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40% of Americans believe the Earth was created within the last 10k years (2019)
- amriksohata 4y agoHindu texts are the few religious texts which date the universe into the millions of year, time in Hinduism is an interesting concept off four Yuga's or ages that are cyclic
- chasil 4y agoAmazing how the Cambrian Explosion can be shoehorned into that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
- coding123 4y agoBelieve in creationism not the 10k years bit Title has been editorialized edit: It's a very simple hacker news rule people. Submit the original <title> or article headline. The 10k bit is NOT present there. Regardless of the question.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- elgenie 4y agoThe 10K years bit is in the question Gallup asks. However, it's posed about humans in their current form, not the Earth. Note: as I'm commenting, the post title reads "40% of Americans believe the Earth was created within the last 10k years".
- chrisseaton 4y ago> not the 10k years bit What do you mean? The question they asked included ‘within 10,000 years’.
- jordanmorgan10 4y agoSame, when I’ve had conversations with friends and family I’ve boiled my stance down to “I believe God created us, but I don’t know when or how long ago it was.”
- laichzeit0 4y agoCompletely unnecessary assumption to hold. It creates more problems than it explains. Try this thought experiment: Assume there is no God. Everything makes a lot more sense, and you have a simpler theory.
- spoils19 4y agoMany people, including HNers, find it challenging to find purpose in life without a belief in a higher power. What's stopping us from just going on murder rampages or acting good towards each other if we have there is no promise of a holy afterlife?
- mdp2021 4y ago> What's stopping us Simple good sense and possibly a bit of intellectual progress.
- coding123 4y agoI've personally tried it, and there are things that end up unconvincing. Mostly surrounding cellular life bridging to complex lifeforms. Now I know there are "explanations" for all of it, but it's not convincing and not very well backed up. I believe in parts of evolution and creationism.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> “I believe God created us, but I don’t know when or how long ago it was.” But that’s a separate option in the poll - they could have picked that if that’s what they believe.
- cortesoft 4y ago
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- cortesoft 4y agoWell, the question doesn’t give an option to pick “created by God exactly as we are today more than 10000 years ago”. Creationists are forced to pick the ‘less than 10000 years ago’ option.
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- porknaut 4y ago
- coding123 4y agoWhat is a man anyway?
- lvass 4y agoA featherless biped.
- comex 4y agoA miserable little pile of secrets.
- neuronexmachina 4y agoBut enough talk -- have at you!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mdp2021 4y ago> What is a man anyway That with a "[special] mind", as opposed to e.g. monkeys or dogs. You have that type of "mind", you are a man. (Some linguists disagree, but anyway many of us follow that.) Edit: interestingly, Etymonline.com provides an interesting list of spawns ('man' references this in its own entry): https://www.etymonline.com/word/*men- https://www.etymonline.com/word/*men-
- chasing 4y agoTransgendered men can become pregnant, yes. Literally.
- mattnewton 4y agoAre you saying trans men aren't men, or was there some crazy survey data I missed?
- giuliomagnifico 4y agoMy surprise is more that “40% believing that God created them”. Religions…one of the biggest troubles of the world, and 4 on 10 Americans believe that God “”created”” them.
- mdp2021 4y ago> one of the biggest troubles of the world No Giulio, that's humans with their pretexts. If chemistry poisoned many, that's not an inherent necessity from chemistry.
- giuliomagnifico 4y agoHumans created the religions, so yes, the culprits are humans. Like everything, we (humans) created everything, with tech and science, not God. But the point that 4 in 10 Americans believe it’s God the “creator”, is absurd to me.
- mdp2021 4y agoWhat I said was different, and I quoted that «one of the biggest troubles of the world»: those "«troubles»" are not inherent in disciplines: they are inherent to human faults and «pretext[ual]» instances behind façades. You can normally leave disciplines alone. If you find demographics "unbelievable" you probably have only moderate acquaintance with those distributions. Do not forget Pareto and Gini on the one hand, transversality on the other.
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago> those "«troubles»" are not inherent in disciplines: they are inherent to human faults and «pretext[ual]» instances behind façades. You can normally leave disciplines alone Okay, then I've only misunderstood your reply, I didn't mean to say that religion itself is to blame, obviously. I agree with you, I just want to say that the trouble for me, is people who need to believe in something without thinking or using rationality.
- idolotry 4y agoThe title of this post doesn't match what the article is reporting; the poll is about the timing and method of human creation, not planetary creation.
- mdp2021 4y agoNot really: the title of this submission editorializes the original title changing the very concepts. The term 'Earth' does not even appear in the article body. The original title is: «40% of Americans Believe in Creationism» Can any moderator fix it ASAP.
- mjevans 4y agoIs the term 'Creationism' something a non-expert in religion is supposed to know about? According to the survey it seems 40% of Americans willing to answer a survey happen to know this, but I'm not so sure the other 60% + error margin happen to know this definition, which the 'editorialization' might be clarifying to common language.
- mdp2021 4y ago> supposed to know about For that matter, none of the things we discuss are part of a universal preparatory course. > the 'editorialization' might be clarifying And yet potentially states a falsehood in more ways, on literal facts and possibly indirect. Pretty trivial, and a reason why the guidelines are very clear: Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
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- neuronexmachina 4y agoIt's also from 2019. For reference, the exact question Gallup polled: > Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings: > 1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process; > 2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process; > 3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.
- omgJustTest 4y agoTwo categories of confusion most likely: 1. Divine creation 2. Misunderstanding about written history vs all history.
- seneca 4y agoWhy do people post this nonsense? Are you hoping to gawk at your outgroup and their silly ideas? You learn nothing by doing that. You'd be better off looking at yourself and questioning what equally silly ideas you hold.
- chasing 4y agoBecause it sheds light on the American political situation by highlighting a surprising set of facts that many people in educated tech circles may not be aware of. We want an enlightened society. Education is something we should be working to improve.
- Fargoan 4y agoI'm a working class guy in North Dakota. Very conservative, Trumpy, and Jesusy around here. I know plenty of Trump supporters and churchgoers. I don't think any of them believe that the earth is only 10,000 years old.
- Kye 4y agoHere you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_and_evolution_in_public_education_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_and_evolution_in_publ... The movement seems a little weaker nowadays, but goofball trends tend to come in waves. See, for example, social conservatives replaying the 80s and 90s anti-gay playbook adapted to target gender nonconformity in general and trans people in particular after a decade or so where they seemed to have given up. Majority comments on the Roe vs. Wade reversal about other progressive rulings that depended on the same case gave them new energy.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y agoit is easier to solve a problem when you can grasp the magnitude of it
- Kye 4y agoCreationists are constantly trying to force science classes to waste scarce resources "teaching the controversy." The reality revealed in the poll is consequential.
- smm11 4y agoThe mental gymnastics are outstanding.
- moistly 4y agoEspecially in this thread. Last thing I expected of HN.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoIt's easy to avoid mental gymnastics if you just turn off your brain...
- metadat 4y agoThe editorialized submission title doesn't match the actual article title: "40% of Americans Believe in Creationism" Much less sensational.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y agothe actual article title does not convey all of the information in the article, which says 40% believe in a strictly creationist view that humans were created in their current form around 10,000 years ago
- metadat 4y agoMaybe true, but without explanation it'll get flagged anytime it gets popular. Pretty much any religious-related posts on HN typically get flag-murdered, regardless. Too controversial of a topic and unlikely any headway will be made discussing these matters here, so it's not interesting. Every individual has their own view and theory on the matter, and tends to be pretty sure "the other side" is wrong; such close-mindedness predictably leads to boring flame wars and nothing interesting emerges or changes.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- SigmundA 4y agoThis is the question with available responses, definitely not editorialized: Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings -- [ROTATE 1-3/3-1: 1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, 2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process, 3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so]?
- mjevans 4y agoThis survey questions seems poorly designed. All three answers have strong opinions tied to them and a multitude of possibilities are not covered. E.G. evolution happened, but there's no proof of any direction || belief there's no god || aliens visited earth || a supernatural being (god) nudged things || god did it all at once.
- darepublic 4y ago40% of Americans believe they can move a mountain with a mustard seed worth of belief
- mdp2021 4y agoDo not play with anagogies.
- savanaly 4y ago'Belief' is a squirrely concept. How much of this is them professing to believe it vs actually believing it? I have a strong suspicion that people answer these sorts of questions by mapping "what kind of person I am" to "what would a person of that kind in good standing answer". But this is different than acting in accordance with the belief when there are material stakes. Suppose we had a prediction market on these beliefs (ironically, I suppose it would have to be adjudicated by God himself), would 40% of Americans really bet significant sums on creationism? Again, assuming all they stood to gain or lose was material and none of their friends and family need known what stance they took?
- mattnewton 4y agoIt depends on how the betting markets were organized. People have spent a great deal more money on sillier social signaling with smaller stakes, so if your bets were public, yes, I think people would continue to make bets that are in accordance with what they think their tribe wants, and would count on the bet-adjudicators to side with their tribe's pressure should they stand to lose.
- NavinF 4y agoRelated: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and... > On the same poll, 13% of Americans claimed to believe Barack Obama was the Anti-Christ. […] Some pollsters are starting to consider these sorts of things symptomatic of what they term symbolic belief, which seems to be kind of what the Less Wrong sequences call Professing and Cheering or Belief As Attire. Basically, people are being emotivists rather than realists about belief. “Obama is the Anti-Christ” is another way of just saying “Boo Obama!”, rather than expressing some sort of proposition about the world.
- p_j_w 4y agoI'm related to the sort of people who are likely to respond that they think Obama is the anti-christ in a poll and I'm here to tell you that, for a good portion of them, it's a genuinely held belief. If you spend a significant amount of time with these sorts of people, these sorts of benign explanations don't really hold any sway. Is it possible I've been exposed to a biased slice of America that's not representative? Sure, but there's literally zero evidence that the benign view Scott Alexander is putting forth here is true. It's nothing more than a hope.
- dexwiz 4y ago50% of people are dumber than average.
- lvass 4y agoMedian.
- dexwiz 4y agoIntelligence is pretty close to a normal distribution making mean and median equivalent.
- lvass 4y agoNot even close, IQ is defined in a way to produce a normal distribution, but it's raw test scores for example do not look remotely like normal.
- mdp2021 4y ago> defined in a way to produce a normal distribution, but it's raw test scores for example do not look remotely like normal You surprised me with this - quite interesting and conflicting with absorbed informal models: may you have any pointer to further information?
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- decremental 4y agoDefinitely fake. I've never met anyone who believes this and I'm willing to bet you haven't either. We're supposed to believe that what 150 million people believe that? I know tons of devout religious people and have not heard them say that they believe that to be a fact.
- adrianmonk 4y agoIn college, I went to a church and one day we discussed this topic. I put forward the idea that maybe evolution and creation weren't really in conflict. That maybe evolution did happen but under God's guidance. Several of the people in the room reacted with loud boos and hisses. Not the jocular kind you get with friendly disagreement, but the angry, aggressive kind that mean you were wrong to even say what you did. It definitely exists. Not everybody has been exposed to it, but it's there. But about whether 150 million people "truly" believe this, that's a reasonable thing to be skeptical about. Do they believe it in the sense that they'd literally bet their life on it? Or just believe it in the sense that it's part of the set of beliefs prescribed by their flavor of faith and that maintaining orthodoxy is important to them? I think some of the both, and probably more of the latter. People can compartmentalize, keeping their everyday understanding of the world somewhat separate from the beliefs that go with their ideology.
- p_j_w 4y agoConsider that perhaps you live in a bubble.
- Clubber 4y agoSeems a little high to me, but really, so what? Let people believe in whatever religion they wanna believe as long as they don't hurt anybody.
- chasing 4y ago> ...as long as they don't hurt anybody. And that's the problem. A lot of wield these beliefs like weapons and go out of their way to cause pain.
- Clubber 4y ago>A lot of wield these beliefs like weapons and go out of their way to cause pain. Again, so what? People who aren't religious do the same thing.
- wizofaus 4y agoIf your teenage son still believed in Santa claus or the tooth fairy it wouldn't concern you?
- Clubber 4y agoYes, but if yours still did, it wouldn't bother me. See the difference?
- wizofaus 4y agoBut if the concerns you have for your own son are justifiable, surely you should be at least somewhat concerned about the 100 million+ other tooth-fairy-believers among whom your son will have to live? As for what should/can be done for those millions, I only wish I knew.
- Clubber 4y agoNo, I have no insight into their lives or experiences to presume I'm living life the correct way and they are not, nor to further presume to correct them. Also comparing the belief in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy with religious beliefs isn't a very good comparison. The former was created by corporations to hock goods, the latter has kept societies together for several millennia. If history has taught us anything, presuming to tell people how they should or shouldn't worship never ends well.
- omot 4y agoI was raised Christian so even though you learn that Earth was billions of years ago, when I was asked by my friends or teacher I would answer sometime in the last 10k years. A part of me was signaling and another part of me was trying to balance facts vs. faith.
- hackeraccount 4y agoThat's exactly it. Polls like this can say a lot of things but whatever the wording what a large number of people read is "do you believe in God?" and they think the question is not being asked by some neutral questioner.
- wppick 4y agoThat's 140 million people. That's 140 million potential voters. It's amazing how well democracies work considering this. I mean that's a pretty drastic example. Imagine for something more obscure and nuanced. It goes to show the power that media, social media, etc. can have on controlling thought. I doubt all those people were born with this opinion.
- turns0ut 4y agoBelieving something about the far past does not mean they’re unaware everyone else today is keeping them fed. Only 4% of the US population hunts for themselves anymore. There are only 800,000 sworn LEO in the US (including Feds). Only 13% of adults have an advanced degree while the population response to polls is 30% or more possess such a degree. Even today our daily beliefs of our society are off from “truth”. But direct collaboration is easy to see. It calls into question the value of social story and theories, imo. The beliefs they implant are always “wrong” and yet society keeps on going.
- tablespoon 4y ago> That's 140 million people. That's 140 million potential voters. It's amazing how well democracies work considering this. Why is it amazing to you? The question is literally totally irrelevant to any practical modern-day political question or decision.
- quantified 4y agoRemember James Watt as Secretary of the Interior: why should we preserve the lands for future generations when there won't be future generations? If you believe the superstitious nonsense from one angle, you are much more likely to believe in the Rapture claptrap as well.
- tablespoon 4y ago> Remember James Watt as Secretary of the Interior: why should we preserve the lands for future generations when there won't be future generations? If you believe the superstitious nonsense from one angle, you are much more likely to believe in the Rapture claptrap as well. It's not like that's the only way to get to anti-environmentalism (e.g. "Why should we preserve lands for future generations, when I'll be dead by then?"). IMHO, indifference (of which I gave only one example) is a far bigger problem than any belief in the possibility of a deus ex machina solution (e.g. "Don't worry, we'll technology our way out of it. We always have before.").
- alex_young 4y agoThe title matches the first paragraph of the report pretty closely imo: “Forty percent of U.S. adults ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years.”
- josefx 4y agoMe fail english, where in that line does it mention earth?
- wizofaus 4y agoI'd say it was implied by "a strictly creationist view".
- josefx 4y agoQualified with "of human origins".
- wizofaus 4y agoAs opposed to some other "strictly creationist view"?
- josefx 4y agoAs opposed to holding the view that earth was also created 10.000 years ago. You can believe in one part without having to believe in the other and this study explicitly only checked for human origins. Someone made a family tree for everyone mentioned in the Bible once, so people may consider that time span fixed while considering the seven days of creation a lot more flexible.
- wizofaus 4y agoI agree the survey questions were badly formed and that the HN thread title isn't an exact representation of what the survey revealed - but it does strike me as a pretty minor quibble compared to what the survey results do actually imply.
- anaganisk 4y ago5G is a govt project to control people, earth is flat and vaccines have embedded chips and cause autism. TRUMP is the chosen one, and he will deliver us all. If these crazy things are wild in America I guess existence of earth since 10K years is not a big deal. While we all are busy with this BS, the capitalists and lobbyists silently push their hidden agendas and we loose.
- nabaraz 4y agoI am not a fan of elitism shown by the millennials and Gen Z calling out religious people. Although the age of organized religion is probably over, religion by faith will have its place for a while.
- thatswrong0 4y agoSo you're a fan of having laws enacted by representative elected by these religious fanatics? I'd much prefer a little elitism as an alternative.
- StacyC 4y agoI'm still waiting for some definition of "god" to inform these conversations. What is this thing we are talking about?
- fatherzine 4y agoA good brief intro in the subject, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc, largely following Thomas Aquinas definition. For modern sensibilities it may be hard to stomach that a XIII century monk might have had deeper insights than the reductionist materialist drivel we are soaking in. Alas, I can't help with that. "God is not a Being in the World, God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens". In English, "God is the subsistent act of 'to be' itself".
- missedthecue 4y agoa being than which no greater can be conceived
- cs702 4y ago...versus < 1% for HN members, I suspect. I have a hard time understanding how anyone can believe such a thing.
- wizofaus 4y agoTo be fair, it is actually logical possible that the universe was only booted into existence with a 13+ billion year backstory some 10 thousand years ago, just as eventually we might construct such a universe simulation running on our own technology at some point in the future (making us the Gods of said universe's inhabitants).
- Ancapistani 4y agoAre you familiar with "Last Thursdayism"?
- wizofaus 4y agoI was, but you inspired me to look up the origin of why it was Thursday - for some reason I had it my head as a Douglas Adams concept ("I could never get the hang of Thursdays"), but despite his various other parodies of creation myths, surprisingly it seems he never mentioned that one!
- Stupulous 4y agoI imagine for most people it's a total non-issue. Unless you're a scientist or you breed plants/animals, believing in creationism instead of evolution makes pretty much no difference.
- RappingBoomer 4y agoGive them time...by the the they reach their !I'd sixties, almost all of them will find psychological solace in the bible..or whatever afterlife scenario their culture offers...literally no atheists in foxholes
- PeterisP 4y agoIt's a literal example of "trying to be holier than the Pope" saying, as (at least outside of USA) the official position of all the major, conservative churches is that God created stuff and mankind, but the Big Bang (answering "what was before that?" question) and evolution (divinely inspired) is part of how He did it, not a literal 7 days 10k years ago, so there's no conflict with science. At least from Wikipedia, it seems that the only churches supporting Young Earth Creationism as theology are from USA - e.g. Seventh-day Adventist church, which have branches around the world but are (anecdotally, from my experience) seen like a weird fringe denomination; and the local Lutheran churches also see their USA counterparts as more towards radical/"extremist" side and it's not uncommon to see policy conflict between USA Lutheran churches and the rest of the world.
- tablespoon 4y ago> ...the official position of all the major, conservative churches... Isn't there a massive long tail of unaffiliated or "nondenominational" churches in the US? You'd miss that if you're only looking at surveys of official denominational positions. > and the local Lutheran churches also see their USA counterparts as more towards radical/"extremist" Which counterparts? Aren't there like three biggish Lutheran denominations in the US? IIRC, one is quite liberal.
- quantified 4y agoThat's not picking up up churches, that's picking up denominations. Southern Baptists are creationist and a fairly large denomination, too.
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- hprotagonist 4y ago“well, they have really heavy boots!” http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html
- beardyw 4y agoThe Old Testament nearly didn't make it into the Bible at all. It seems that a lot of Christians have decided that the Bible as put together hundreds of years after Christ needs to be taken as a homogeneous whole and that it needs to be considered as infallible. None of that makes much sense unless you are trying to fit in to someone else's definition of what being a Christian is. I am far from convinced that the two (different) accounts of the creation story in Genesis were meant to be taken as absolute fact. Them being true or false has absolutely no impact on my Christian beliefs. Why would it?
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoWhat are these two accounts?
- beardyw 4y agoIn broad terms Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. The style of writing and name for God in each is distinctly different. God creates man in both. Both, as I understand it, stand apart in style from the remainder of Genesis having a stronger poetic feel to them. Genesis 2:4 could make a alternative start to the Bible. This is just stuff I have picked up - I am no expert.
- JohnDeHope 4y agoIf a person "believes" something, but there is zero effect of that belief on any meaningful aspect of their or anyone else's lives, then what relevance does it have? If I "believe" the Earth is flat, but still fly on airplanes, and use a cell phone empowered by satellites, etc. then who really cares what I say I "believe"?
- alkonaut 4y agoIt might affect how likely they are to accept other science. Which might have a direct effect on how they vote.
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- hackeraccount 4y agoMy main take away from this is that both the opponents and proponents of CRT have way too much faith in the education system.