Percentage of the population accepting evolution:
- US: 54%
- Canada: 77%
- Australia: almost 80%
Source. Any ideas on the reason for this disparity of belief between the three nations?
I think it’s pretty obvious: the US religious right sees evolution as a threat to the belief in the biblical God, so they oppose it, have a massive campaign and political lobby against it, and hence influence beliefs against evolution far more than in Canada and Australia.
The US religious right has approximately zero influence on the belief in evolution of any one outside the religious right. They’re an echo chamber. Over decades they have spent millions getting absolutely nowhere except thrown out of various courts, their key aims ruled unconstitutional, and religious belief in the US continues to decline. There has to be something more complex at work here.
The US religious right has approximately zero influence on the belief in evolution of any one outside the religious right. They’re an echo chamber. Over decades they have spent millions getting absolutely nowhere except thrown out of various courts, their key aims ruled unconstitutional, and religious belief in the US continues to decline. There has to be something more complex at work here.[/quote]
I believe they have had considerable influence in getting creationism taught in schools (As “intelligent design”) and having evolution taught as merely one possible theory. Even when such decisions have been reversed, they have generated a lot of attention. The religious right is doubtless the cause of the skew in stats, relative to Canada and Australia. They are powerful and anti-secular.
That said, whilst a lot of Australians or Canadians may profess to believe in evolution, plenty of those would have a fairly poor knowledge of genetics specifically (seriously, people get tripped up by the possibility of someone with fair hair coming from two parents with darker hair and the concept that the child inherited a recessive gene from each parent), and biology generally. In many respects, they’re no different from the people who are Christians but who actually don’t know that much about the Bible. They believe what they do simply because they do, probably because those around them in their formative years believed similar things. Generally speaking, they manage to go through life without being affected by such things, which is why it doesn’t matter if their model of evolution is faulty and not what a scientist would offer.
There’s a 23 percentage point difference between the poll figures cited for the US and Canada. 15% of the US (acc. to Wiki; no time to dig for original sources or better numbers, sorry) identifies with the Christian right in polls. So you only have 7 percentage points left to explain, and possibly less than that after margins of error. I would also caution against saying the US Christian right have zero influence outside their circle. They are powerful and organized, and excel at spreading disinformation.
I’d say the rates of creationist beliefs between the US, Canada and Australia reflect the religiosity of the people of those countries.
In any event, the Religious Right in the US are powerful and well-funded, and have an inordinate amount of influence over public policy in the US. Just look at Prop 8 in California. As regards evolution, they were the ones who came up with “intelligent design” (yes, even before Behe’s book) as a means of circumventing the 1987 Supreme Court decision against teaching creationism. And now that ID has been given the judicial thumbs down, they’ve come up with “teach the controversy”. The strategies of the “cdesign proponentsists” are (ironically) evolving to fit changing legal environments, and they won’t admit defeat.
The US religious right has approximately zero influence on the belief in evolution of any one outside the religious right. They’re an echo chamber. Over decades they have spent millions getting absolutely nowhere except thrown out of various courts, their key aims ruled unconstitutional, and religious belief in the US continues to decline. There has to be something more complex at work here.[/quote]
I suggest that the ‘something more complex’ is culture, and the strength and popularity of the religious right is both a product and shaper of that culture.
[quote=“Jaboney”]
I suggest that the ‘something more complex’ is culture, and the strength and popularity of the religious right is both a product and shaper of that culture.[/quote]
Exactly! The religious right is, on one level, most probably the cause of the difference. But why are they so much stronger in the US?
[quote=“BigJohn”][quote=“Jaboney”]
I suggest that the ‘something more complex’ is culture, and the strength and popularity of the religious right is both a product and shaper of that culture.[/quote]
Exactly! The religious right is, on one level, most probably the cause of the difference. But why are they so much stronger in the US?[/quote]
Interestingly, I believe it’s partly because of the First Amendment freedom of religion. Canada and Australia have a recent history of being dominated by the UK, which has Anglicanism as its state religion.
It also has to do with the people who emigrated to America centuries ago seeking religious freedom.
[quote=“BigJohn”][quote=“Jaboney”]
I suggest that the ‘something more complex’ is culture, and the strength and popularity of the religious right is both a product and shaper of that culture.[/quote]
Exactly! The religious right is, on one level, most probably the cause of the difference. But why are they so much stronger in the US?[/quote]
Its because [Sean] America is the greatest best country that God has ever given man on the face of the Earth.[/Hannity]
duh
The overwhelming majority of churches in Australia are pretty wishy washy denominations. The last I heard, these forms of Christiantiy were rapidly losing their congregations as older generations died off. Hardcore, wacky religions (clap-happy Christians, Muslims, JWs, Mormons, Scientologists, etc.) have experienced significant growth in the past few years (in the case of Islam, probably more to do with immigration), but they’re still pretty small in numbers.
isn’t it quite common for people to convert to Islam once they go to jail? :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: ZING!!!
According to Gallup, 1/3 of American adults believe the bible is literally true.
gallup.com/poll/27682/onethi … -true.aspx
I didn’t look for figures for Canada or Oz, but I don’t think there’s much doubt the numbers would be quite different.
Well before the idea of the religious right came into being, a grass roots effort in the US has been unceasingly pounding the idea that “Evolution” is something on about the same level as Satan. Fundamental religiosity in the US has deep roots. The religious right is only a very logical modern manifestation of that long standing fact.
Still why are Americans so religious? Chris makes an interesting point about the influence of Anglicanism as opposed to the US’s fire breathing Protestantism and Catholicism. Gotta run now unfortunately.
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“BigJohn”][quote=“Jaboney”]
I suggest that the ‘something more complex’ is culture, and the strength and popularity of the religious right is both a product and shaper of that culture.[/quote]
Exactly! The religious right is, on one level, most probably the cause of the difference. But why are they so much stronger in the US?[/quote]
Interestingly, [color=#0000FF]I believe it’s partly because of the First Amendment freedom of religion[/color]. Canada and Australia have a recent history of being dominated by the UK, which has Anglicanism as its state religion.
It also has to do with the people who emigrated to America centuries ago [color=#0000FF]seeking religious freedom[/color].[/quote]Agreed. There’s a great deal of room for ‘religious entrepreneurs’ in the US, and a long history of religious enthusiasm. Also, converts and innovators (in any field) tend to be more zealous than those constrained by long-established traditions. But that suggests an explanation for the breadth and depth of the movement, not its orientation or prominence in the media.
Where? Since when? I used to believe that, but I discovered it simply isn’t true. What I also discovered is that the vocal atheists in the US are very good at convincing people that the Religious Right in the US have a lot more influence than they actually do. I’m looking at Engel vs Vitale (1962), Abington_School_District vs Schempp (1963), Epperson vs Arkansas (1968), McLean vs Arkansas (1981), Edwards vs Aguillard (1987), and most recently Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District (2005), and I’m not seeing a lot of success there for the Religious Right. They have a track record for catastrophic failure in this regard.
When I first heard about Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District, I was told by atheists that it was a law case defending the teaching of Intelligent Design in US public schools. Later I discovered that it was no such thing. Firstly the controversy was over what was being taught in schools in Dover (not the entire US), secondly intelligent design was not being taught in those schools (contrary to what I had been told), thirdly I discovered evolution was being taught in those schools (contrary to what I had been told), and finally all the wrangling was actually over whether or not it was constitutitonal for a pathetic five minute address to precede a class on evolution, describing Intelligent Design as an alternative to Darwinian evolution. And even this limpwristed little address was rightly thrown out as unconstitutional.
Everyone keeps telling me how powerful they are, but no one can actually show me the influence they have on secular people, or how they convince secular people to do their will. Will you be the first?
If the Christian Right in the US was really influential beyond its size, then there would be evidence for it. The fact that only 15% identify in polls with the Christian Right, yet 54% of US citizens don’t believe in evolution, suggesgts that other factors are involved. This is not a matter of 7% to explain, it’s a matter of almost 40%.
And they are extremely successful at spending enormous amounts of money only to be repeatedly struck down and marginalized in the courts. Meanwhile, religious belief in the US continues to decline. Who is having more influence on whom?
But they don’t correlate. In Australia religious people overwhelmingly believe in evolution, and only a tiny minority believes in Creationism.
Could you provide evidence for this statement please? Looking at Proposition 8 in California, I find no evidence that the Religious Right was influential in the matter.
I’m familiar with the relevant history; what it shows is that they have failed catastrophically every time. They’re going the way of tobacco companies.
According to DB, the popularity of the Christian Right stands at about 15% at the polls. That doesn’t persuade me that it’s the prevailing influence on US culture. An hour of representative public broadcasting in the US is enough to show that the Christian Right is not even competing in the culture market.
What does ‘dominated’ mean? Australia has never had a state religion, and has always upheld freedom of religion. In fact Australia inherited the disestablismentarianism of the UK.
The fact that the US was founded by religious fanatics escaping persecution and then repeating that persecution on others has certainly been influential in US history and culture, but I’m not sure it has anything to do with evolution in the US today.
That’s an incredibly low figure, and suggests again that the Christian Right isn’t having much effect.
In Australia only 27% of Christians believes the Bible is literally true.
Could you provide evidence for this statement please? Looking at Proposition 8 in California, I find no evidence that the Religious Right was influential in the matter.[/quote]
The Mormons and other religious-right lobby groups funded the disinformational advertising blitz for Prop 8. Polls prior to the ad campaigns predicted a 45-55% or thereabouts defeat of the proposition, but the numbers changed after the ads were launched, and the proposition passed with a 53% majority.
The religious right was able to convince enough people of their BS to tip the scales in their favor and against human rights.
According to DB, the popularity of the Christian Right stands at about 15% at the polls. That doesn’t persuade me that it’s the prevailing influence on US culture. An hour of representative public broadcasting in the US is enough to show that the Christian Right is not even competing in the culture market.[/quote]
That’s like arguing, based on a survey of Israeli beaches, that Orthodox Judaism isn’t influential; or based on the prevalence of khat in Yemen, or hash in Morocco, that Islam isn’t influential; or based on a survey of Taiwanese variety television programming, that Confucian propriety and scholarship are entirely absent. :roflmao:
You might turn off the tv, read the proceedings of the FCC, and discover that network broadcasters are subject to ungodly fines and punishments for violating morality codes.
Can you account for this?
[quote=“Chris”]The Mormons and other religious-right lobby groups funded the disinformational advertising blitz for Prop 8. Polls prior to the ad campaigns predicted a 45-55% or thereabouts defeat of the proposition, but the numbers changed after the ads were launched, and the proposition passed with a 53% majority.
The religious right was able to convince enough people of their BS to tip the scales in their favor and against human rights.[/quote]
Apparently no single demographic constituted the majority of yes or no voters. This is significant, because it suggests that religious right voters on their own clearly weren’t sufficient to swing the vote. If there’s evidence that voters in other demographics were influenced by the ‘disinformational advertising blitz’ to which you refer, I’d like to see it. The swing in favour of the vote turned out to be just 7%. When did the ‘disinformational advertising blitz’ begin?
How is it like that?
[quote]You might turn off the tv, read the proceedings of the FCC, and discover that network broadcasters are subject to ungodly fines and punishments for violating morality codes.
Can you account for this?[/quote]
I can account for this without reference to the Religious Right, since the morality codes to which network broadcasters are subject are hardly in keeping with the code of the Religious Right:
This restriction is entirely in keeping with what modern psychology recommends regarding the exposure of children to indecent material.
If the Christian Right in the US was really influential beyond its size, then there would be evidence for it. The fact that only 15% identify in polls with the Christian Right, yet 54% of US citizens don’t believe in evolution, suggesgts that other factors are involved. This is not a matter of 7% to explain, it’s a matter of almost 40%.[/quote]
Bad cold, sorry. Cain’t seem to do numbers right today. 
Anyway, one of the factors involved may well be that influence beyond the Christian right’s core size. That is, this in and of itself may be evidence of the Christian right’s disparate influence. (Disclaimer: this post, too, may be reflective of my groggy state)