1. As I noted when I mentioned this poll, of those who said they believe that human and other living things evolved over time, slightly more than half (32% of the total sample) said it was a natural process while many of the others (24% of the total sample) said evolution was guided by a supreme being for the purpose of creating us, i.e., humans. Which means that only 1/3 of Americans, based on the poll, actually accept the theory of evolution.
2. Perhaps I'm being overly-picky here, but saying the GOP is just getting older rather than more ignorant on evolution, while likely true, isn't actually shown by the information presented. Even if the number of young Republicans is down, it could be that they are even more ignorant on evolution than their seniors and that young Democrats are even more knowledgeable than their seniors, leaving both the party and age divisions intact but hiding the distribution within a given age group.
That is, lacking a breakdown of the results to relate age and party to knowledge of evolution, we can't say for sure that age difference is the only thing driving down Republican support for the science involved.
"but one could have a decent understanding of evolution and still answer the poll question no"
Um, no, you couldn't. According to Pew, the question was if "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time" or if "humans and other living things have evolved over time." (Emphasis obviously added.)
While I find it extremely hard to imagine any evolutionary biologist asserting that there has been no human evolution since the emergence of Cro-Magnons (and even accepting that non-scientific designation), even if one could be found it doesn't matter: the sort of hyper-parsing you propose can't be found within the question as asked.
I'm with Danny S, Andreas, and Jeff on the shoe. If there had been some actual risk of physical harm to the bigot, I would have felt differently - but there wasn't. And he undoubtedly got the shock of his life.
What's "unwise" is to think that passive acquiescence (as opposed to a campaign of Gandhian-type passive resistance, which is actually not passive) to insults does anything more than validate them or will gain you any social space in which to operate.
"Because of gridlock at the UN Security Council, and because of regional splits, the Syrian people are likely on their own. They began their uprising, they will have to finish it. ... The regional powers balance and check one another, just as the global ones do."
Particularly in light of that, if we are not to take your references to that incredibly-vague term "the left" as anything other than a gratuitous slam, I think it's necessary for you to do what you have attacked others for failing to do: explain precisely what it is you think we - however you care to define the term, whether the world community in general, the West in particular, or the US specifically - should do.
Or are you as "clueless" as those at who you sneer?
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Two brief comments on this:
1. As I noted when I mentioned this poll, of those who said they believe that human and other living things evolved over time, slightly more than half (32% of the total sample) said it was a natural process while many of the others (24% of the total sample) said evolution was guided by a supreme being for the purpose of creating us, i.e., humans. Which means that only 1/3 of Americans, based on the poll, actually accept the theory of evolution.
2. Perhaps I'm being overly-picky here, but saying the GOP is just getting older rather than more ignorant on evolution, while likely true, isn't actually shown by the information presented. Even if the number of young Republicans is down, it could be that they are even more ignorant on evolution than their seniors and that young Democrats are even more knowledgeable than their seniors, leaving both the party and age divisions intact but hiding the distribution within a given age group.
That is, lacking a breakdown of the results to relate age and party to knowledge of evolution, we can't say for sure that age difference is the only thing driving down Republican support for the science involved.
"but one could have a decent understanding of evolution and still answer the poll question no"
Um, no, you couldn't. According to Pew, the question was if "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time" or if "humans and other living things have evolved over time." (Emphasis obviously added.)
While I find it extremely hard to imagine any evolutionary biologist asserting that there has been no human evolution since the emergence of Cro-Magnons (and even accepting that non-scientific designation), even if one could be found it doesn't matter: the sort of hyper-parsing you propose can't be found within the question as asked.
I'm with Danny S, Andreas, and Jeff on the shoe. If there had been some actual risk of physical harm to the bigot, I would have felt differently - but there wasn't. And he undoubtedly got the shock of his life.
What's "unwise" is to think that passive acquiescence (as opposed to a campaign of Gandhian-type passive resistance, which is actually not passive) to insults does anything more than validate them or will gain you any social space in which to operate.
Prof. Cole, you wrote this:
"Because of gridlock at the UN Security Council, and because of regional splits, the Syrian people are likely on their own. They began their uprising, they will have to finish it. ... The regional powers balance and check one another, just as the global ones do."
Particularly in light of that, if we are not to take your references to that incredibly-vague term "the left" as anything other than a gratuitous slam, I think it's necessary for you to do what you have attacked others for failing to do: explain precisely what it is you think we - however you care to define the term, whether the world community in general, the West in particular, or the US specifically - should do.
Or are you as "clueless" as those at who you sneer?