I’ve been wrong. I’ve argued that destroying America’s educational infrastructure and promoting stupid ideas like creationism will inevitably erode our country’s competitive standing in the world marketplace. I’ve always thought the only way to correct that was to improve public education — but there’s an alternative. Make other countries stupider!
Romania’s withdrawal of the theory of evolution from the school curriculum could be evidence of a growing conservative tendency in teaching. Evolution has been removed from the school curriculum in a move which, pressure groups argue, distorts children’s understanding of how the world came into being.
Meanwhile, religious studies classes continue to tell Romanian children that God made the world in seven days.
It puts this well-known chart in perspective. You might think that we ought to be struggling to climb the ladder and move from second to the last to the top by working hard and doing better than those other countries, but no — all we have to do is export some of our poisonous stupidity to other nations, and watch them fall below us.
We did it with Turkey — they borrowed heavily from teams of creationist “arkeologists” who visited their country to search for a big boat dumped on Mt Ararat by a world wide flood. Romania is next — in a few years, we’ll be third from the bottom without even working at it.
I bet it would be easy to knock tiny Iceland off its perch. A little free television programming, a faith-based initiative to send teams of televangelists on tour, a few Mormon and Jehovah’s Witnesses in missionary squads…yeah, it would be far easier to destroy their brains than to improve our own.
As long as we beat Malta. Those bastards have it coming. I’m sending copies of Pandas to get the ball rolling.
I don’t think we can get Japan or Greece this way unfortunately. Our tentacled overlords will be eaten before they can carry over our… lovely missionaries!
Does anyone know where that chart actually originates or if it was a real poll? I’ve seen it many places but I haven’t been able to find where it came from.
I hope the poll was given in Kansas or something… otherwise it is kind of depressing to look at.
… I… well…
Awesome… I knew this day would turn out bad, it started with seeing a Japanese USB toy that moans every time you press H… and now indisputable proof that the US needs help…
/then again the religious right would see this and rejoice…
That’s what I’ve always thought, we needn’t lead the world in science and technology if we just make stupidity “cool.”
Go with your strengths they say, and if it can be called that, stupidity is one of our strengths.
The trouble is that a lot of countries are unlikely to be taken by our brand of idiocy. Oh, they have other brands (we have no monopoly on stupidity), but obviously creationism is potentially among the most destructive, since it aims to destroy the foundation of science–and of democracy, really. Not everyone, here or elsewhere, wants that form of idiocy, even if they might be prone to other forms.
So if we are going to export stupidity, we’d better be damn sure that we can convert nearly the whole world, or reconsider the consequences of being early adopters.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Horrors. Maybe we can… put some copies of Origin of Species on a stage and like… yell gibberish at them? Will that work?
I still don’t know why we don’t make the case more for the ECONOMIC advantage of teaching good science. You can be sure the Chinese aren’t teaching their children intelligent design creationism.
PET PEEVE ALERT:
Everyone (secular, religious, fundamentalist, etc.) all seem to get this wrong. God created the world in SIX days; on the seventh he rested.
I often use this as a classic example of how people “know” what the bible says in regards to other things like gays, marriage, discipling children, beating plowshares into swords (Joel 3:10), etc.
In general people seem to learn their bible when they are six years old and no further evidence is allowed.
Sorry, I’ll admit I’ve never seen the chart. What is the question?
So, we know the responses to the poll. But what was the question?
Interestingly, the US seems to be pretty good at teaching younger children science, in this report just out:
http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/TIMSS2007/intl_reports.html
The US is in the top 10 for science education for 10-year olds. Maybe after that the “dinosaurs are cool” phase has passed.
Sure. This brilliant new strategy follows directly from population genetics theory. An individual’s relative reproductive success (“fitness” in the unfortunate parlance) can be increased either by increasing its own reproductive success or by decreasing that of other population members.
Watch out, Latvia!
No Canada ?
No Canada on the list. :(
I wonder where we stand…
#9, #10 – I haven’t either. Obviously, the question is whether evolution is true/real.
Bob, the figure is from 2005, and you can see it in
Jon D. Miller, Eugenie C. Scott, Shinji Okamoto, SCIENCE VOL 313 11 AUGUST 2006.
(I have a pdf of it, in case you want to see it. Check my blog for email).
The survey “was conducted by telephone within the United States between June 17 and 21, 2005 among a nationwide cross section of 1,000 adults (aged 18 and over).”
From The Harris Poll® #52, July 6, 2005
No! Don’t encourage America to target Iceland! I don’t want Sigur Ros to become some crappy Christian Rock band…
Terry, #8:
#1:
Why Malta? Lets go for Cyprus first! Let’s go for Shock and Awe:
Pandas, Expelled AND Atlas of Creation!
They won’t know what hit them until is too late
“Missionary squads” sounds like a very uninteresting and unimaginative kind of orgy.
Hmm, you see I was hoping that Mccain would be elected so he would proceed to destroy the US science base (with Palins help) leaving us europeans to become scientific and economic world leaders before sending troops to ‘liberate’ America from its tyranous theocratic leaders and impose democracy …
foiled again..
Oh, and the survey from which the chart is derived was discussed on Pharyngula in 2006.
“Missionary squads”?
Missionary squids, I say!
So looking at the graph, the blues are the good guys and the reds are the ideological numbskulls. The red’s being ideological numbskulls, um… now what political party does that remind you of?
@20
[in-joke]
Just the sort of dirty trick I’d expect to come up with, knowing your history. That’s even worse than what Special Circumstances get up to…
“God created the world in SIX days; on the seventh he rested.”
I always thought the neatest trick was creating days, 3 days before the Sun or moon.
reminds me of a joke about two hikers which happen upon a bear.
one hiker takes off his hiking boots an puts on a pair of running shoes.
the second hiker says “what are you doing? you can’t outrun a bear!”
the first hiker says “i don’t have to outrun the bear, i just have to outrun you.”
ha!
Why is Canada not on that list? You guys always forget about us!
Looks like I’m gonna have to use my dual citizenship and join the Americans on this one. First up, Belgium. Watch out you waffle-eating Walloonies! I believe Belgium is the only European power never to have successful invaded Belgium.
This will be your Waterloo, Belgium.
So weird. Why did I think that Ararat was in Armenia? I guess because of all of the Armenian Cognac and Armenian restaurants named Ararat.
As a Romanian, this story makes me sad. However, looking at a map with the distribution of belief in god in Europe, it makes sense…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hdghjgf.jpg
D’oh! Never mind. In Soviet Russia… The Ararat tricks you!
As it stands this chart means nothing. It may be well known but I have never seen it. I enjoy your blog but it seems a bit shoddy to put up a chart with no indication of the parameters charted.
Phil Plait blogged about Romania yesterday. It’s probably worth pointing out here (as I did there) that the Minister of Education quoted in the news article (Cristian Adomniţei) is no longer in that post. In any case, the Romanians posting there seemed to feel that this was a lot less of an issue than the article made it out to be. I’d be curious to hear from a Romanian (or someone who is up on their Romanian politics) whether Anton has continued this policy (he is from the same party), and whether or not this actually means evolution is not being taught in schools there.
Web poll alert on the linked page:
Do we need to crash this?
a few Mormon and Jehovah’s Witnesses in missionary squads
You’re rubbing off on me; I read that as missionary squids.
Ehem. Why trust a Macedonian online magazine on Romania? Macedonia and Romania are not even neighbors.
http://www.scienceblogs.de/planeten/2008/12/romania-doomed.php
(In German. Says it’s all wrong, the guy who’s cited left the post of minister of education on October 7th, and evolution used to be a separate subject in the last year of school and no longer is.)
6 days!
You damned 1st chapter creationists!
God made man first before plants and animals like it says in chapter 2 not the other way around. Anyone that claims that man was made last on the “6th day” after plants and animals is not a True Christian(tm)!
I wish Canada was on that diagram. It would make an interesting comparison with the US results, I think, given that so much of the world finds Canadians and Americans indistinguishable.
I’d be interested to see a chart of how those figures have changed in the USA since the time of the Scopes trial. As I recall, when I was a kid in the 1970s, there wasn’t much argument going on about evolution versus superstition.
-jcr
And Bush and Rove have recently been giving the Swedish prime minister tips on how to destroy the social welfare system that has given Sweden the best quality of life indicators in the world. And Sweden’s right-wing prime minister has been implementing their ideas: incremental privatization of hospitals, etc. The structural adjustment programs the US has imposed to keep poorer countries poor do the same thing, keep other nations down so the US can appear superior. It’s all the same idea: Instead of the US working to improve their own standards, they throw their effort into bringing the standards of other countries down so the US won’t look so bad.
@David (#35): Indeed, why?
I’m dissapointed PZ made the same mistake the Bad Astronomer did, think that the rest of the world is like the US. I don’t have anything against their protests when these things happen in the US because they understand the context but when it comes to another country, that requires more research on their part before making any judgements.
Ugh, this poll is the most depressing thing I’ve seen in a long time. 15% of people doubting evolution should be the worst result, not the best :(
On the seventh day he rest – what the hell kind of omnipotent being needs a rest?
WTF? I’m sure all of us here have had some big project that we had to work more than 6 straight days to get finished.
Lazy ass motherfucker, that God.
Mormons ain’t anti-evolution
I’m also disappointed not to see Canada on the belief chart – I like to think that we’d be in the top ten. I’m pretty sure that I was taught about evolution in public school and creationism in Sunday school. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that evolution actually made sense, plus dinosaurs are extremely cool – even my six-year old daughter likes them. She started learning about the solar system, dinosaurs, etc. in preschool – is that usual or did she attend an unusually science-friendly daycare?
This would be funny if PZ had not described the current creotard strategy to a T. Sadly, they are doing everything in their power to spread there idiocy worldwide and they have plenty of resources to bring to bear against us.
How disheartening. It is, of course, distressing that our country is not the #1 stupidest for God, but at the same time, other countries are also becoming stupid for God. Well, we must learn humility, I suppose, and accept that God’s plan is to eventually make all of His children stupid in His Holy Name.
Praise Jesus!!
Yay! I sent this to Prof. Myers about a week ago; different source, same sad story;
http://www.iheu.org/node/3229
Oh well – time to shovel the snow. Again. Yuck.
I bet it would be easy to knock tiny Iceland off its perch. A little free television programming, a faith-based initiative to send teams of televangelists on tour, a few Mormon and Jehovah’s Witnesses in missionary squads…yeah, it would be far easier to destroy their brains than to improve our own.
You’re behind the curve, PZ. The Daily Show is already on it.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zbmsr9ZoW70
I’m sad to say that I know of a guy on the ‘ark research team’ who climb and spy on Mt. Ararat for the corpse of the Ark. He’s got a giant picture in his house of the tumorous bulge that is supposed to be the ark on the mountain. I just don’t even know what to say to the guy.
Here in Poland I run into creationist materials obviously sourced from the US on a fairly regular basis. They definitely routinely get passed round by the Polish equivalents of the US Christian Right.
Why not just show creationists this chart? Say, “Look! You guys must be right. Nearly 80% of Turks agree with you that the evidence for evolution isn’t compelling! Er, you know Turks are brown, right?”
Then sit back and watch the latent bigotry of the fundies work its magic. They’ll turn around faster than a Mormon prophet faced with a Supreme Court decision that flies in the face of God’s Word.
According to a short article in the December issue of The Atlantic, Iceland is suffering from a much worse financial meltdown than ours. Apparently they failed to put their trust in Cod (Atlantic’s pun, not mine) but went for leverage instead. Soon the Icelanders will be flooding their churches and goodbye to rationality.
Though the Icelanders are in economic free-fall right now, I would advise you all not to underestimate them. Tough buggers they are.
(Said in awe from a Dane, though we used to ‘own’ Iceland… errr some hundred years ago ;-) )
It could be fun to see what they would do to overzealous missionarys though. Probably what they did to us… throw them out.
Someone wanted to know whether the new Minister of Education in Romania will do something about it (I’m Romanian & have lived in this damned place for 20 yrs) – Adomnitei was dismissed for some stupid things he did (not related to any Education policy, long story).
Anton (the new guy) is a technocrat that will have this position only for a few more days. The elections for Parliament just ended & a new Government is being formed.
To anyone interested in what’s going on here regarding religion – things look bad. A few arguments :
– the 2 parties that won the majority of the votes are 1. The party that opposed gay equity rights after the 1989 Revolution. 2. The other party wanted to make the church some sort of ministry that could handle public funding. This is what they proposed during the campaign. 3. All candidates have the “tradition” of going to church during the campaign. This seems to impress the religidiots in the rural area. The politicians are corrupt here (well, is there any place they aren’t) – they made some laws to protect themselves from prosecutors (long story) – so they think that appearing next to priests somehow absolves them in the eyes of the ppl.
– We had a communist regime until 20 years ago and we have an institution that goes through the ex-commie party’s archives to reveal the identities of their collaborators. Guess what – a new law – this institution can only reveal priests as collaborators only if the patriarch asks them to. The patriarch’s own file was burnt during the Revolution. Yup. He’ll ask any time now.
– A humanist association here sued the state demanding that religion classes be suspended and religion paintings be removed from schools. The courts said no.
– This is our Parliament : http://storage0.dms.mpinteractiv.ro/media/1/186/3928/2466540/1/parlament.jpg
Look in the top right corner, under the big screen. What do you see ? It’s a cross. Do you think they’ll take it down any time soon ?
Politicians here don’t like to challenge the status quo. They only want positions to get the contracts. Being original all of a sudden and fighting for equity is political suicide here
– more that 50 % of the population lives in the rural area – 0 infrastructure, 0 education.
Some company did a poll recently, I can’t remember the exact numbers, but the overwhelming majority of Romanians think that homosexuals should be punished. The overwhelming majority of Romanians say they’re orthodox christians. Remember that this is one of the most corrupt countries in the world… Someone is voluntarily forgetting those precious 10 commandments.
Also, this is the country where it’s president sexually harasses female journalists in pain sight and thanks god that one of them got cancer because she was bothering him with her articles.
More jewels from the 90% orthodox Romania :
– we spent billions to go with the USA in the East. At least one million women are beaten daily in their own country, the shelters are full and the police can’t enter a home if it’s the bully’s property. Heck knows how many don’t even call the police.
– I just read somewhere that a mother walking her baby was almost ran over and called a whore because a brainless bovine wanted to park his car in an illegal place.
– girls in schools are sexually harassed from age 9 (that is, if they’re not raped) and teachers sit and stare because if they reported aggressions, the schools’s rating would go down and they would receive less money.
– orphanages are full and in very bad conditions, the medical system is falling apart, kids are beaten to death.
– We also have a lot of malpraxis cases (serious ones) – MDs get their diplomas by paying teachers for their grades.
So, this is what you can encounter in a democracy with 90% christians ….
Don’t mess with a missionary squid!
This poll suggests otherwise — 59% is certainly way higher than the US, but still puts us Canucks well behind places like Belgium, much less the Scandinavian countries and Iceland.
Google tells me this:
Just about below Switzerland or so. We should be doing better than this, damn it.
Sources:
http://ncseweb.org/news/2008/08/polling-creationism-canada-001375
http://angusreidstrategies.com/polls-analysis/opinion-polls/angus-reid-poll-canadians-believe-human-beings-evolved-over-millions-ye
Have you tried, “If you can understand this and do not want us to pull the plug, blink twice”?
I’d like to see Ireland a bit higher, as long as we’re higher than England! I’d like to see some of those “don’t know’s” educated.
Old news. I first saw this on cable news last summer. You’re slipping PZ. Even the BA had a post on this last week.
I don’t really get those who say God made the world in 6 / 7 days. It quite clearly states that God made the world at the beginning of the first day, and from there he was busy adding aesthetics.
Wow… We’re on the list :D
Wait… is that good or bad?
I’m a Romanian and a long-time reader of this blog. I have a nephew who is in high-school (9th form, about age 14).
During the last 15 years the pre-university curriculum has been in a constant state of change, with each minister of education introducing a new reform package, usually incompatible with the previous reform package.
Generally (to a 1st order approximation) pupils learn basic biology in the gymnasium (5th to 8th forms) in the order botany – zoology 1 (invertebrates) – zoology 2 (vertebrates) – ecology, then revisit the same subject matter in the high-school (9th to 12th forms) presumably with deeper explanations. Biology classes are taught within the context of the theory of evolution, which is introduced AFAIK in the 6th form (age 11), then rehashed several times.
What was actually taken out of the curriculum was a recently-introduced dedicated course on the theory of evolution (complete with a low-math intro to population genetics), which was supposed to be taught in the 12th form (age 18). Apparently it was considered rather too specialized.
That was me. Thanks, mn. That is both interesting and depressing. =(
This is more in-line with what I expected. Canadians like to think that they’re more like Scandinavians than Americans, but this is mostly wishful thinking, from what I’ve seen (they don’t call us cousins for nothing). We (Canadians) exaggerate the cultural differences in order to maintain some sort of distinct national identity, but the actual differences are a lot less pronounced and more subtle.
Heh, there are already Mormons, doing what they do best, in Iceland.
A couple of very young looking ‘elders’ spoke with me there last year.
Poor kids seemed totally sold on their parent’s lunacy.
Just because a country like iceland doesn’t fall for a creationist/theist fantasy does not mean they are immune to fantasy. They are human like the rest of us and they are in economic trouble despite their beliefs lining up the way you and I might want.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/map-iceland
There are no silver bullets to protect against bad economics. No belief guarantees prosperity. Especially not a belief about the origins of life.
I am Canadian as well and I was also disappointed not to see us on the chart. However this paper has a similar chart about half way down (a smidge more than halfway) that we are on http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html#figures . (Hope I did that link right, if not just copy/paste)
Heh. That reminds me from a scene from Rocky and Bullwinkle – the episode where Boris and Natasha attack America with Goof Gas. Fearless Leader is sitting around with his generals decrying the state of Pottsylvania’s economy. “Do we make things?” “No!” “Do we export things?” “No!” “Do we have any art or culture?” “NO!” “What’s the one thing we have plenty of?” “Nothing?” “No! Mean! We have more mean per square inch than other countries have it in square miles! So, we’ve got to EXPORT MEAN to every other country!”
I so wish I could find a YouTube clip of that scene…
There’s a good lot of burning stupid in the comments on that article. Ewwww.
I hope the EU hasn’t acquired its own little Dumbfuckistan in Romania. Let’s hope that the €44 billion of EU structural and cohesion funds makes some difference over the next 6 years. In principle, it should buy a lot as Romania is currently extremely poor (GDP/capita ~$12k).
I also wonder whether any pressure will be brought to bear on Romania at EU level to rectify this situation — I’ll write to my MEPs.
Another interesting thing would be a state-by-state breakdown of the US. Maybe it’s just my snobbery, but I’d expect the blue states to be comparable with European countries, and the red states to be comparable with Turkey or worse.
Josh L #65
What do economics have to do with beliefs? Even if Icelanders were super-religious creationists it wouldn’t have made much of a difference…
Money is replaceable, but closemindedness is hard to cure.
I hope this news from Romania turns out to be false…
The blinking reminded me of what my better half does in similar situations: she pauses then blinks twice very slowly as if she’s either wiping away a dream or making sure the person speaking is actually there in person saying that.
Romania has now joined the contest to have the most scientifically illiterate population of the Western world. I don’t think they will ever catch up to Idiot America, but I wish them luck.
They take no official stance yet many of the leaders have opinions on it.
But they’ve got enough other crazy stuff to claim. Why crowd the loony bin with denying evolution?
…this is one of the many reasons I moved out of Romania to Canada… :-)
That being said, I think there are some people fighting to bring evolution back in the Romanian education system. Fights for good causes are known to take a long time in Romania (enough maybe for a part of the current generation of children to be indoctrinated for good), especially in this case, when you consider that the majority of the population is proudly religious.
But I hope I’m wrong.
Azdak 63
:”This is more in-line with what I expected. Canadians like to think that they’re more like Scandinavians than Americans, but this is mostly wishful thinking, from what I’ve seen (they don’t call us cousins for nothing). We (Canadians) exaggerate the cultural differences in order to maintain some sort of distinct national identity, but the actual differences are a lot less pronounced and more subtle.”
Don’t wanna do small politics here but in the poll :< "Respondents living in Quebec (63%) and Manitoba and Saskatchewan (63%) are particularly convinced about evolution, while a significantly high number of Albertans (40%) are more inclined to believe humans were created by God. Albertans are the only group in the entire survey in which more respondents chose the theory of creationism over evolution." And : "Almost half (48%) of Conservative Party supporters back the notion of evolution, while roughly three-in-ten (29%) believe all humans were created by God. Alternatively, the theory of evolution holds high ground with most other political supporters, especially Green Party backers (83%) and Bloc Québécois voters (72%)." So, I guess there IS a cultural difference somewhere (in between...).
PZ, I don’t mean to be pedant about this but Turkish for archeologist is ‘arkeolog’, plural is ‘arkeologlar’.
All you people wanting to target Iceland are aiming too high. Let’s start with Cyprus and work our way up. I’ve got the perfect plan for it, and it can be disguised as a bipartisan gesture:
George W. Bush, U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus
If AlexP #62 has it right, then the change in curriculum is perhaps not such a big deal.
Emmet #68 I would be surprised if you were not correct, given that the Repug strongholds are in states with crap education systems. That’s why they are Repug strongholds, after all.
I suppose it can vary from planet to planet, depending on what ghostly Mormon polygamous space-god is in charge of it.
So, is the Bible literally true? MSNBC wants to know:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077385/?GT1=43001
What’s your view on the accuracy of the Bible? * 391422 responses
Every detail is literally true.
35%
Some details may be inaccurate or exaggerated, but the fundamentals are true.
32%
The Bible is fundamentally fiction, incorporating some historical facts.
28%
None of the above.
5.4%
Some of them are. Perhaps most.
No, it’s so they can take their stuff.
@Sam B #16
Considering the Gobbledigook clip they’d probably be burned at the stake long before getting the “chance” to become a christian rock band.
Granted this list compares most of Europe with the United States, along with a few outliers like Japan, but it would be nice to have a more complete picture of the world. In terms of Industrial countries, we do fall extremely low, and our educational level is at the basement.
Turkey having placed last on the list is still much better off than most of the Muslim world. Yet, it’s hard to compare it because their economies are either non-existent or based on one or two key industries like Oil and Tourism. Still, even though PZ said it tongue-and-cheek, the Turk’s problems with evolutionary theory stem less from American influence, and idiot ark hunters, and more with the lack of science education.
392659 responses so far (including mine)… will take some effort to change that…
“So, is the Bible literally true? MSNBC wants to know:”
Maybe I’m kinda lost but what would be “None of the above” ?
“Romania is currently extremely poor (GDP/capita ~$12k).” Emmet Caulfield For Molly!
Aye, there’s the rub. Poor people don’t want to piss off God, and they have hope that He will deliver them from their suffering. poverty, lack of education, and religion, they compliment each other nicely in a disgusting vicious circle.
Opulent societies and people usually don’t need god to make them feel better, thus the divergence. That perhaps, is why the U.S. lags, because of it’s complete stagnation in the context of a global economy.
I’ve never met anyone who didn’t believe in evolution. Am I really so out of touch?
Eryops @#11: For some of us, the “dinosaurs are cool” phase NEVER passes. :)
@#83: Are you seriously saying that we need to compare the U.S. with e.g. Afghanistan and Sudan in order to determine that we have a problem with education in this country?
I would like to see a picture of the rest of the world for the sake of general information. But it’s only reasonable to compare economic peer nations; places with low literacy rates which have been governed by a succession of theocratic totalitarian governments are not in the same league. The survey above does a fair job at listing most of the U.S.’s peers, and the picture it paints is not pretty. It actually might get even less pretty if certain poorer nations were added; keep in mind that the Eastern European former Soviet states are apparently all beating us.
*87
“I’ve never met anyone who didn’t believe in evolution. Am I really so out of touch?”
Oh hell yes!.. although the goood news is moderate xianity is seemingly falling in numbers…the bad news is the hard of thinking are flocking to dogmatic suburbia…seemingly a snake oil salesman is all that is required to sign ’em up…
If the Mormon church has an official opinion on evolution, I haven’t heard it, and I have no idea how it is handled in biology courses at BYU. However, it was discussed in Sunday School, back in the 70’s, when I was still a member. I remember being told evolution was wrong. Then there is Mr Buttars, who introduced a bill in the state legislature just a couple of years ago to force ID into the public school. That hit the news and then died of neglect. Then there is, BYU with an excellent life science museum that I visited about 10 years ago with my son’s class. It was beautiful and very impressive (at least to me), but did not mention or refer to evolution even once. I noticed that almost immediately and spent the rest of my time hunting through the exhibits for any mention. I’ve always had the impression that the Mormon church was uneasy about the theory, but not willing to speak up formally.
I wonder how good the Romanians are at playing the banjo?
“I’ve never met anyone who didn’t believe in evolution. Am I really so out of touch?”
A good friend of mine happens to be a fundie who took a required anthropology course in junior college. Got an “A” for the course but told me she doesn’t beleive a word of the “right” answers she gave on the tests.
Iceland is already up creek without paddle .. tsunami of bad debt from US has destroyed their economy. Now that they’re poorer, they make much more malleable marks for the purveyors of superstition.
Where’s Aussie on the list?
58% of Canadians? Only 58%? This country is getting worse by the day. I am quite lucky to live in Quebec then, where secularism is deeply entrenched in the social conscience. Consider that only 2000 out of 1 million famillies in the public school system are mad that there is a mandatory ethics and religious culture class. They were protesting to have a cathechism class instead saying that learning about religion from a cultural perspective weakens their children’s faiths (which I truly hope it does). They were treated with either ridicule or were simply ignored. Needless to say their demand is not even being considered.
Yes there is a lot of trouble with identity politics in this province but at least religion has been entirely out of public life for over 40 years now.
We export all our creationists to the US, so putting us on there would just embarrass all other nations ;)
In reality, we are above the US but that’s not a lot to get excited about. It’s really a non-issue down here. Even those who are part of a religion don’t really give a shit for the most parts. Our real religion is beer.
What are we true or falsing here?
“In reality, we are above the US but that’s not a lot to get excited about. It’s really a non-issue down here. Even those who are part of a religion don’t really give a shit for the most parts. Our real religion is beer.”
Hm, having debated creationist on-line for over ten years, I hate to inform you that a large number of the creationists I debated were from Australia.
I find the Quebec issue interesting, actually, as I went to a Catholic public elementary school there as recently as 1985, so I wouldn’t say that religion has exactly been out of public life for 40 years. I don’t remember any of the Catholicism (I was raised Christmas-and-Easter-Anglican, a.k.a. closet-secular) but I do remember that there existed a class on religion of some sort. Complete and utter gibberish to me as a non-Catholic anglophone, of course.
Anyway, from that, knowing that the rest of Canada has secular public schooling, I would have expected Quebec to poll more religious than the rest. But perhaps it’s the Europe effect: the trappings of religion have become part of the secular public sphere to the extent that nobody even takes them seriously anymore.
As a Romanian, I feel deeply ashamed of all this. Even though the truth is more nuanced (as some of the Romanian commenters above have suggested), it still doesn’t change the fact that a large, large portion of Romanians are simply too indoctrinated to ever want to change their views about religion and the mostly evil organism that is the Romanian Orthodox Church. Even if you’re not a believer, you most certainly wouldn’t dare say so (when I told my mom a couple of years back that I didn’t believe in God she gasped and told me to retract immediately–I didn’t–despite the fact that she never goes to church!). At any rate, I find it despicable that they made religion a part of the curriculum and they even THOUGHT of taking Darwin out altogether.
I’ve lived in the US for 10 years, the first of which with a fundie family in Virginia (I know). That experience was crucial in my later-found atheism in the sense that it reinforced it. They were the first to introduce me to creationism (I had never heard of it before!) and since then I’ve wanted nothing to do with any religion that can inspire that kind of misguided fanaticism. I’m sad that creationism has somehow found its way to Romania, though I suspect it’s only through the mandatory religion classes (in other words, not as a parallel theory taught in science classes).
when I told my mom a couple of years back that I didn’t believe in God she gasped and told me to retract immediately
I’ve seen a few friends of mine deal with reactions like that from their families, and it can be really distressing.
-jcr
Why does Canada always get forgotten? It’s like we don’t really exist. We are real people, with real feelings you know!… and we even have some religious wackaloons, I promise.
As a Romanian, I feel deeply ashamed of all this.
I don’t see any reason why you should be. You’re responsible for your own decisions, not those of anyone else.
-jcr
Confused me. No explanation of the chart on this post. Thanks to the people that helped explain its origin and meaning.
Face it folks. A very large number of people are just too darn afraid to think.
@quasarpulse #87
I wasn’t saying that the US should compare itself to the illiterate world, but just pointing out that I would find it fascinating to see how the rest of the world stacked up. I did mention that we’re at the basement, which should make it obvious I’m not satisfied at our low level of science education and religious idiots. We’d be so much better off dumping religion, and embracing science, but how many illiterate folks can go outside their churches to buy it.
As a former Mormon, I can tell you that the LDS Church takes no official stance on evolution, but that’s true of a lot of Mormon “doctrine”. The tendency has lately been to follow whatever the conservative religious Zeitgeist is and find Mormon scriptural references and prophetic pronouncements to back it up. If there are no germane ones, the current prophet can always claim God has given him new revelation to handle the sticky questions of the day.
As for BYU, the biology department hands out a packet on evolution statements made by the LDS First Presidency, which I believe this is: http://eyring.hplx.net/Eyring/faq/evolution/trustees1992.html
The statements leave a lot of wiggle room, and given that Mormons believe in a sort of exaltation through theosis (i.e. that man will eventually become god), an out-and-out denial of evolution would be uncharacteristic of the philosophy, even if some members believe otherwise.
As for sending missionaries to Iceland, there are already a handful assigned to the island under the auspices of the Church’s Denmark Copenhagen Mission and they’ve had missionaries there modernly since 1975. And for all that time, they’ve only got two congregations and 250 members (by their official stats) to show for it.
As a Mormon I never doubted evolution, but simply assumed that God “created” man by giving Adam his spirit. It’s all kind of silly in retrospect.
@95
Gabe, see the stats about Quebec I posted a few posts earlier.
But as for the Ethics and religious culture class, I don’t agree. Actually, I should be clear : I hope it weakens their faith and I think this class should be taught. However, I don’t think that the ones weaning have been ignored by the majority. It it’s true they’ve been ignored by the government, I felt that the majority of the population were sympathetic to them. Furthermore, they banned the words “athée” and “athéisme” from the curriculum because they found it to be too… depressing, or something like that, I forget the word they used…
Could we get a header on that chart? What does it signify?
Talking about Iceland, we have a faith based tv station here… the good news is that it’s going bankrrupt hheheh
Next step is to get rid of the national church, which is attacking kids in schools with it’s dogma… Im working on it :)
What would be really interesting would be to compare these stats to other statistics pertaining to education in general. For instance, for “Grade 12 advanced students science (most recent) by country“, the US ranks last of the fifteen countries listed. The consequences should come as no surprise.
Feynmaniac wrote:
> First up, Belgium. Watch out you waffle-eating
> Walloonies!
That would be Walloons.
Anyway, if you target Belgium, you’re probably going to recruit much more Flemish than Walloons to the creationist cause. Although in the past Walloons had their share of loonies as Rexists, now the Flemish seem to have the monopoly of crazies with Flupke’s VB (Vlaamse Block^H^H^H^Helang) that disgust even those at LGF.
—
An ex-Walloon
PZ, please fix this!
Romania may be backwards in many ways, most of them due to the return to religiousness right after communism fell – sort of a pressure release reaction, you see… But the article you linked to full of crap.
What was removed from the curriculum is a specialized study of evolution: population genetics, some statistical tools, that kind of stuff. However biology is still taught properly (i.e. nothing makes sense in except in the light of evolution). Children are introduced to this since their early teens, and there was so far no real talk about alternatives. I should know: I’m a Romanian biologist and I even had a teaching position for a while at the University there.
My comment doesn’t bring anything new, there were other before me (just search for “Romania” in the comments of this thread, or on Phil Plaitt’s related post ). But not everybody reads all the comments, that’s why I ask you to consider adding a note at the top of your post.
“Ooops, article full of crap. Biology teaching in Romania still OK” would be nice.
Is your strategy a bit like the Will Rogers paradox?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Rogers_paradox
(tranlated to Ireland, so that I don’t get into trouble elsewhere) “When Kerrymen leave Kerry and move to Dublin, they raise the average intelligence level in both counties.”
…except, like Kel in Oz (#96), you have to export your actual creationists, not just their ideas.
PZ, I have to agree with Apu. You have misread the article grossly and are exaggerating a small problem to a big one. From what I can read from the romanian newspapers, my romanian is quite rusty, so sorry for any misinterpretation, it appears to me that the curriculum was reformed and a specialized topic in the 12th class was taken out. My romanian grandfather assures me that there were discussions abut this but it was really not that big deal that you and Phil make out of it. And this is old business and was discussed over a year ago (http://www.bbc.co.uk/romanian/news/story/2007/10/071009_programa_darwin.shtml).
The cut in the biology lecture is of course lamentable since it downgrades the quality of the biology curriculum but there is absolutely no indication that anyone wants to teach creationism instead or along-side evolution in the biology classes. Of course romanian pupils are teached about fossils, the real age of the earth, genetics and so forth. I should know since I went to school there for one year and although this was 16 years ago, I have a hard time believing that Romania changed that much recently and that the European Union would not take note. For you Romania may appear to be far, far away, but for us (german point of view), this is our neighborhood.
The are compulsory classes in Romania for religion. However it is
a) relatively easy to remove your child from this and
b) many european countries have compulsory religious classes. Germany for instance. Does this make Germany a religious country heading for doom? Of course not.
Yes, I learned there, in Germany, of course the Christian mythology about how the world was created. And at the same time our religion teachers taught us that no person in his/her right mind would take this stories literally. And the same is true actually for the romanian-orthodox or catholic church. I cannot find any indication that priests from these two most influential churches in Romania want to establish a literal interpretation of the bible and take over the biology curriculum.
Yes sure, Romanians are very pious.
I won’t say that Romania does not have its own kind of scary irrationality. Those vampire stories weren’t brewed up in a vacuum, you know? Romanian folklore is riddled with ghosts and demons. The rural parts of Romania are still and have been for a long time been incredibly poor. They put horses in front of their old cars because they cannot afford the gasoline or because it is hard to find even a gas station in the vicinity. No wonder superstition runs wild there. The infrastructure is a mess, although I heard that it is improving lately, since they joined the EU.
And there was this scary event of an exorcism in 2005 which actually was more torture implied on a young woman from people who firmly believed that the woman was possessed of a demon. And this led eventually to here death. (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maricica_Irina_Cornici).
Romania has sure its bunch of problems, but creationism does not seem to be one of those.
Whether God-belief, or acceptance of evolution or whatever it’s always the same pattern. To a good (not perfect) approximation, the historically-protestant countries of Europe are more for science and irreligion than the historically-catholic countries who are more sciencey and godless than the historically-orthodox. Turkey always sits at the bottom; I don’t know if the other historically-muslim countries (Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo) join it (this list doesn’t have them).
Also economic development is correlated with the rational side (actually I suspect that the difference between the Catholic and Orthodox countries falls away if you control for poverty).
And then the rich, largely-protestant US is hardcore pro-religion and anti-science.
What is it about America that makes people able to stay committedly protestant while Europeans seem to have used the reformation as stepping stone to free-thought? And what is it that makes Americans cling to god when they have money, unlike Europeans who go “Screw the comfort of religion; I’m buying a fucking big television instead”?
Curious aside: The Czech Republic has more evolution doubters than theists. WTF?!
In France, the 14% who answered FALSE correspond roughly to the same % who vote for the extreme-right party Front National of Mr Le Pen (roughly the equivallent of the Republican party) and the same % who would be favourable to the re-establishment of the monarchy.
Will these Christo-fascists ever go below the 10% mark ? I don’t know, it sometimes seems like an incompressible barrier to break in a country with a relatively large population, allthough Japan seems to be getting there.
I don’t know enough about Japanese culture and history, and I am not aware if there has been as much connection between religion and politics as there has been in Europe in the past.
@116
While it is possible you are right, it’s not because those part of the population correspond to the same percentage that it means it is the same people. Is there a poll or some statistical analysis somewhere confirming that ?
negentropyeater,
State Shinto has a long history in Japan although it being a large contributing factor to World War 2 and being outlawed in the post-war constitution means that it, basically, no longer exists. I have no clue about Shinto creation myths or how they would contribute to his poll but, yes, religion was used in Japan with regard to political life just like it’s been used everywhere. Only the details differ.
Fucking hell. 118 was me. I pasted the name in the wrong spot by mistake and didn’t notice till after I had hit post. I blame pre-coffee posting and throw myself on the mercy of the court.
It’s cute, but you know it isn’t strictly true, right? You could make the argument (by concentrating on economics) that the Republicans are to the right of the FN but not that the two parties are equivalent. The leaders of the GOP have not ASAIK argued for nationality based solely on blood, or publicly exhorted self-described fascists to join the party.
I remember reading about the Rumanian education system a few months ago on Wikipedia, and based on what I remember, I would have to agree with the Rumanian commenters on the thread that MINA news is (possibly intentionally) misinterpreting this development. Many Rumanian high school graduates finish school with what would be an honors-college-level core science curriculum under their belt.
Viewed in appropriate context, this is more akin to removing the requirement from a undergraduate general sciences major of a course on the biological mechanisms of evolution. This is what the Rumanians call a course on evolution; it is not merely a course that introduces the concept, but likely one that goes into detail about it; I would expect computational simulations and mathematical models to be involved. Note that the two-hour-per-day evolution course was also replaced with a one-hour-per-day course on ecology and the environment, suggesting a shift of focus as opposed to a striking out of the concept like one would expect from the US.
If anything, this reaction just goes to show how backwards the US is. In contrast, “a course on evolution” in the US public sphere means one that teaches it at all.
No, ur doin it rong! In Iceland, what you do is write a song about the Huldufólk and how they created life out of the rocks, and get Björk to sing it. That should do it!
Lago @92 wrote:
One thing’s for sure: not as good as this guy!
I think Bulgaria is treated rather unfairly by this bar chart. I think it was a mistake to order it by how many people say that evolution is ‘true’ rather than by the total sum of those who say ‘true’ or ‘don’t know’. As a result, Bulgaria is now very close to the bottom of the list simply because it has a large number of honest and humble people who are prepared to admit their own ignorance.
Please could we see an alternative version of the chart which is ordered so that the country with the largest total of ‘true’ and ‘don’t know’ responses is at the top? Give Bulgaria it’s due respect! :)
I have to agree with what several of my Romanian co-nationals have stated thus far.
This is old news. Many people were outraged in the beginning, but when they analyzed the actual issue they found that it was indeed rather specialized in nature. I think the Government should have kept the course and continue teaching it, but that’s just me.
Creationism has no grasp on Romania. 99% of the people will probably tell you they’ve never heard of it.
Religion plays a large role in rural society. not as much in urban areas. When we discuss belief in deities we have to look at the geo-political and historic contexts. Romania was a communist country for a long time, with a regime that failed to provide food for it’s own people. In such sitiuations of crisis it’s normal that people turn to religion since it’s they’re only salvation as far as they can see, especially in rural areas where subsitence agriculture is a way of life, and to have government take part of your crops certainly raises a few problems. People needed a supernatural being to pray to and ask that it all end.
Society in my country is changing. Young people aren’t active believers like in rural areas, they do it passively. They don’t go to church every Sunday and God plays a small role in their lives. Sure they attend on major holidays, but that’s about it. We have no extremist religious views in Romania like you do in the US, and to respond to a comment made earlier, we are much better off than the more “literate” Americans.
I totally agree with Kalirren #121 and I don’t mean to start a discussion about this, but Romania is under no circumstances inferior from an educational point of view than the US.
Our kids can name a country that starts with the letter U, can find Afganistan, Iraq and the US on the map, not to mention Romania, all of which can’t be said about many American teenagers. Our curriculum is far more advanced than in the US.
Let’s take mathematics for example. I studied for a year [9th grade/freshman] in a US high school in Missouri. I took the most advanced algebra class they had which was meant for juniors [11th grade] and I already knew 80% of the curriculum in that subject. The only courses more advanced were college credit ones. I tried to take senior chemistry but i already knew half the stuff in there. I tried to take freshman physics, but after seeing the book I realized I already knew most of the lessons, so I switched to learn 10th grade biology, more precisely genetics, which was what i hadn’t studied.
Don’t get me wrong, we do teach our kids a lot more, and it’s not always very useful, but at least they know science and understand it, which is more than can be said about many Americans. Sure, not all of our students are the brightest, and I’m sure we have our black sheep, but I will not accepts comments like these made by people who have no idea what they’re talking about and who have probably never been to my country or read about it from proper sources.
I’ve seen mentioned that Religion is taught in schools, which it is, and it’s easy to take your kids out of the class, but I’d like to point out that the point of view from which it is taught is not indoctrinary, but more in the lines of discussing the bible and the historic aspects of the bible. It’s true that my experience may be different from that of others, since I went to a liberal junior-high/high school, but we were allowed to question the teachings and had long discussions on the subject. The class was rather enjoyable for me because of the discussions. They never did manage to convince me, but it have me an opportunity to raise very one elses consciousness about the utter failures in the bible.
I’ll end by saying that the issue of teaching Evolution in Romanian schools is a non-issue, as that is already taking place. We have no extremist religious people trying to get Creationism or Intelligent Design into the class-room. We have a good educational system that does need a bit of modernizing, but is sound in it’s core. I’ll probably be writing an article on my blog about this, as it needs to be made clear.
PS: Sorry for wall-of-texting everyone :P
“Creationism has no grasp on Romania. 99% of the people will probably tell you they’ve never heard of it.”
I meant to say Intelligent Design.
I don’t know about Romania really :)
My grandmother is a very religious woman, tried to teach me about god and how to pray and stuff like this. My grandfather however used a very colorful language about various aspects of religious life. Most of the profanities were following the following pattern:” where stands for to name but a few (one to one translation):
“F. your mother’s
– church.
– little church.
– gods.
– easter.
– christs. (plural here, like there were many of them)
– wax. (the wax used for candles in churches)
There are various other patterns also.
Useless to say that I’ve followed my grandfather advices over time.
And this holds true for many romanians there. We aren’t that religious as it seems.
I was pissed when I’ve read about introduction of creationism in schools. The romanian minister of education at that moment just stupidly jumped on the european bandwagon following France, Germany and Netherlands into allowing creationism in schools I think. European Union asked Romania to jump and Romania answered “How high?”. So it goes. It probably was his personal conviction also and we can’t do much against it around here.
Adrian, what the hell are you talking about?
Neither Germany, nor the Netherlands, nor France are teaching creationism in schools. Especially not in public schools.
Hey, I am just a german scientist on a german university, what do I know.
Is this now an anti-European-Union-conspiracy theory or what?
What for? To explain something that many people here seriously doubt? An allegation which was based on one online article from a country in the rough vicinity of Romania? Even that one article is not claiming the Romania is teaching creationism.
This is how I’ve got things back then (it happened some time ago). Glad to hear that I’m wrong about Germany tho.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are in all those countries in that chart. Have been for years.
So Mr. Myers is a biologist and professor. Perhaps you could inlighten us all on why–if it random, unaided and completely accidental for life to began and improve, why biologists and other scientists can not create life on your own every day? Why have you not done that? Are you guys driving the “dumbdown train”? How about creating a leaf, a simple leaf of a tree? I have seen the complexity under a microscope and know of the 27 chemical processes that go on inside each and every leaf.
“Origin of the Species” assumed life was so simple. Its world view was nothing more complicated than what we see with narrow vision. This we know, is not true.
6-7 Creative Days, only the very lame minded believe they were 24 hour days. This applies only to us on earth. The other planets just in our solar system have different periods of time in their days. This would also apply to our Creator existing on no planet. Even we refer to longer periods when people of such age as you or I refer to, “Back in my day….” This usually applies to many 24 hour days.
Incidently, that does not apply to the Creation of the universe. Genesis 1:1 shows the planets and such were already in existence. Genisis 1:2 onward applies to making life possible on the planet already here and creating life.
I would suggest the “dumbing down” of the US really started with evolution. Technology is a separate thing relying on past efforts to build up. Education on the other hand, was a valuable thing from the US’s beginnings. Before the Civil War, NC had the top public education ciriculum in the country. Education was a prize to be held up. Social stumbling blocks denied this to many (women, slaves) but even they snuck it in.
This prize posession view continued coasting until the 40s and 50s. Evolution was being taught for about the last 20 years or so. A distain for education began slow rumbling through students. Today, most students are looked on like they have a disease if they like reading, studying or anything having to do with education. Little wonder the US is nearing the bottom in Math scores in the world. Reading as well. These are not things one just “picks up”. Students must pay attention when they are being taught the skills needed.
So one could give just as much credence to evolution accounting for the US being at the bottom of the chart even more than creationism.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are in all those countries in that chart. Have been for years.
So Mr. Myers is a biologist and professor. Perhaps you could inlighten us all on why–if it random, unaided and completely accidental for life to began and improve, why biologists and other scientists can not create life on your own every day? Why have you not done that? Are you guys driving the “dumbdown train”? How about creating a leaf, a simple leaf of a tree? I have seen the complexity under a microscope and know of the 27 chemical processes that go on inside each and every leaf.
“Origin of the Species” assumed life was so simple. Its world view was nothing more complicated than what we see with narrow vision. This we know, is not true.
6-7 Creative Days, only the very lame minded believe they were 24 hour days. This applies only to us on earth. The other planets just in our solar system have different periods of time in their days. This would also apply to our Creator existing on no planet. Even we refer to longer periods when people of such age as you or I refer to, “Back in my day….” This usually applies to many 24 hour days.
Incidently, that does not apply to the Creation of the universe. Genesis 1:1 shows the planets and such were already in existence. Genisis 1:2 onward applies to making life possible on the planet already here and creating life.
I would suggest the “dumbing down” of the US really started with evolution. Technology is a separate thing relying on past efforts to build up. Education on the other hand, was a valuable thing from the US’s beginnings. Before the Civil War, NC had the top public education ciriculum in the country. Education was a prize to be held up. Social stumbling blocks denied this to many (women, slaves) but even they snuck it in.
This prize posession view continued coasting until the 40s and 50s. Evolution was being taught for about the last 20 years or so. A distain for education began slow rumbling through students. Today, most students are looked on like they have a disease if they like reading, studying or anything having to do with education. Little wonder the US is nearing the bottom in Math scores in the world. Reading as well. These are not things one just “picks up”. Students must pay attention when they are being taught the skills needed.
So one could give just as much credence to evolution accounting for the US being at the bottom of the chart even more than creationism.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are in all those countries in that chart. Have been for years.
So Mr. Myers is a biologist and professor. Perhaps you could inlighten us all on why–if it random, unaided and completely accidental for life to began and improve, why biologists and other scientists can not create life on your own every day? Why have you not done that? Are you guys driving the “dumbdown train”? How about creating a leaf, a simple leaf of a tree? I have seen the complexity under a microscope and know of the 27 chemical processes that go on inside each and every leaf.
“Origin of the Species” assumed life was so simple. Its world view was nothing more complicated than what we see with narrow vision. This we know, is not true.
6-7 Creative Days, only the very lame minded believe they were 24 hour days. This applies only to us on earth. The other planets just in our solar system have different periods of time in their days. This would also apply to our Creator existing on no planet. Even we refer to longer periods when people of such age as you or I refer to, “Back in my day….” This usually applies to many 24 hour days.
Incidently, that does not apply to the Creation of the universe. Genesis 1:1 shows the planets and such were already in existence. Genisis 1:2 onward applies to making life possible on the planet already here and creating life.
I would suggest the “dumbing down” of the US really started with evolution. Technology is a separate thing relying on past efforts to build up. Education on the other hand, was a valuable thing from the US’s beginnings. Before the Civil War, NC had the top public education ciriculum in the country. Education was a prize to be held up. Social stumbling blocks denied this to many (women, slaves) but even they snuck it in.
This prize posession view continued coasting until the 40s and 50s. Evolution was being taught for about the last 20 years or so. A distain for education began slow rumbling through students. Today, most students are looked on like they have a disease if they like reading, studying or anything having to do with education. Little wonder the US is nearing the bottom in Math scores in the world. Reading as well. These are not things one just “picks up”. Students must pay attention when they are being taught the skills needed.
So one could give just as much credence to evolution accounting for the US being at the bottom of the chart even more than creationism.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are in all those countries in that chart. Have been for years.
So Mr. Myers is a biologist and professor. Perhaps you could inlighten us all on why–if it random, unaided and completely accidental for life to began and improve, why biologists and other scientists can not create life on your own every day? Why have you not done that? Are you guys driving the “dumbdown train”? How about creating a leaf, a simple leaf of a tree? I have seen the complexity under a microscope and know of the 27 chemical processes that go on inside each and every leaf.
“Origin of the Species” assumed life was so simple. Its world view was nothing more complicated than what we see with narrow vision. This we know, is not true.
6-7 Creative Days, only the very lame minded believe they were 24 hour days. This applies only to us on earth. The other planets just in our solar system have different periods of time in their days. This would also apply to our Creator existing on no planet. Even we refer to longer periods when people of such age as you or I refer to, “Back in my day….” This usually applies to many 24 hour days.
Incidently, that does not apply to the Creation of the universe. Genesis 1:1 shows the planets and such were already in existence. Genisis 1:2 onward applies to making life possible on the planet already here and creating life.
I would suggest the “dumbing down” of the US really started with evolution. Technology is a separate thing relying on past efforts to build up. Education on the other hand, was a valuable thing from the US’s beginnings. Before the Civil War, NC had the top public education ciriculum in the country. Education was a prize to be held up. Social stumbling blocks denied this to many (women, slaves) but even they snuck it in.
This prize posession view continued coasting until the 40s and 50s. Evolution was being taught for about the last 20 years or so. A distain for education began slow rumbling through students. Today, most students are looked on like they have a disease if they like reading, studying or anything having to do with education. Little wonder the US is nearing the bottom in Math scores in the world. Reading as well. These are not things one just “picks up”. Students must pay attention when they are being taught the skills needed.
So one could give just as much credence to evolution accounting for the US being at the bottom of the chart even more than creationism.
That ignorant strawman filled diatribe did not need the multiple postings.
WTF?
It’s pretty clear that the dumbing-down of education started well before you were “educated.”
Inlighten yourself, ignoramus.
Michael Greene=EPIC FAIL!!!
As an American who has lived and taught abroad in Europe and East Asia for the past 8 years, I’ve seen first-hand how powerful the American exporters of this idiocy are. There are more crosses in a Korean city block than in my hometown in Tennessee.
Are there any Naturalist organizations with a “counter-missionary” mission? If not, how do we start them? I’ll spear-head one in my current far eastern country, if somebody can point me to a larger organization that’s doing such work.
Michal Greene, repetitive creationist idiot:
Well, why can’t you create a living human from dirt and magic? Creationists claim this can be done, claim it HAS been done, so DO IT! RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT! Why haven’t you done it yet?
What, you think that’s a ridiculous, arbitrary demand? You don’t like that? Well then stop making ridiculous, arbitrary demands of scientists. If you don’t like being held to your own impossible standards, you are cordially invited to go fuck yourself.
You have no interest in learning or understanding anything, you just want to play games and whine when you’re called out for cheating. Well two can play that game. Until creationists can create a living human from dirt and magic, they’ll never be worth listening to. So get to work. Quit whining about people who work for a living not meeting your absurd demands and go meet MY absurd demand. Or shut the fuck up.
LisaJ, whereas we Aussies are ‘unreal’ people with ‘surreal’ feelings.
Must be the deep salt seas around us and the deserts within. Mindy xxx