51% of Americans don't accept the Big Bang theory

[YellowSubmarine]

String theory is a lot of things, but comparing it with intelligent design is unfair. It is an unscientific math-fu that you can't call a scientific theory, but it is a mathematical theory. You can't explain anything in the universe with it, but you can create a model that resembles it, and tweak the parameters to look into an imaginary sister universe. What you can do with intelligent design? You can't even imagine intelligently designed world with it, something that science fiction does well.

 

[JarodRussell]

I prefer the Modified G-String Theory. THAT is an intelligently designed theory.

 

[Dryson]

Here are what seem to be the actual poll questions.

For many scientifically literate Christians the way the question was asked takes God out of the equation and IMO they lose confidence.

Had the question been asked separately as well, " ~ 13 billion year ago, God started the big bang and the universe unfolded and man came about through natural selection...," the number of respondents who agreeed would have been higher.

The Catholic church for example embraces a 13 billion year old universe, the big bang and natural selection. They just also believe that God lighted the match that started the whole process with the intent for man to be eventually created.

Taking God out of the equation is no different than taking your parents out of life. Humans have to let go of the hand of God and use what they have learned and discovered so far to spread the seed of humanity otherwise humanity will be like the 40 year old still living in their parents basement because they would rather party and drug and booze their life away....this isn't reality....you wanted adventure.....go on go on.....all my hopes Starfleet.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Re:

51% of Americans don't accept the Big Bang theory

Well that's bad for the show then. Will it be cancelled now?

Maybe next season Sheldon and his mom can discuss this study.

 

[JarodRussell]

Re:

51% of Americans don't accept the Big Bang theory

Well that's bad for the show then. Will it be cancelled now?

Maybe next season Sheldon and his mom can discuss this study.

It's cancelled in China already.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

Sigh, America proves once again that it is special and not in a good way.

The good news is that confidence (or not) in evolution or the Big Bang will have virtually no effect on how most people live their everyday lives.

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This is wrong. The people who disbelieve in evolution and the big bang in general not only distrust science but are actively against it (I am not referring to all of them, just most). As a result of enough people leading their life this way, while America remains one of the top nations for people who self identify as religious, it is falling dramatically in the sciences particularly after a decade of it being attacked by the religious right.

What a person believes absolutely can and usually does influence what they do.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Re:

Well that's bad for the show then. Will it be cancelled now?

Maybe next season Sheldon and his mom can discuss this study.

It's cancelled in China already.

China would only cancel it, if TBBT did a time travel episode.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-bans-time-travel-films-177801

 

[JarodRussell]

Or when it's in streaming.

 

[urbandefault]

I like to think that 51% of Americans get a chuckle out of pissing off the other 49%.

 

[scotthm]

The good news is that confidence (or not) in evolution or the Big Bang will have virtually no effect on how most people live their everyday lives.

This is wrong. The people who disbelieve in evolution and the big bang in general not only distrust science but are actively against it (I am not referring to all of them, just most).

I must live a sheltered life. I don't know anyone who is "actively against" science.

---------------

 

[gturner]

Nobody does, but some people need to believe in sasquatch or tilt at windmills or they're just not happy. When was the last time you heard some aerospace engineer complain that his field was being held back because ten or fifteen percent of Americans didn't know that aluminum had much better grain refinement when alloyed with scandium and perhaps yttrium? You never have, because real science doesn't depend on a plurality of believers, a majority of believers, or a consensus of believers. Those are only required for religions.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Or when it's in streaming.

From time to time the regulator limits American-style reality TV and other light fare on satellite channels, ostensibly to stop “vulgar content.”

Oh good golly!

What are they objecting to?

This is SHELDON we are talking about!

It MUST be Wolowitz's fault.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I must live a sheltered life. I don't know anyone who is "actively against" science.

Meet these fine people active in their community.

As TheBlaze reported last month, publishers submitted proposed textbooks this summer, but committees of Texas volunteer reviewers — some nominated by creationists who are current and former Board of Education members — raised objections.

One argued that creationism based on biblical texts should be taught in science classes, while others objected that climate change wasn’t as settled a scientific matter as some of the proposed books said.

Or these folks from Kentucky.

“I would hope that creationism is presented as a theory in the classroom, in a science classroom, alongside evolution,” Sen. David Givens (R-Greensburg) said.

Rep. Ben Waide (R-Madisonville), decided to go one better. He seemed to want to kick out evolution altogether.

“The theory of evolution is a theory, and essentially the theory of evolution is not science – Darwin made it up,” Waide said. “My objection is they should ensure whatever scientific material is being put forth as a standard should at least stand up to scientific method. Under the most rudimentary, basic scientific examination, the theory of evolution has never stood up to scientific scrutiny.”

These people in Tennessee have been quite active, too.

A bill that allows Tennessee public school teachers to teach alternatives to mainstream scientific theories such as evolution will become law this month after the governor refused to sign or veto the measure, The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss reports.

Supporters of the law say its goal is to encourage healthy skepticism among students. “Critical thinking, analysis fosters good science,” Robin Zimmer, a biotechnology consultant and affiliate of a creationist organization, wrote in the Nashville Tennessean in March.

But critics say the true goal of what they call “the monkey bill” is made clear by the list of subjects that could be challenged by teachers during class, including global warming and evolution. The bill is a “permission slip” for schools “to bring creationism, climate-change denial and other non-science into science classrooms,” Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, told Nature magazine.

 

[scotthm]

I must live a sheltered life. I don't know anyone who is "actively against" science.

Meet these fine people active in their community.
Or these folks from Kentucky.
These people in Tennessee have been quite active, too.

As I said, no one I know is doing these things.

---------------

 

[HIjol]

Hmmm...been following this very interesting thread with it's important topic...some well laid out arguments and talking points, to be sure...never actually seen the show, but that is for another thread...I have been looking back at the actual survey questions Yellow provided us with, and I can't quite make it work...has it occurred to anyone, that, with all due respect to the respondents, they did not understand what "the Big Bang" meant in the context of the survey, and neither did they understand what "Natural Selection" meant...?

...and, finally, I do not understand asking them about their confidence in Science in the context of the question about a Supreme Being guiding the Universe's creation...???

...help me clarify?

 

[HIjol]

The good news is that confidence (or not) in evolution or the Big Bang will have virtually no effect on how most people live their everyday lives.

that's because if scientist went away and took the science away with them from everybody else there'd be a riot!

I don't get it. Are you saying there will be riots if enough people don't believe in the Big Bang?

...wait...so if there is no Big Bang...and the people riot because...the...sci..sigh...Scientists take away...the science...then...

SHE'S A WITCH!!!!!!!...burn her...burn her!!....

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Hmmm...been following this very interesting thread with it's important topic...some well laid out arguments and talking points, to be sure...never actually seen the show, but that is for another thread...I have been looking back at the actual survey questions Yellow provided us with, and I can't quite make it work...has it occurred to anyone, that, with all due respect to the respondents, they did not understand what "the Big Bang" meant in the context of the survey, and neither did they understand what "Natural Selection" meant...?

...and, finally, I do not understand asking them about their confidence in Science in the context of the question about a Supreme Being guiding the Universe's creation...???

...help me clarify?

Or, maybe they were not confident in the actual numbers being tossed around. Instead of a specific number for age of the Earth and Universe, they simply said "billions of years" old?

I know when I read the questions, I wondered just how old the scientists were estimating the universe at this juncture.

Was I confident the Universe was "wicked old?"

Yup.

Was I confident it was 13 or 17 or 23 billion years?

Nope.

So I might have answered only "somewhat confident" despite the fact that I believe in TBBT (The theory, not the show)

 

[HIjol]

Good words from the The House of Janeway...

 

[RoJoHen]

Hmmm...been following this very interesting thread with it's important topic...some well laid out arguments and talking points, to be sure...never actually seen the show, but that is for another thread...I have been looking back at the actual survey questions Yellow provided us with, and I can't quite make it work...has it occurred to anyone, that, with all due respect to the respondents, they did not understand what "the Big Bang" meant in the context of the survey, and neither did they understand what "Natural Selection" meant...?

...and, finally, I do not understand asking them about their confidence in Science in the context of the question about a Supreme Being guiding the Universe's creation...???

...help me clarify?

Or, maybe they were not confident in the actual numbers being tossed around. Instead of a specific number for age of the Earth and Universe, they simply said "billions of years" old?

I know when I read the questions, I wondered just how old the scientists were estimating the universe at this juncture.

Was I confident the Universe was "wicked old?"

Yup.

Was I confident it was 13 or 17 or 23 billion years?

Nope.

So I might have answered only "somewhat confident" despite the fact that I believe in TBBT (The theory, not the show)

That was my reaction to the poll as well.

 

[MacLeod]

Well this is what NASA says on the age of the universe

http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

Until recently, astronomers estimated that the Big Bang occurred between 12 and 14 billion years ago. To put this in perspective, the Solar System is thought to be 4.5 billion years old and humans have existed as a genus for only a few million years. Astronomers estimate the age of the universe in two ways: 1) by looking for the oldest stars; and 2) by measuring the rate of expansion of the universe and extrapolating back to the Big Bang; just as crime detectives can trace the origin of a bullet from the holes in a wall.

And looking at the wiki article

In physical cosmology, the age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang. The best measurement of the age of the universe is 13.798±0.037 billion years ((13.798±0.037)×109 years or (4.354±0.012)×1017 seconds) within the Lambda-CDM concordance model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe

Yes we might not know the exact age of the universe but using the NASA link but everything I've heard or read about the universe said a big bang and I've heard various ages between 12-15bn years. But it's not like i look up that inofrmation every month to see if it's change. So x years ago I might have heard it was 12bn years old, it's not unreasnable to think during the period since I last heard the figure and today that number has been revised. So if the 13.8bn years old is current figure it's not unreasanble for a survey to use that. If the survey was done in a decades time the figure might be 13.6bn years old.