Britons Unconvinced on Evolution :O

Slashdot reports "The BBC is reporting that more than half of Britons do not believe in evolution, with a further 40% advocating that creationism or intelligent design should be taught in school science classes. I'm a Brit myself, and I thought most people over here thought these views were outdated and lacked substance. None of my close friends give any credit to creationism or ID, but we're all well educated athiests so I guess that's to be expected. Maybe I've been blind to the views of the majority in this proudly secular country?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4648598.stm

Wow, I didn't think they were that stupid, I mean Darwin is British.

The world is really going mad about established facts. Its one thing to question everything but not stuff that is like so blatant.

First we get this crap that evolution should not be believed. Then you that Iranian president saying the Holocaust wasn't real. What's next? That the earth is actually flat and its the centre of the universe?

Because we all know that everything people largely believe is true is in fact not true because in the past most people thought the world was flat and this covers all instance where most people believe something.

So for instance if everyone believes 1+1 = 2, then it must be false and the truth is being hidden by evil whitey and to prove we are multi-diversity ethnic cultural socialist tolerant.

BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL

Q:How'd the Universe begin?
A:Big Explosion
Q:Where did the ingredients of the explosion come from?
A:*mumble*
Q:How'd the Earth form?
A:Space debris impacting over billions of years eventually lead to the creation of the Earth
Q:Where'd Life come from?
A:*muble*
Q:How did Humanity come to exist?
A:Billions of years of Natural Selection lead to the eventual outcome of Homo Sapiens
Q:What lead to Humans to have a cranial compacity hundreds, possibly thousands of times greater then was ever necessary?
A:This friendly Q&A is over
Q:Wait, we never got to the question about Conscienceness!

>>4 doesn't get science.

>>4

fails at scientific understanding

>>5
>>6

atheists

>>7

agnostic actually, but thanks for playing faggot

>>3

bill o' reilly and tucker carlson's fuck baby everybody. give him around of applause. APPLOSE

Q:How'd the Universe begin?
A:Mah Peepee

there.

No one takes polls seriously. Apparently 40% of britain are of the Jedi religious persuasion aswell.

This is why I hate stats.....it is never 100% right YET the public will always take it on face value.

72% of Britons believe that the dead-Jew-on-a-stick is some kind of god. Is it any wonder then, that 40% actually take the Creationist myth somewhat seriously?

>>4
Q:How'd the Earth form?
A:Space debris impacting over billions of years eventually lead to the creation of the Earth
Q:Where'd Life come from?
A:*muble*

Didn't they figure out life originally began as some amino acids giving birth to little bitty cells that couldn't survive during the volcanic age outside of the acids and becoming steadily more complicated in structure, or is that SciJou out of date and that theory was discounted? I don't follow evolution stuff that well...BECAUSE IT'S IN THE PAST YOU STUPID NOSTALGIC MOTHERFUCKERS. bet all you intelligent designers think pacman and galaga are the greatest games ever too.

>>13
They haven't figured out exactly how it happenned yet, all they've done is electro-zap worcester sauce in a test tube and then look to see what they did. But it has something to do with amino acids and naturally occurring proteins. Most of the original life on earth has been literally eaten by later forms of life, so you can only hypothesis what might have happenned. I don't think there are fossilised single celled life because they aren't composed of bone minerals n stuff.

This is better than the 0 proof that religion provides. There is no proof of god's existence or that it was created 7000 years ago it is usually just criticism of evolution and statements like "it can only be the work of god!" even though that's like saying "your mom can only be a 300 lb slag!" even though I've never seen my mom or know who you are etc etc..

The issue the religious nuts can't seem to grasp is that science is always provisional. What there is are theories of varying accuracy and levels of confidence.

We don't know where life came from. We theorize. This is the difference between science and religion: we don't pretend to know The Truth (TM).

BTW, the question of where the universe came from, how Earth formed, and even how life first started, have diddle shit to do with the theory of evolution.

>>15
EXACTLY. Science is ever changing. It can be proven wrong as long as you have the evidence to back it up.

To religious nuts, everything is black or white. And it is absolute. They cannot be wrong.

That is why religion and science cannot mix (except in fiction ;p)

That is why religion and science cannot mix

If you mean people can't abide by both, I disagree. Science and faith are orthogonal. Science works with the observable, and faith works with the unobservable. Science has nothing to say about God, since God is (by most definitions) unobservable.

On the other hand, if you mean not allowing religious dogma to affect theories within science, well yeah. If only the ID folks could figure that out. Since science say nothing about the existence of God (or afterlife, or what have you), the only thing it threatens are a bunch of far-out stories in a dusty old book.

A book the loons seem to think they should interpret literally. Scary bunch, aren't they?

>>17
The bible is a pretty good book thought. Myths are a good way of passing on knowledge, but we've learnt that the universe is composed of simple abstract concepts and ideas which build up to the most perfect solutions to problems possible. Wisdom is good where we have not tread with philosophy and logic and the bible has a lot of wisdom.

Yes, I know it claims the earth was created by god etc and jesus healed lepers. These are just myths and there's no reason to get angry over myths unless someone uses them as an excuse to commit crimes apon you.

In which case it's not the myth that's the problem it's the fact that the criminal is an asshole.

Bear in mind we are all capable of being assholes. Even if we believe in science.

>>18
The bible is a pretty good book thought.

It is so/so. If you read between the lines, at least for the Old Testament, the behaviour of a lot of so-called "good men" are completely reprihensible. Attempting to murder their sons (because a voice in their head said so), throwing their daughters to be raped by crowds of angry men (because they were really just chicken shit), sleeping with their daughters (oh, they got him drunk, right...) taking pride in the destruction of thousands of other lives because they're the other side (eeeviiilll unbelievers must die!), blah, blah, blah.

Having said that, I have no problem with the Bible as a moral lesson, as long as it's done in moderation by an individual who deliberately considers what is written, by whom it was written, and its place in the modern world. The problem is that there are too many fundamentalists who take the Bible literally (one of the myriad translations of many interpretations of something handed down over many centuries).

A reasonable person reads the Bible for entertainment, and nothing more. You do not need the Bible for moral lessons. If you look to the Old Testament for such lessons, you're a sick fuck.

I don't think it says those things in the bible.

>>21
The man with the voices? Abraham.

The guy who offered his daughters to a mob? Lot (who subsequently slept with them).

Wiping out thousands? How many times does that happen in the Old Testament? Ten times? More? The Bible is violent.

The main problem as most people can see is that the religious nuts take the bible literally, word by word.

>>22
Does the Bible show all those actions as good? Teaching a moral lesson involves showing the action and saying that that action is a bad thing.

>>24
You don't know who Abraham and Lot are? Joshua destroying Ai? What about the Caananites? Midianites? Heshbon? All that? What about Egyptians (god loves to kill them and their cattle)? No?

Yes, it shows their actions as good. The good people of the lord rape, murder, take slaves, fuck their own daughters (after offering them to a crowd) and sisters (who get stoned to death), try to kill their children (and often do), yadda, yadda.

Even a cursory glance through the Old Testament would indicate this. Geez.

Some parts of the bible are crazy, but other parts like Corinthians, which is like an encyclopedia of instances you will probably encounter in your life where you have to choose between good and evil, are the epitomy of good.

I think you are a hindu or something and you think everything except islam and muslims is evil, when in fact all you are doing is venting your homosexual frustration.

The Corinthians is in the New Testament, duh. Most of the idiocy in the Bible is in the Old Testament, including all the shit the Creationists love to pipe up about.

Yet the Bible include both Testaments, not just one. It's all part and parcel. You can't pick and choose and say, "Oh, oh, oh, but look at this part! The Bible is good!"

Does that mean the Bible is bad? Not at all, but it's hardly a good study of morality, due to its mixed nature. I'm more impressed by people who have extensively studied philosophy (or, by extension, serious theology, since theologians have to defend from the numerous issues raised by philosophers). Their grasp of morality and ethics are deeper than what you'll get by a surface appraisal of the Bible. Yeah, and which version of the Bible too.

Finally, I'm Catholic. And if I'm gay, please bend over. Your tight little ass awaits my throbbing mancock.

>>26 is DQN

uh dude the bible also says the world is 6,000 years old and the world is at the center of the world it is wrong it is but the beliefs that were thought as right when it was written while the philosophy behind it treat people right is still applied to modern day that is all and yes you can pick and choose like for example there are to creation stories you would know this if you ever read your bible but one must be right and one must be wrong am i right? therfore you do pick and choose you silly little boy

Most of the idiocy in the Bible is in the Old Testament

There's also plenty of idiocy in the New Testament. There's like, demons and walking on water and burning in hell and idiocy like that.

>>28
is non-japanese and using DQN, therefore >>26 is not DQN and >>28 is an otaku faggot

>>24
the real problem with fundies is that they cannot (or refuse to ) distinguish an example of evil from an example of good. The fundies thrive on not comprehending the bible beyond a superficial level, these are people who fail reading comprehension test. These people read the bible as a legal document, not as a story or fable (which is what it really is). The bible is an epic, generations-spanning book about mankind's search for a meaning to his own existence.

More accurately, the Bible is a fictionalized record of one people's search for there place in the universe.