Evolution.
An interesting essay in New Scientist on why Americans don't believe in Evolution. I intend to post on this topic myself in the near future. Where do I stand on the topic? A quick hint: Humans didn't "evolve from apes", we ARE apes for god's sake. Quit being stupid, America.
posted by Q. at 11:07:00 AM
3 Comments:
Interesting. I worry about us sometimes. According to a recent Zogby poll, 3 times the number of those polled could name two of the seven dwarves as could name two supreme court justices. I found this only mildly depressing until I was laughing about it at work and discovered that the reason many of those around me were not enjoying this as much as I was was that they also could not name two supreme court justices. Perhaps more depressingly, almost twice as many people could name the three stooges as could name the three branches of government. I was amazed once when in the course of a conversation with a friend of mine back in Hawaii I discovered that this seemingly rational, reasonable human being believed in the literal 6 day creation myth. I was taken aback and he was insulted by my incredulity. We continued to be friends but that realization shaped the way that I viewed him from then on.
Yeah, I heard about that poll. I, in fact could only name two of the justices myself, and one was Connor, who isn't even a justice anymore. I've never been very good with names though, so I don't hold it against me. I can't even name the seven dwarves. I tried.
Still, how can you be surprised by this? The dwarves have been the subject of thousands of viewings and a fifty year advertising campaign by a major corporation whose existence depends on name recognition and product placement. I knew about the dwarves when I was five. I can't say that about the supreme court.
I wasn't surprised by that one, I was depressed. I was surprised that so many of the people I work with couldn't name two justices and one person didn't even know why the Supreme Court was important. I was surprised that more people could name the three stooges as could name the three branches of government. I figured that that was pretty basic. In the end, however, I feel that the usefulness of a poll like this is that it sheds light on just what other polls can tell us. If someone can not even name the three branches of government, how can we take that person's opinion seriously on something more complex like the war or the response to Hurricane Katrina? In the end, opinion polls measure the visceral response to very important issues of people who are far more likely to be familiar with the winner of the last round of American Idol than they are of the last member named to the Supreme Court.
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