[extropy-chat] survey on fringe ideas: evolution

Samantha Atkins sjatkins at mac.com
Fri Oct 28 05:07:22 UTC 2005


On Oct 27, 2005, at 8:21 PM, spike wrote:

>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of  
> Samantha Atkins
> Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 11:42 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] survey on fringe ideas: evolution
>
>
> On Oct 24, 2005, at 9:07 PM, spike wrote:
>
> ...
>
>
>>> Ron Numbers...demonstrates that a significant portion of the
>>> population believes in two or more mutually
>>> exclusive concepts simultaneously...
>>>
>
>
>> Yep, which is why in the 21st century we are still wasting time on  
>> monkey
>>
> trials in the US.
>
>
>
> The kick is that they aren't really monkey trials.  They
> are battles in a culture war.  Science is politicized.
>

It was political and "culture war" during Scopes also.

>
>
>
>>> Ron Numbers makes the case that those polls which
>>>
> show a person believing mutually exclusive notions
> should be eliminated from the final score.
>
>
>> What for? It is merely an accurate portrayal of the chaos in the  
>> minds of
>>
> many people.
>
>
> So let's try to measure it.  In the spirit of
> previous posts on the topic, let us consider
> a test of some kind, that is a combination of
> belief survey and a measure of mastery of the
> subject.  In the evolution example, I would
> speculate that those who demonstrate a stronger
> belief in evolution will also know more about
> evolution.  How would we design a test?

Why is measuring this particularly interesting or important?

>
>
>
>> What for? The on-going monkey trials show all to real fire behind  
>> what you
>>
> would pass off in part as meaningless smoke.
>
>
> If you mean public schools are failing to
> teach evolution, I am fully aware of that.  The
> question is how can it be measured?  What if we
> show that belief in creationism correlates with
> ignorance of evolution?  Perhaps this would be
> meaningless, for a creationist could design
> a test to show that belief in evolution
> correlates with ignorance of creationism.  So
> how do we derive metrics?
>

Why would such "metrics" be meaningful or useful for dealing with the  
real problem?  How is studying on aspects of surveys and perhaps  
improving them doing more than fiddling while Rome burns?

- samantha




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