Why is Evolution so criticised?

[Brick-top]

The USA is one of the least accepting nations for Evolution:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...29204.html

But the US has some of the best universities in the world:

http://www.arwu.org/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm

So why are they so divided about Evolution?

[KRW1612]

Generally Evolution is only heavily criticised in the USA. As far as Europe and Oceania is concerned it is the most accepted theory of life and its origins.

[Boulat]

I think it is criticised because religious people like to feel special and above other animals 'Man was destined for glory' or something along those lines was said by a christian member on the previous site. I guess some people don't like to be on the same page as apes...

[solidsquid]

Ideology of the populace is the major problem. Evolution is heavily criticized in Islamic countries as well such as Turkey where Harun Yahya is from. To me, the guy is like a more annoying Kent Hovind - his arguments are just as weak and some even weaker. This guy has obviously has no scientific education aside from the zoo. But are we that far removed from Turkey on the subject of evolution?

Nope:



And another from an article in the journal Science:



...and one from New Scientist:



Albeit these didn't include information from every country but it gives a good idea about where our country sits. The National Science Foundation does their Science and Engineering Indicators every year - a kind of state of science in the U.S. From the latest S&E Indicator:

U.S. scores on questions about the theory of evolution and the "big bang" are lower than those in other countries, and many Americans are receptive to including nonscientific views in science classrooms.

* Many Americans appear skeptical of established scientific ideas in these areas, even when they have some basic familiarity with them.

* Americans’ responses to questions about evolution have remained virtually unchanged over the past 25 years.

* More Americans approved than disapproved of instruction about three explanations of the origins of life (evolution, intelligent design, and creationism) in public school science classes. However, many were unsure.

Scientific literacy hasn't changed much even in the past 14 years:



Less than half of the research respondents in the polls over the years answer true to the statement - Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.

The data hasn't changed much in at least 25 years and that's sad.

[solidsquid]

WTF? I had a nice long post with graphs and links to the NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators and I go to post and it tells me that I posted a spam message - what a crappy deal.

[Tiberius]

Try it again. I don't know why it decided to mark it as spam, but I've turned that feature off now.

[Brick-top]

WTF? I had a nice long post with graphs and links to the NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators and I go to post and it tells me that I posted a spam message - what a crappy deal.

I'm.....sorry?

[Tiberius]

The latest version of MyBB came with a spam detector plugin. Evidently it didn't work very well...

[Brick-top]

The latest version of MyBB came with a spam detector plugin. Evidently it didn't work very well...

Isn't that what mods are for?

[solidsquid]

It was probably because I had several links as well as images and it just figured it was spam. I'll see if I can post that info again later...gotta work on a research proposal.