About 25% of Americans Don't Know the Earth Revolves Around the Sun
- Thread starter John Keefer
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Now do you really have to be a "Rhodes scholar" to know the Earth goes around the sun? That's picture book knowledge.Hawk eye1466 said:
No but I've always wanted to use that phrase and this was the best opportunity I'd seenJohnny Novgorod said:
"studies" like this piss me off, seriously.
Like, I get that it's fun to make jokes about "ignorant" America, but if the survey you made is itself stupid and unscientific, the joke's really on you.
Taking a sample size like that and then talking about the entire US population is a joke.
Calling the big bang an explosion is a joke.
And btw, I'm not american. I like making fun of them as much as the next guy.
But this is just pathetic.
Like, I get that it's fun to make jokes about "ignorant" America, but if the survey you made is itself stupid and unscientific, the joke's really on you.
Taking a sample size like that and then talking about the entire US population is a joke.
Calling the big bang an explosion is a joke.
And btw, I'm not american. I like making fun of them as much as the next guy.
But this is just pathetic.
The article on Phys.org?
1: The article is uncredited.
2: There are no listed links or sources.
3: Nearly every recommended article on-screen is bashing another nation.
I'm gonna go ahead and call this one BS.
1: The article is uncredited.
2: There are no listed links or sources.
3: Nearly every recommended article on-screen is bashing another nation.
I'm gonna go ahead and call this one BS.
The Galileo affair is not the simple science vs religion affair it is portrayed either.RyQ_TMC said:
At the the time of writing the book, Galileo working with the pope's support and the pope knew he as working on the heliocentric model (indeed prior to being made pope as cardinal he had defended Galileo). The pope was even the source of the idea of framing it as a conversation/argument between two people, each supporting one of the models, and that his views be presented in the book. Now remember that the pope at the time was in many ways a head of state whose power, rank and even life depended on keeping a vast array of people happy, so being made out to be a fool was not something that could be tolerated even if he wasn't also the head of a religion.
The book was published with the approval of the Inquisition (who vetted such things for heresy etc) and Pope. However the Popes wasn't all that secure in his post, and this lead to the problems with the tone of the book becoming important.
Now it must be said while it is likely that Galileo may well have deliberately ignored the Popes request to be balanced in his portrayal of the two models, he likely didn't consciously intend the character arguing the popes views to be that connected to the pope or be a figure of ridicule. However the character Simplicio who argued for the Ptolemean, was sometimes confused in his argument, and name was similar to the Italian for simpleton. This perceived ridicule of the pope was more to do with this arrest and trial of Galileo and long term banning of his work and book than the actual idea. Its probable that many of Urban VIIIs contemporary heads of state, the kings, Princes etc of the time would not have treated such ridicule kindly.
The relationship of the Christian church and Science has been fraught, but its not as purely confrontational as portrayed. Much scientific research was done by members of the church, often with the idea of the more you understand of God's creation the more you learn of him. Mendel, often viewed as the founder of modern genetics was a Friar.
Sciences relationship with itself is hardly blemish free, with new ideas (that later become the mainstream theory) sometimes struggling as they can seem ridiculous.
I would go even further, and say that in most cases reasons for censorship or banning of scientific material (which were actually very rare) were personal or political rather than religious. The only strictly "medieval Church vs science" religiously-motivated case I can think of off the top of my head would be that of Nicholas of Autrecourt, who proposed atomism and was ordered to burn his books and recant, since atomism was against the Church doctrine of transsubstantiation.Petromir said:
And even then, it should be pointed out that (a) Atomism at the time was pure speculation, as there was no technology to even provide empirical support for it and (b) Nicholas specifically attacked transsubstantiation in his text, so he did kinda throw the first punch in that match.
Medical science before Pasteur had continuously suffered from the physicians' aversion to any new ideas. Scientists like to be in their comfort zone as much as anyone else. I've already pointed out in my previous comment that the Copernican model and Darwin's theory of evolution were contested by fellow scientists (or natural philosophers in Copernicus's case) much more than by religious people. Conflict hypothesis needs to die, as it does more bad than good.
To further clarify, because it seems there is still a misunderstanding of the message i was trying to convey: 'Evolution' was NEVER EVER EVER EVER a theory. NEVER. Never has been, never will be. It most certainly is not 'both a fact and a theory' either. To assert that as you are now is to contribute to the whole misconception, giving 'anti-evolution' debaters a strawman which they've been running with for years, because 'we' have been falsely validating them. :XFlatfrog said:
To address another point there, 'Evolution' has been actively observed, in many instances. (One particular instances was the peppered moth, it's the one most people tend to bring up.)
The thing actually being referred to(whether the one talking actually knows enough to realise it or not) when people say 'the theory of evolution', is just an abbreviation, slang. A fuller name would be 'darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection', but because that's a mouthful everyone just shortened it, and then ignorant people waltz around saying evolution itself was the theory instead of natural selection, and then slightly less misinformed people (but still not really knowing fully what the deal is) start arguing about the definition of a 'theory' instead of taking it back that extra step and pointing out the real flaw in the deniers argument, which is that evolution itself is not and never was a theory.
Evolution is the what, natural selection is the how... and if you want to get philosophical you could argue religion/god is the why
Yopaz said:
I would kindly direct you back to the part of my post that you excluded from your quote box, where I already explained exactly what you posted right there. More importantly(and I mean absolutely no offence to you when I say this, merely hoping to explain), you don't appear to quite grasp what you yourself so aptly repeated:
Theories are used to explain phenomena.
the theory (natural selection) is used to explain the phenomenon (evolution).
Does that clarify it?(it is what the rest of my post went on to explain) - And do you see how people mixing up the terms(as you've done here, despite your best intentions) has been so damaging? Worst of all because the very people 'supporting' evolution it are the ones 'arguing' the wrong thing in the first place, giving credence to the false assertion that evolution itself was the theory, which it is not.
I didn't say evolution hasn't been observed, I said speciation hasn't been observed. That is to say - we can easily observe instances of changes in allele frequency (especially under human intervention), but as far as I know we've never yet managed to create two individuals that are actually from different species and can't interbreed (perhaps the nearest we've got to it is dogs of such vastly different sizes that they would be physically incapable of breeding despite their genetic compatibility). That isn't to say speciation can't occur, naturally it can, but it happens on too long a timescale to be practically observed.Some_weirdGuy said:
So 'evolution' in the sense most people understand it is still a theory - a theory that is clearly true because there are huge numbers of supporting facts, but a theory nevertheless. To state it precisely, 'evolution' is the theory that the reason all life on Earth falls into a pattern of species, phyla, kingdoms etc is that all species have evolved from a common ancestor. As I say - theory *and* fact. And one of the reasons I hate the peppered moth example is because actually it's a terrible example of why we know evolution to be correct. We know evolution to be correct because of DNA analysis, morphology and fossil evidence, not because we can breed slightly differently coloured bugs under controlled conditions.
And I'd also say that evolution *itself* is the thing most anti-evolutionists dispute. Not the theory of Natural Selection, which explains how this evolution most likely occurred, but common ancestry. Which is why it's so frustrating, because while there are good reasons to argue about whether other mechanisms than natural selection could have been the principal driving forces of evolution, evolution itself should surely be beyond doubt.
Oh yes, what are PLANET orbits around (which provides us with light and energy and without it no vegetation or water would be possible) is a small thing. Surely money is better than knowing the fact that IT CAN EXPLODE INTO A SUPERNOVA AND DESTROY THE ENTIRE FRIGGIN GALAXY, WHICH IS WHAT FORMED THE SOLAR SYSTEM ABOUT 5-10 BILLION YEARS AGO. If the sun EXPLODES, money and food would be the least of your worries, I can guarantee that!shrekfan246 said:
I'd hate to describe the Big Bang as an explosion. An explosion is a rapid increase of volume of a substance. "Rapid", "volume" and "substance" are all very confusing terms around the event of the Big Bang. Also for many the question has a very heavy religious load. Their answer is wrong, but the question was poorly phrased. Same goes for the evolution question. And I'm not surprised regarding the antibiotics question. That requires a fair amount of medical knowledge to get it right.
A theory is the best available description of reality as we can perceive and test it. It should be considered fact, unless one can point out a significant flaw in it and come with an equal or superior alternative to it. Also we've observed evolution far beyond any reasonable doubt. This makes evolution (though not necessarily evolution theory) a fact. Also and I can't stress this enough. DO NOT BELIEVE IN SCIENCE ! To believe something is to take something on faith. You're not supposed to do that in science. You make assumptions, yes, but those assumptions should always be based on observations and reason. Never on faith.black_knight1337 said:
DNA is two strands of RNA. It makes the double helix. Neither of those are alive. A protein is a nutrient. It is not living. That's like saying a rock is living because it contains iron and iron is made up of molecules. Also, a virus does not have inner organelles like a single-cellars organism like bacteria or multi-celled organisms like an animal or plants. Viruses are not made of cells, which is the smallest, most basic unit of life. So, technically they are nonliving. Also, saying something is organic does not mean it is living. Silicon is organic but it is not alive, like any element on the P.T.o.E.Yopaz said:
destroy the galaxyBrownie80 said:
>implying the sun is large enough to even be noticed galactically if it explodes
>acting as if it's going to explode in less that three billion years from now
>as if the sun won't expand and destroy the planet anyhow well before it blows
>implying money and food is less important than the knowledge of something that will never happen in the human race's existence
Why are you doing this to me? ;______;