Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin of human beings? 1. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process; OR 2. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms, but God guided this process; OR 3. God created human beings in their present form?
God did not guide **13 **
God guided 27
Present form 55
DK/NA 5
ROTATE QUESTIONS 60 AND 61.
Would you generally favor or oppose teaching creation along with evolution in public schools?
Favor 65
Oppose 29
DK/NA 6****
Would you generally favor or oppose teaching creationism instead of evolution in public schools?
I’d be curious to see who conducted this poll, also, and did they control for response, especially in question #1. That one is definitely loaded, and it doesn’t surprise me that otherwise scientifically-oriented and educated people might answer as they did.
After all, who wants the self-image that we’ve created as a species (that we somehow fall outside of the generally-accepted evolutionary parameters)to be smashed by the realization that we just might be nothing more than the end-result of what happened to some pond scum some day billions and billons of years ago?
"The latest New York Times/CBS News Poll is based on telephone interviews conducted Thursday through Sunday with 885 adults throughout the United States.
The sample of telephone exchanges called was randomly selected by a computer from a list of more than 42,000 active residential exchanges across the country. Within each exchange, random digits were added to form a complete telephone number, thus permitting access to listed and unlisted numbers alike. Within each household, one adult was designated by a random procedure to be the respondent for the survey."
Let’s put it this way. It scares me that people supporting creation can offer no evidence except their own personal belief in biblical fairy tales. The scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming. I strongly suggest that you pick up a copy of this month’s National Geographic because they present a much more factual argument that I could ever hope to do on this forum.
If want people want to believe in creation, that’s their religious freedom, but to try to hinder the teaching of evolution in the public school system is an infringement of church with state.
Face it CG, the facts are this…Man knows very little about this world and universe in which we live.
Case in point.
If you drew a circle that represents all of the knowledge in the universe, and then within that circle draw another that represents man’s knowledge, you would find alot of left over space of knowledge that is not known.
Sounds like Rumsfeld: “there are things we know, and things we don’t know. There are things we know we don’t know, and things we don’t know we don’t know…”. How do you know everything we don’t know?
Too bad that evolution is one of the things inside that inner circle you describe above.
"Face it CG, the facts are this…Man knows very little about this world and universe in which we live. "
I certainly agree with you on this point. But I’m not basing my faith in evolution on one article in National Geographic. This is something I have studied since childhood. It is however, a well written summary that you may find very interesting even if it does challenge your religious beliefs.
It hits a very sore personal nerve with me because as a small kid I had a fascination with dinosaurs and wanted to grow up to be a paleontologist. Even in high school this was my ambition. In fact, it’s still an interest even today. At age 12 I got into an argument with our local priest about evolution vs creation and he was so authoritarian/dogmatic that I turned my back on the Catholic church for good.
Actually, Ken, if you drew a circle that represents all the knowledge related to evolution, and the drew a circle inside of that that represented man’s knowledge of exactly how evolution works, you will notice a lot of leftover space of knowledge that is not known.
It’s been known for a long time that most people favor presenting BOTH ideas. I don’t get the surprise. Many folks don’t belief life started itself. What gives? Didn’t Redi and pasteur prove that impossible? Talk about Faith.
Creationism requires evolution. The Bible mentions “kinds”, not species. It is reasonable to assume, based on Noah’s flood, that to get to the number of species we have today, the animals on the ark (~16,000) would have had to evolve/speciate/specialize quickly.
Here’s the difference. “Evolutionists” believe that life started simple and became more complex/intelligent with each “step” by adding information at each step. Creationists believe that life started out intelligent and became more “specialized” through the loss of information at each step. The current bigtime debate is regarding information. what is it exactly? And can it really be added?
The biggest opponent to darwinism (gradualism) is not creationists, it’s punctuated equilibriumists (?). The biggests opponent to feathered dinosaurs is not creationists, it’s bird experts. and on and on.
Both evolutionism and creationism have arrived to the point where no single discovery can prove them wrong. Really, both are here to stay.
Darwin’s evolution does not describe/predict how life came to be … only how life responds to change. Strict evoutionists often reject the origin science as being “evolution” and for good reason.
Often times people do not even reaize what they are debating. What they are calling “creation science” is not creation sicence and what they are often calling evolution is not really evolution.
Both sides agree that things have changed. The big arguements are from simple to intelligent, or from intelligent to specialized, how long does it take, how did it start, and by adding or substracting information.
I always had a problem with someone that believed life started in a bubble or by RNA molecules making themselves and replicating themselves calling me silly because believe an intelligent source created intelligent life. maybe, I am just funny like that.
I wouldn’t take National Geographic’s word on much. Compare their “illustration” in the whale story to the illustration of the same fossil in nature (a perr-reviewed journal) and it’s very apparent that NG is not all that concerned with accuracy. Take their “annual” featherd-dinosaur discovery and the 1/4 page correction/retraction that follws 6 months later as another example. Bird experts are noje too happy with NG freedom of creativity.
Brian286. I am in total agreement with you on this. Unfortunately its like the “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” argument. Belief in creation is about faith. It is difficult to argue with non believers because they spend their lives chasing stories and science tying to make us “wrong.” I choose not to put my faith in other men but in the word of God. Does that make me stupid or ignorant? I do not know but I am not willing to bet my soul on the possibility there is no God, a God whose word is written as the way I should try and live my life.
Belief in any origin is about faith. There is very little evidence for any “origin theory”.
People figure out ahead of time what they want to believe (pre-existing beliefs) and then searchfor and/or interpret the evidence to support their belief. That’s how it goes. Origin science and operational science are two completely different things. That’s all I ever ask people to consider.
People on both sides have believed many things, and continue to believe many things, even in the absence of scientific support. It’s much more faith than sicence on both sides … but only one side admits it.
Actually, Ken, if you drew a circle that represents all the knowledge related to evolution, and the drew a circle inside of that that represented man’s knowledge of exactly how evolution works, you will notice a lot of leftover space of knowledge that is not known.
I don’t disagree with you at all. Nobody claims that we know everything about the mechanisms behind evolution (well, nobody that knows about evolution). To stretch the circle paradigm even further, if you were to draw a big circle containing everything we know about the world, the circle for evolution would fit inside that circle. The same cannot be said for creationism.
It is scary. Then again, if you took a poll a few hundred years ago, people would have overwhelmingly said the world was flat.
Actually, it’s long (more than hundreds of years) been known that the world is round. Anyone who ever lived in a seaport and watched a ship slowly disappear beneath the horizon knew this. But I digress.
