Educate La Sierra in the Truth…with a poll

There is a Seventh Day Adventist college, La Sierra University, which has horrified church leaders because their biology department is infested with evolutionists. It just goes to show: educate an intelligent person in biology, and they can’t help but accept evolutionary theory as the idea best supported by the evidence.

This has caused much anguish among the SDAs, and a website that moans about the problem is running a poll. As we all know, an internet poll is obviously the very best way to resolve scientific issues…so how about if you go help them out? They seem to be riven with dissent right now.

Should university and college employees of the Seventh-day Adventist Church be responsible for upholding their employer’s fundamental belief a literal six-day creation in the recent past?

Yes 49%
No 51%

Kirk Cameron embarrasses himself

So Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort showed up at UCLA to hand out their vandalized editions of the Origin, and Kirk got caught on video (with horrible sound and video quality, unfortunately) getting rhetorically bitch-slapped in an argument with a UCLA student. Be proud, California universities, you’re doing a fine job.

This particular story has a poll attached to it. Here’s the entirety of the poll and its results.

Kirk Cameron — Master Debator?

Yes 100%

Good work.

Vote on the Bad Faith awards

The New Humanist hands out a yearly slap-in-the-face to the most deserving noisy believer of the year — last year’s winner was Sarah Palin — and this year they have a full slate of worthy apologists for superstition. It’s an internet poll, but who should win this one isn’t at all obvious — they’re all contemptible. Here are the results so far:

Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya
94 (8%)

Anjem Choudary
72 (6%)

Anthony Bush
22 (1%)

British Chiropractic Association
197 (16%)

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor
51 (4%)

Dermot Aherne
84 (7%)

Damian Thompson
66 (5%)

Pope Benedict XVI
388 (33%)

Terry Eagleton & Karen Armstrong
57 (4%)

Tony Blair
128 (11%)

I think it’s sweet that the Pope is in the lead, since he is a traditional favorite and the Church has done such a good job of stepping in the malodorous mushy fecal slime of evil this year. I’m also fond of Cormac Murphy O’Connor for decreeing that atheists are “not fully human,” a state to which I aspire but am constantly foiled by my merely human genetics and physiology. My clicky finger was also drawn to Oktar, who is not only a creationist of the foulest, dumbest sort, but may even be clinically insane. I finally voted for Eagleton/Armstrong, simply because I think their brand of gooey, meaningless drivel is far more common than Christian or Islamic fanaticism, and they represent it so well.

But don’t use my choice as a guide! This is one of those polls where it wouldn’t be bad if it ended up in a 10-way tie.

A poll on the Catholic opposition to gayness

An interesting twist: this poll is trying to skew the Catholic church’s decision to withhold social services if Washington D.C. supports same sex marriage into a moral issue…with the church taking the high ground!

The D.C. Council is considering a law forbidding discrimination against those in gay marriages. The law would apply to all groups that have contracts with the District, including Catholic Charities, one of the city’s largest social services providers. The Archdiocese of Washington says that because of the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage, it would have to suspend its social services to the poor, the homeless and others rather than provide employee benefits to same-sex married couples or allow them to adopt.

Should the city require the Church to follow a law it considers immoral?

Yes 18%
No 82%

Why should what the church considers immoral to be a relevant factor? I could consider the wearing of pants to be immoral, or even better, going to church to be immoral…but it doesn’t make it so.

Truth is pain…a poll

Apparently still smarting from the trouncing Catholics received from Hitchens and Fry, a site called Catholic Truth Scotland is trying to recoup some dignity…by running an online poll? We could tell them that that won’t work.

The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world

True [70.6%]
False [29.4%]

I fear those numbers are about to change in a way that will make them very unhappy.

Another of those polls that should be 100%:0%

Atheists are putting up a billboard in Lakeland, Florida that says, “Don’t believe in god? You aren’t alone.” This is, apparently, controversial, and the newspaper article has an accompanying poll.

Does an atheist group have a right to display their own billboard?

Yes  77.7%
No  22.3%

I’d say that’s a really stupid poll question, except that it reveals that 22% of the respondents don’t think a number of their fellow citizens don’t have the same privileges they do.

A poll in my own backyard

A newspaper in Rochester, Minnesota (yes, my backyard extends 250 miles to the southeast) is running dueling editorials by a pro health care local Democrat and a Satan-spawned humanity-hating Republican on the issue of the current health care reform bill. As usual, they run a poll. Please do shock&awe them, OK?

Do you support passage of the House health care reform bill?

Yes 31.59%
No 68.41%

It’s not a good poll, but they never are. I want an option to say I don’t support it because it is insufficiently socialist.

Frustrated by Maine? Vent on a Canadian poll

It looks like justice was defeated in Maine, but we got a glimmer of success in Washington (Hooray for my home state!). I think everyone who is unhappy with Maine voters should go tromp on this Canadian poll just to get it out of your system.

Do you support same-sex marriage?

Absolutely, yes

21%
Sure, why not?

19%
Not really

11%
Absolutely, no

35%
I don’t care either way

14%

What counts next, of course, is for activists in Maine to get back to work. Same for everyone in every state…like Minnesota.

A fair and balanced poll?

A story on NPR reports that there’s a bit of a tiff between the White House and Fox News: spokespersons for the administration and media have basically stated that Fox is a conservative propaganda outlet, deeply hurting Fox’s dewicate widdle feewings. And they have a poll! It looks like the right-wingers have already poisoned it for us, because no one in their right mind would actually deny that Fox is unfair and unbalanced in its reporting.

I’m supporting:

The White House on this one; Fox News isn’t “fair and balanced.” 14% (3,973 votes)
Fox News on this one; it asks questions others don’t and the White House should be able to handle them. 83% (23,544 votes)
Neither side. They’re both trying to play this “feud” to their advantage. 3% (850 votes)

Those are big numbers, so it’ll be a tough haul to compete…have fun trying, anyway!

Yum, genetically engineered plants!

Here’s a good science blog you can help: Biofortified, a group blog on plant genetics and genetic engineering (and, by the way, Sb’s recent addition, Pamela Ronald, is part of the team). They are in a contest to win a small cash grant and an interview with Michael Pollan, and this group is thoroughly deserving — Biofortified is kind of the Panda’s Thumb of plant genetic engineering.

Unfortunately, they’re in second place right now, trailing an anti-genetic engineering, industry sponsored site, and they need more votes to win. You can help out!

To do so, though, is a little more cumbersome than simply clicking on an online poll, I’m sorry to say. You need to register with the contest site, and then click on an entry in an online poll. It’s not too hard, though, especially since Biofortified provides step-by-step instructions. You don’t have much time, with only one day left to vote. Register, then vote for Biofortified!