Posted on 04/21/2014 2:52:15 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Few Americans question that smoking causes cancer. But they express bigger doubts as concepts that scientists consider to be truths get further from our own experiences and the present time, an Associated Press-GfK poll found.
Americans have more skepticism than confidence in global warming, the age of the Earth and evolution and have the most trouble believing a Big Bang created the universe 13.8 billion years ago.
Rather than quizzing scientific knowledge, the survey asked people to rate their confidence in several statements about science and medicine. […]
About 4 in 10 say they are not too confident or outright disbelieve that the earth is warming, mostly a result of man-made heat-trapping gases, that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old or that life on Earth evolved through a process of natural selection, though most were at least somewhat confident in each of those concepts. But a narrow majority—51 percent—questions the Big Bang theory. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Sure, just as 1/3 of 1.0 is still only ONE third with an infinite number of decimal places to the left or right is possible...ONE at a time.
When dealing with the 'public', there are several gradations of knowledge and interest. There is, at the base, the sub to barely literate whose 'knowledge' comes from their locality and society. Up from that base comes the various levels of literacy user; popular media imbiber, the reader and the scholar.
The latter two of the above, once past adolescence, can name multiple times when popular media and political causes have trumpeted urgent needs requiring immediate remedy. While sometimes valid, far more have been wrong and quickly forgotten by their advocates. When the subject of the exercise can be made 'scientific', it frequently derives from an initial thesis that can be seized upon to motivate a political process.
So, for this survey to highlight skepticism about such issues, points more to an experience history rather than lack of knowledge IMHO. Besides, consider the three items listed here and think what difference does opinion matter to their existence or validity. The Big Bang theory affects almost no ones personal life outside astrophysics, while Evolution is more of a religious and school issue dealing with affected parents and academia.
Only human-caused global climate change affects our every-day living and political thought. The EPA and the ecology lobby have increased our energy costs in almost every way. In the years since Senator Gore's infamous 1988 Potemkin Village-type Senate Hearing, we have had constant drum-beats for carbon taxes, third-world subsidies as well as US Government subsidies (taxpayer dollars) towards 'energy conservation', ethanol production and the like.
So, to be skeptical of political campaigns and wary of expensive projects for rather nebulous results is not, in my opinion, a bad thing, not at all!
Those claims have been thoroughly debunked. Among other things, they submitted their samples to a lab that explicitly said their techniques were no good for rocks younger than 2 million years.
Where do I start? With the abundant fossils of creatures that no longer exist? With the observed changes of humanity over just a few thousand years? With the many mechanisms of DNA change that we observe happening all the time? Have you ever studied phylogeny, or compared a specific gene across species?
The fact is, evolution is not something that happened and then stopped. It is an on-going process that affects every species. Evolution is how microorganisms constantly change to escape our immune systems and become resistant to the drugs that we developed to cure infections.
This could have been the cause of the big bang...
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/2l5a-ptfJI4/maxresdefault.jpg
Has he spoken to you lately?
After the big bang you might want to move to a galaxy far far away...
http://e.asset.soup.io/asset/2493/7998_82a8_390.jpeg
You know, I once watched con-man Kent Hovind "debate" some college professor, and bring up exactly that "argument." Did you get that "fact" from Answers in Genesis? Institute for Creation Studies? Some other creationism website?
I suppose, if I really felt like it, I could do a little digging and find out where that particular "fact" came from, and what the actual facts are. Not that it matters, really. Radioactive decay occurs at a constant rate, whether the radioisotopes are mixed into molten lava, or frozen solid.
If you approach evolution as a skeptic the more rocks you uncover the less any of their supposed claims hold true.
Yeah, right. Without taking evolution into account, there is no way I could do my job as a research scientist. Trying to work as a life scientist while remaining willfully ignorant of evolution would be like trying to work as a physicist while remaining willfully ignorant of the theory of electromagnetism. It just doesn't work.
There are loads of evolutionary believers on these threads but they never have even the beginnings of an explanation for these simple questions. I won’t hold my breath for your answers either though.
That is because your "simple questions" are not based on any genuine desire to learn about the physical world you live in. For the most part, your "simple questions" are lifted directly out of creationism literature, and are meant to be "gotcha" questions. If I answer the questions, you will simply refuse to accept any answer, no matter how well I document it, and you will deluge me with even more "gotchas" from your favorite creationism sites. Frankly, I do not care to engage with people who want to remain willfully ignorant.
BTW, you can go ahead and copy-paste reams of nonsense from a creationism website, but I will not answer or try to debunk it.
Thank you for those links! I really did not feel like digging around for the actual facts regarding that claim about Mt. St. Helens—being a life-scientist, I do not have facts about geology floating freely within my head, so I would have to look up any rebuttal material. And, being a life-scientist, I spend much of my work time doing literature research within my field; when I come home, I want to relax, not engage in more literature searches.
The Big Bang was preceded by the Big Dinner and a couple of drinks.
Honestly, I do not know what you are referring to.
A mutation is a change in the DNA sequence. There are different kinds of mutations, and different ways that mutations happen, but they all result in changes to DNA sequence. This is not the same as dominant and recessive traits.
DNA is represented by the letters G, A, T, C. So, a DNA sequence might start out like this:
G G A G C G T T A C
but after mutation, could become any of the following:
G G C G C G T T A C (point mutation)
G G A G C C G T T A C (single base insertion)
G G A T G C G T A C (sequence inversion)
G A G C G T T A C (single base deletion)
G G A G C G T T A C T T A C (sequence duplication)
Etc. There are infinite ways mutations can manifest.
Dominant and recessive refer to the expression of genes. Some forms of a gene are "stronger" than other forms, and so if one copy of each form of the same gene is present, only the "strong" (dominant) one will be seen. This is why a person with a gene for bloodtype A and a gene for bloodtype O will have bloodtype A. However, a person with a gene for A blood and a gene for B blood will express both genes equally and have AB bloodtype, because A and B are equal to each other (and dominant to O).
Mixing fact with fiction isn’t going to convince anyone. There are no “observed changes in humanity” (unless one is a racist and concocts them); humans are still human.
Microorganims do not evolve, either. Even humans can build up immunities to substances like snake venom.
I agree with your rankings, and with the observation that most AGW publications seem to mostly consist of projections about what will supposedly happen in the future. But I don't think the CO2 fluorescence thing is right. The greenhouse effect comes from the the insulating property of CO2. That it reflects more infrared.
You do realize we can study their genetic code and can see changes, right? It's not building up immunities.
There are apparently people that refuse to accept that the Earth is not the center of the universe too. It makes as much sense as denying the reality of evolution.
It’s also not changing into a different organism.
Your last sentence is pure rhetoric, never mind a nonsequitur. The fact that the earth is not the universe’s center (if it has one) is observable at least, compared to the latter theory.
An organism is defined by its genetic code. One mutation may not make a different organism, but enough of them will. Evolution does not demand that species change in one generation. It is the gradual, imperceptible, changes over a long period of time that makes up evolution.
No, it is a comparable illustration of the lengths people will go to to deny reality.
Both facts are observable and have overwhelming data to support them.
Speculation.
“Deny reality”, you mean like AGW?
Liberal rhetoric is what it is. Not a shred of science to it.
Calling evolution “observable” is an untruth. Nobody has observed it, and those who have alleged to have been found out to be charlatans. Perhaps it’s time to wake up to science instead of quackery?
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