A professor at Oxford and the man who wrote The Selfish Gene, one of the best science books EVER, is many things. Nimrod is not one of them.
> Outside of the US, there is nowhere on the planet where that belief system comes close being 40% of a population.
This is patently false. Alot of europeans think this. They think this is a uniquely American problem. I have no idea where this myth comes from, but I have my suspicions: they are a victim of poor media coverage and a sense of cultural superiority.
39% of people in the UK chose "creationism" or "intelligent design". One in three believe the earth is under 10,000 years old. These numbers are slightly, but not substantially, higher in the US.
You should look up the meaning of Nimrod. There is a reason it is capitalized, and it has nothing to do with how smart you are, or your individual contributions to science. In fact, being smart is a pre-requisite.
In the survey, 51 per cent of those questioned agreed with the statement that "evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages"
A further 40 per cent disagreed, while the rest said they did not know.
Turning that into "40% of people think that the earth is 6000 years old" is called twisting your statistics.
What the surveys you link to suggest is that people can accept both evolution and the existence of a god. There is no conflict there, and that doesn't turn them into young earth creationists.
In fact, Charles Darwin himself would fall firmly into that category.
> Turning that into "40% of people think that the earth is 6000 years old" is called twisting your statistics.
You clearly did not read what I linked you.
Asked whether it was true that "God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years", 32 per cent agreed, 60 per cent disagreed and eight per cent did not know.
32% of UK are young earth creationists and 8% "do not know". So please do not sit there and tell me that this "does not approach" 40% of people anywhere but in America. Your statement is simply false. This is NOT uniquely an American phenomenon.
Why are you changing the subject? How is this relevant?
You said young earth creationism was uniquely an American phenomenon. You said that nowhere in the Western world does young earth creationism approach 40%. Except.. that's -exactly- what is happening in the UK (32% + 8% "don't knows"). I've provided you with the evidence. The reason I chimed into this conversation is because you were making statements that were simply false.
You don't think I'm acutely aware of the US acceptance of evolution? Why is that relevant? Did you somehow read into my statements that the US didn't have a major problem? Dawkins statement is SLIGHTLY exaggerated, statistically. Your response, however, was substantially more inaccurate.
The graph I linked to clearly shows that a majority of the western world have only small minorities that disagree with the statement that we have evolved from another species.
In other words: evolution.
I know you would like to continue to belabour the point that 40% of the population of most western nations are young earth creationists, but that simply isn't supported.
Dawkins' statement is a distortion of the facts. Most people in modern countries - with the exception of the US - have accepted the basic tenets of evolution. Like I've said elsewhere, it is only Dawkins that attaches to this the condition that in order to believe evolution you must not believe in a god.
A professor at Oxford and the man who wrote The Selfish Gene, one of the best science books EVER, is many things. Nimrod is not one of them.
> Outside of the US, there is nowhere on the planet where that belief system comes close being 40% of a population.
This is patently false. Alot of europeans think this. They think this is a uniquely American problem. I have no idea where this myth comes from, but I have my suspicions: they are a victim of poor media coverage and a sense of cultural superiority.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4410927/... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4648598.stm
39% of people in the UK chose "creationism" or "intelligent design". One in three believe the earth is under 10,000 years old. These numbers are slightly, but not substantially, higher in the US.