Could you be more specific here? Majority? By whose standards? Much wider swath of modern knowledge?? For instance? Please name subjects if you will....
Anthropology
Astrophysics/Cosmology
Biology in general (a very long list of subdisciplines within this field, but ecology, genetics, and developmental biology are ones that are heavily dependent on an evolutionary framework)
Geology
Medicine (elements on the research side)
Psychology (elements of this, I think Libs get other parts wrong)
Sociology ("")
As a consequence of being badly confused on the above, I'd say conservatives consequently commit blunders in economics and law as well. But Libs have there list of problems there too.
The issue of "majority" I provided you some data on already. Around 45% of Americans fall into the badly confused camp. How does that split between Libs/Conservatives? Well I found this:
An American poll on "Creation vs. Evolution" just released in George magazine, published by John F. Kennedy, Jr., indicates that most Americans believe in the Genesis account of special creation and do not accept the theory of total organic evolution.
On evolution:
51% do not believe that humans evolved from lower life forms
38% do believe in evolution
12% don't know, refused to answer
On creation:
60% believe the world was created in seven days
27% do not
13% don't know, or refused to answer
The poll noted the differences between those who describe themselves as liberal or conservative, with the majority of conservatives describing themselves as creationist.
Of conservatives:
70% believe in a 7-day creation
30% believe in evolution
Of liberals:
45% believe in a 7-day creation
58% believe in evolution
Which would place liberals at slightly less than twice (58/30) as likely to accept modern science as conservatives. Thats dismal enough that I should search for a new label for myself :( BTW, please note that 3% of liberals are clearly morons, but that is a small enough fraction that I'll just claim they add a bit of flavor to my camp.
Does all this matter? Yes, I think it does. There is a rising tide in America (Kansas, Ohio, NY, Georgia and elsewhere) to roll back "liberal" thought that has contributed to moral decay. So the poisons of Marx, Freud & Darwin must go. On the economic front, the first war has been largely won, and this has encouraged the believers in the quest for victory on the other two. Not much analysis is being done on the strengths and weakness of the respective theories and why some might be correct while others are incorrect. I'll follow with interest the views on SC nominees in this regard!
BTW, LindyBill posted a couple of links that touched on this recently. One was on private schooling as a means of diffusing the cultural wars, since private schools have more freedom to teach or not teach certain subjects. I actually agree somewhat with this approach, but do we really want to breed ignorance for the sake of social niceness? What happens if the private schools in __ville teach an alternate history that claims the Nazis didn't kill millions of Jews? How is that different then teaching alternate (and false) views of the above list of science topics?
The second link was about Patrick Henry University, billed as the "Harvard for Homeschool", a Christian University dedicated to churning out individuals for the Republican political machine. I just had to go find their website, and examine the biology courses. I was curious how these future political leaders might be grounded in this important branch of science which impacts many issues of political contention between liberals & conservatives. Regrettably, I found exactly what I expected. Yet when these individuals work as aids on drafting legal policy, or later become elected officials themselves, they will talk about using the "best available science" to back their views. How could they possibly know anything about good science? It is a tad disconcerting. Hence, until conservatives come to grips with what science is, and how it works, I'll remain a liberal, and vote accordingly. |
