The Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans

[silu73]

I don't want to start some sort of American-Bashing here but I found this Poll really interesting. Maybe they only interviewed people who live or originated from the bible belt but the results just seem bizarre.

More People Believe in the Devil, Hell, and Angels Than Believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/har...ex.asp?PID=838

[bigred]

Why couldn't they have just seceded?

[euphoricism]

guarantee that's a skewed poll.

[givememyleg]

screw that, i'll start the bashing then. fuck americans.

[euphoricism]

Lots of problems with a poll like that. I wouldn't put any validity in it whatsoever.

A) only 2k people responded
B) people who answer online polls tend to have a specific reason to do so (ardent believes are going to be WAY more likely to answer a survey like that, most "rational people" [and thats a terrible word choice for this but i cant think of anything better] are just going to ignore the email.
C) Question phrasing, without seeing the poll it's hard to say if the questions were biased.


Basically, the "moral majority" is neither. Just louder.

[ProZachNation]

I just watched An Inconvenient Truth, there are some stupid fucking people out there who would rather stick there head up there ass then believe in science.(An yes I know in a lot of ways the movie was a propaganda movie but it did have very truthful and information)

I read a paper awhile ago on how the science community needs to take a serious look at the terminology they use as it relates to the public. I would guess less than 5% of the public can read a scientific paper and get anything meaningful out of it, and this is why there is such a gap between public beliefs and scientific knowledge.
An example of what the paper talked about was instead of saying Theory say Law. In Science speak a Theory is repeatable and taken as the truth, but when the public hears the Theory of Evolution theory to them means a guess. Why not call it the Law of Evolution.

Maybe a little off topic but thats my rant being a biology major, and hearing fucking asshole politicians not give two shits about global warming.

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and general relativity.

In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. This usage of theory leads to the common statement "It's not a fact, it's only a theory." True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them. In this usage, the word is synonymous with hypothesis.

[euphoricism]

an inconvenient truth was just loaded with horseshit.

[will641]

an inconvenient truth was just loaded with horseshit.

dido. I support doing things that are good for the environment, but this is a crock.

"The debate is over. We won." - Al "I invented the internet" Gore

A really funny thing I saw in the news was a vegan guy from PETA was interviewed about the movie, and he even thought it was bullshit. But, the thing he was mad about was that apparently producing meat produces way more "carbon emissions" than cars do. He went on to say some crap about how Gore was a hypocrite for not being a vegetarian.

I am not claiming that as fact, as I do not care enough to verify it, I just thought it was really funny and decided to throw it out there.

[biondino]

Lots of problems with a poll like that. I wouldn't put any validity in it whatsoever.

A) only 2k people responded
B) people who answer online polls tend to have a specific reason to do so (ardent believes are going to be WAY more likely to answer a survey like that, most "rational people" [and thats a terrible word choice for this but i cant think of anything better] are just going to ignore the email.
C) Question phrasing, without seeing the poll it's hard to say if the questions were biased.

Basically, the "moral majority" is neither. Just louder.

I appreciate what you're trying to say here, euph, but I think you're mistaken.

Point A) - 2,000 people is a perfectly large sample size for a poll. If you're equating it to poker sample sizes, that's a false assumption - in this poll there is no variance (or, if you like, the "don't know" answers form a sort of variance/deviation). Most opinion polls in the UK are of 1,000 people and no-one claims this isn't satisfactory. I know UK TV ratings figures used to be based on just 3,000 households though I imagine, in the multi-channel age, this figure must have gone up to more accurately represent the smallest proportions where problems with sample sizes are genuine - in this survey, even 1% represents 20 people.

Point B) - Harris is a well-established and respected value-neutral polling company who are obliged to be as objective as possible in both the people they polled and the way the questions were phrased. Certainly the former is well planned and organised - they are obliged to get an accurate and proportional representation of all different demographics.

Point C) - the questions are included - look above each of the tables for the words inside inverted commas. For example, the first two are simply "Please indicate for each one if you believe in it, or not" and the next two "To what extent do you believe that the following represents the word of God?". Pretty straightforward and non-leading.

[Frink]

screw that, i'll start the bashing then. fuck americans.

How's the weather up there in your patch of tundra? :P

[will641]

I don't get what is so hard to believe about that? Here are 3 reasons of mine why it could be true. This is disregarding the survey and any flaws with it.

1) People are stubborn in their religious beliefs (based on personal experience)
2) Intelligence does not directly translate into obvious things. By this I mean that there are tons of smart religious folks who could give you amazing information about history, literature, and even science, but when it comes to things like evolution, they are morons, and this leads to #3.
3) There is a deep strain of religious idiocy in America, that is not as apparent in places like Europe and China. Again, this is from observation, but I am pretty sure that a very few number of people in Europe and an even less number of people in China are creationists.

[thizzSantaCruz]

Lots of problems with a poll like that. I wouldn't put any validity in it whatsoever.

A) only 2k people responded
B) people who answer online polls tend to have a specific reason to do so (ardent believes are going to be WAY more likely to answer a survey like that, most "rational people" [and thats a terrible word choice for this but i cant think of anything better] are just going to ignore the email.
C) Question phrasing, without seeing the poll it's hard to say if the questions were biased.

Basically, the "moral majority" is neither. Just louder.

I appreciate what you're trying to say here, euph, but I think you're mistaken.

Point A) - 2,000 people is a perfectly large sample size for a poll. If you're equating it to poker sample sizes, that's a false assumption - in this poll there is no variance (or, if you like, the "don't know" answers form a sort of variance/deviation). Most opinion polls in the UK are of 1,000 people and no-one claims this isn't satisfactory. I know UK TV ratings figures used to be based on just 3,000 households though I imagine, in the multi-channel age, this figure must have gone up to more accurately represent the smallest proportions where problems with sample sizes are genuine - in this survey, even 1% represents 20 people.

Point B) - Harris is a well-established and respected value-neutral polling company who are obliged to be as objective as possible in both the people they polled and the way the questions were phrased. Certainly the former is well planned and organised - they are obliged to get an accurate and proportional representation of all different demographics.

Point C) - the questions are included - look above each of the tables for the words inside inverted commas. For example, the first two are simply "Please indicate for each one if you believe in it, or not" and the next two "To what extent do you believe that the following represents the word of God?". Pretty straightforward and non-leading.

I doubt a sample size of 2000 people is statistically significant to the whole population of the US.

[silu73]

I doubt a sample size of 2000 people is statistically significant to the whole population of the US.

I have only studied for Stats101 but as far as I know if conducted properly polls like this are pretty accurate.

This Harris Poll® was conducted online within the United States between November 7 and 13, 2007 among 2,455 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online

[MNMP2]

I just watched An Inconvenient Truth, there are some stupid fucking people out there who would rather stick there head up there ass then believe in science.(An yes I know in a lot of ways the movie was a propaganda movie but it did have very truthful and information)

I read a paper awhile ago on how the science community needs to take a serious look at the terminology they use as it relates to the public. I would guess less than 5% of the public can read a scientific paper and get anything meaningful out of it, and this is why there is such a gap between public beliefs and scientific knowledge.
An example of what the paper talked about was instead of saying Theory say Law. In Science speak a Theory is repeatable and taken as the truth, but when the public hears the Theory of Evolution theory to them means a guess. Why not call it the Law of Evolution.

Maybe a little off topic but thats my rant being a biology major, and hearing fucking asshole politicians not give two shits about global warming.

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and general relativity.

In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. This usage of theory leads to the common statement "It's not a fact, it's only a theory." True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them. In this usage, the word is synonymous with hypothesis.

Your post is ignorant. In the science world THEORY means exacatly that - theory. Theory means an idea/ presupposition that is not exactly proven. LAW means a scientific idea that is outright proven and also cannot be disproven in any way. It is LAW. Sush as gravity.

I like also how you admit that this movie is propaganda but then say people are stupid for not believing in it......

[Pelion]

Your post is ignorant. In the science world THEORY means exacatly that - theory. Theory means an idea/ presupposition that is not exactly proven. LAW means a scientific idea that is outright proven and also cannot be disproven in any way. It is LAW. Sush as gravity.

Sorry but that just isn't true. For gravity the terms "Newtons theory of universal gravitation, and Newtons law of universal gravitation" are used pretty interchangeably with "theory" probably being slightly more popular. You also claim that "LAW" means "a scientific idea that is outright proven and also cannot be disproven in any way" when in fact the law of gravitation has already been proved false in the very high energy/potential limit (e.g. for black holes). In those cases the "theory of General Relativity" must be used because it is more accurate than the "Law of Gravity".

[sauce123]

All hail Helmuthia, our Glorious Lady of Donkaments

[flomo]

an earlier poll by them said that most americans think europeans are smelly

so the poll must be accurate

[swiggidy]

The moral majority is fucking retarded.

There was a thing on the news about how victoria's secret is pushing porn on the unsuspecting public, and how porn is a disease and we need to think about our children and protect them from porn.

[Alibi]

i luvs pr0n

[|~|ypermegachi]

The moral majority is fucking retarded.

There was a thing on the news about how victoria's secret is pushing porn on the unsuspecting public, and how porn is a disease and we need to think about our children and protect them from porn.

like anything else, it can be a problem when it becomes an obsession.

[biondino]

Would you rather your child was heavily into porn or a fundamentalist christian? It's a no-brainer for me

[TheFaucet]

I believe in Porno

[bigred]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKNd...eature=related

[mrhappy333]

GOD EXISTS, THIS VIDEO PROVES IT!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkhQLt1vbWU

[givememyleg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKNd22GGaQ&feature=related

bigred is an american

[givememyleg]

Would you rather your child was heavily into porn or a fundamentalist christian? It's a no-brainer for me

porn right?

[will641]

GOD EXISTS, THIS VIDEO PROVES IT!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkhQLt1vbWU

holy crap that is funny

[flomo]

Would you rather your child was heavily into porn or a fundamentalist christian? It's a no-brainer for me

straighjt porn or gay porn?

[will641]

Would you rather your child was heavily into porn or a fundamentalist christian? It's a no-brainer for me

straighjt porn or gay porn?

wow dude, ummm, that is actually a tough one for me. would i rather my son be gay or a fundamentalist bible thumper? I'm going to have to invoke my 5th amendment rights on that one.

[|~|ypermegachi]

Would you rather your child was heavily into porn or a fundamentalist christian? It's a no-brainer for me

if my child was fundamentalist clearly i would have to be too, so the question is invalid! but yeah, pr0n for the win.

[spoonitnow]

guarantee that's a skewed poll.

[spoonitnow]

I just watched An Inconvenient Truth, there are some stupid fucking people out there who would rather stick there head up there ass then believe in science.(An yes I know in a lot of ways the movie was a propaganda movie but it did have very truthful and information)

I read a paper awhile ago on how the science community needs to take a serious look at the terminology they use as it relates to the public. I would guess less than 5% of the public can read a scientific paper and get anything meaningful out of it, and this is why there is such a gap between public beliefs and scientific knowledge.
An example of what the paper talked about was instead of saying Theory say Law. In Science speak a Theory is repeatable and taken as the truth, but when the public hears the Theory of Evolution theory to them means a guess. Why not call it the Law of Evolution.

Maybe a little off topic but thats my rant being a biology major, and hearing fucking asshole politicians not give two shits about global warming.

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and general relativity.

In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. This usage of theory leads to the common statement "It's not a fact, it's only a theory." True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them. In this usage, the word is synonymous with hypothesis.

Your post is ignorant. In the science world THEORY means exacatly that - theory. Theory means an idea/ presupposition that is not exactly proven. LAW means a scientific idea that is outright proven and also cannot be disproven in any way. It is LAW. Sush as gravity.

I like also how you admit that this movie is propaganda but then say people are stupid for not believing in it......

LOL SELF DEFEATING POSTAMENTS