Denial of evolution makes America weaker
Looking at other information from that same Newsweek poll, The Carpetbagger Report is concenred about the state of American ignorance regarding evolution:
The false doctrines of much of American religion are normally pretty harmless, but this is one area where churches are directly harming our society. It's one thing to be mistaken about the existence of God; our economy and competitiveness won't be hamstringed by a few incorrect cosmological assumptions. But it's another thing entirely to willfully turn away from the findings of the biological sciences.
By all accounts this area of research is poised for enormous growth in the next several decades, with potential benefits (and profits) similar to the those brought by the information revolution. And it seems like a substantial portion of Americans are down on their ignorant-ass knees, praying to their non-existent God in a manner something like this:
[emphasis mine] Speak on, my brother! (And yes, I checked to see that the author of The Carpetbagger Report is male, or at least has a male name.) Here's my framing on this issue: Denial of evolution makes America weaker. How many potential scientists are lost to America because of this nonsense? How many biomedical startup companies and research ventures go to some other country because people around the world know about American hostility to science?This is not at all encouraging. These poll results come just a few months after an international study was conducted to measure which countries were the most accepting on evolutionary biology. Of the 34 countries involved, the United States ranked 33rd. Only Turkey ranked lower.
Researchers cited poor science education, the politicization of science in the U.S., and American religiosity for the poor showing. “American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close,” said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University.
Whatever the explanation, I continue to wonder the extent to which Americans understand how much this undermines national progress and competitiveness.
The false doctrines of much of American religion are normally pretty harmless, but this is one area where churches are directly harming our society. It's one thing to be mistaken about the existence of God; our economy and competitiveness won't be hamstringed by a few incorrect cosmological assumptions. But it's another thing entirely to willfully turn away from the findings of the biological sciences.
By all accounts this area of research is poised for enormous growth in the next several decades, with potential benefits (and profits) similar to the those brought by the information revolution. And it seems like a substantial portion of Americans are down on their ignorant-ass knees, praying to their non-existent God in a manner something like this:
Dear God in heaven, please let it not be Americans who lead the way into this new frontier of biological research! Let it be the Koeans or Israelis or Europeans or Indians or somebody else who gets the jobs, glory, money, and benefits from these new technologies! Protect us from seeing the world as it is, that we may remain blissfully uncontaminated by the vile, Satanic ichor of reality! Let America's era of strength and dominance be brought to a close, that we may wallow in an intellectual, economic, and political backwater, ignorant of science, a contented client state of Communist China. Amen.Please, you have a right to believe whatever ignorant hogwash you wish, but don't cripple my nation's economic well-being with it. I'm enough of an American chauvanist that I really would like to see our country maintain its position as a world economic leader, and you dumb-asses are jeopardizing that.
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