Sunday, January 29, 2006
Smarter Than Us?
It's possible the Brits are.
Secondly, he misses the point that there is quite a lot of evidence for quite a few assertions that fail to rise to the level of "proof" or even reasonability. There may be a pile of evidence, let's say 40 feet deep in support of evolution. The pile that points away from it may only be two feet deep. But if you need a pile of evidence 200 feet deep to prove evolution, scepticism is precisely the correct view to have about it.
I'd love to see a poll like this here in America.
Related Tags: evolution, Darwin, creationism, Intelligent Design, poll, Britain
Britons unconvinced on evolutionWhich means that more than half are unconvinced. This fact is excellent, it shows a level of scientific maturity that the average scientist often does not have.
Just under half of Britons accept the theory of evolution as the best description for the development of life, according to an opinion poll.
The findings prompted surprise from the scientific community. Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, said: "It is surprising that many should still be sceptical of Darwinian evolution. Darwin proposed his theory nearly 150 years ago, and it is now supported by an immense weight of evidence.Rees misses a couple of important points. First of all, what people object to is not the mechanism of evolution, but its exclusion of the supernatural as the force behind that mechanism. If he could figure that out, he could get himself a lot farther than he has.
Secondly, he misses the point that there is quite a lot of evidence for quite a few assertions that fail to rise to the level of "proof" or even reasonability. There may be a pile of evidence, let's say 40 feet deep in support of evolution. The pile that points away from it may only be two feet deep. But if you need a pile of evidence 200 feet deep to prove evolution, scepticism is precisely the correct view to have about it.
I'd love to see a poll like this here in America.
Related Tags: evolution, Darwin, creationism, Intelligent Design, poll, Britain
