Wednesday, April 23, 2014

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Poll Says Religion Trumps Science For Most Americans


Ugh, chalk up another reason why I am a godless heathen: I believe in science, not mysticism. These results from a recent AP poll on the science literacy of Americans is simply embarrassing:

To the public "most often values and beliefs trump science" when they conflict, said Alan Leshner, chief executive of the world's largest scientific society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
 
[...] 
Political values were closely tied to views on science in the poll, with Democrats more apt than Republicans to express confidence in evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the Earth and climate change. 
Religious values are similarly important. 
Confidence in evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the Earth and climate change decline sharply as faith in a supreme being rises, according to the poll. Likewise, those who regularly attend religious services or are evangelical Christians express much greater doubts about scientific concepts they may see as contradictory to their faith. 
"When you are putting up facts against faith, facts can't argue against faith," said 2012 Nobel Prize winning biochemistry professor Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University. "It makes sense now that science would have made no headway because faith is untestable."
The key phrase in that excerpt for me is "Confidence in evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the Earth and climate change decline sharply as faith in a supreme being rises." That is basically all I need to know to put my faith in a supreme being at zero.

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