Thursday, January 18, 2007

What even the Neanderthals knew better than most Americans

**RJ Eskow writes in The Huffington Post that the US is "almost last in understanding evolution." Christian fundamentalist activism, aided and abetted by the Bush administration's faith in all things "faith based," is the primary reason.
Americans rank next-to-last on a survey of 34 nations' acceptance of evolution as a scientific fact. (See the chart, below.) Our awareness of this scientific reality has actually gone down over the past 20 years, no doubt as a result of the so-called "intelligent design" movement and other Christian fundamentalist campaigns. In fact, frequent churchgoers in the US are most likely to doubt evolution. How will their children - and ours - become the great scientists, doctors, and engineers of tomorrow?

The US scores well behind nine European countries in its acceptance of scientific fact. Jon Miller, the primary author of the survey on evolution, notes one likely cause:

"The biblical literalist focus of fundamentalism in the United States sees Genesis as a true and accurate account of the creation of human life that supersedes any scientific finding or interpretation. In contrast, mainstream Protestant faiths in Europe (and their U.S. counterparts) have viewed Genesis as metaphorical and--like the Catholic Church--have not seen a major contradiction between their faith and the work of Darwin and other scientists."

A country that doesn't believe in evolution doesn't respect rational thought or the scientific process. It can't produce the scientists and leaders it needs to face the problems of the 21st Century. This is even a national security problem, since a nation that won't face and study reality can't defend itself. The situation should be of concern to every American.

Evolution is not a "theory" in the way that fundamentalists claim. It's verified scientific fact, developed through a rigorous method of observation, hypothesis, and confirmation.
Read the rest of the post here.

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