the sense that it is cautionary and resists change. By that, I mean that any willy-nilly idea that comes along does not change science until it is thoroughly (though perhaps not perfectly) vetted: "You want change? Fine....prove it". Is it any wonder, then, that one of the most anti-scientific forces on the planet is radical Islam, which attempts to force change without debate, consideration or forethought?
One word: fundies.
Historically, fundamentalist Christians have not generally either been particuarly conservative or particularly Republican. They began to associate with the GOP in droves in the 1970s, after the Dems thought they now had large enough coalition to shed their embarrassing Southern Rump. Problem is, unlike in the seventies, when the Dems had huge majorities in the House and Senate, and thought they could afford to lose the fundamentalists, the GOP's majority is wafer thin, so they've got to kow-tow to fundamentalists and hope they won't alienate secular conservatives, libertarians and moderates. I think the upcoming election is going to prove this a miscalculation.
The thing is a large number of the public defender Darwin's ToE also do not demonstrating the most basic understanding Darwin's ToE .... Darwin's ToE does not explain (nor try to) how life arose, but the general public I would say generally does think that is does...
Darwin's ToE describes a mechanism how a living thing that replicates itself (with and from it' slight variation) can and will create diverging forms of life.... not the creation of life itself (from non life).... there are some theory that do try to explain the creation of life via a ToE like mechanism....but does Darwin's ToE?