that reality-based thinking does not penetrate to a slim majority of the electorate. Bush suffered from NOTHING but objectively bad news for the six weeks before the election (media were slightly emboldened and the f__k up was so obvious). This made no impact. There we are.

I think it also points out the inflexibility of the FAR right.  I know many Christians who can believe in evolution and christianity.  But, there is that, what 30%, that can't bring themselves to bend.

And so are the elections. If you look at on old say 1976 Almanac of American Politics all you find is that the Dixicrats changed parties and the overall ideoloical balance hasnt changes in 40 years!
Nor have views on evolutionand the Bible

What is truly amazing is the result reported from the Philippines.  How do they manage to have roughly 60% of the population believe in both bible inerrancy and evolution?  That would mean 20% of the population believes in both simultaneously, despite events in the Bible which could not possibly be true factually (origins story, ancient battles, water into wine, etc.).  The Philippines educational system must impart some sort of benevolent plasticity to its citizens' intellect to reach this result.

I wonder how the percentages change for young people.  Is there hope for the future?  I assume so, just because Kerry's only victory according to exit polls came with the young population.  THe way most big ideas take hold is the older, stubborn generations die off.  Some people just wouldn't believe Magellan's crew when they returned, but it was only a matter of time.

The arguments in favor of the Theory of Evolution are both compelling and simple enough that a layperson can understand and repeat them.  Every progressive ought to know them by heart and bring them out every time some fundamentalist simpleton talks about evolution only being a theory (in fact, your existence on this planet is only a theory, too).

Having said that, I have to confess that I do not have these arguments at my fingertips, so I have to start by taking my own medicine.  But I will do so, then post a diary with the arguments in simple and concise form.

These numbers are shocking but meaningless.  Certainly the evolution number should be in-line with the Brittish and others, but that doesn't necessarily mean we'd get their votes.  By contrast, the Bible numbers will never come our way.  They are part of the permanent right wing base.

Hi Chris

History's most prominant young earth creationist was a two-time Democratic Presidential nominee: William Jennings Bryant in 1892 and '96 and he ran on economic populism against the wealthy and powerful. There is nothing in Christian conservative theology that implies political conservatism. Conservative theology is even consistent with a robust support of gay rights--you can believe that homosexual behavior is contrary to God's law without believing the government ought to discriminate against homosexuals; you can leave those matters to God. The correlation between being an American white evangelical and voting Republican doesn't come from belief in an inerrant Bible.

And even though I am one of those Christians who doesn't believe the Bible is inerrant and does believe in evolution (I do believe that God performs supernatural miracles, for the record) I am annoyed when liberals equate creationist belief with ignorant stupidity. I would bet that the vast majority of evolution believing liberals are practically illiterate when it comes to the science supporting evolution and that they can't do much more than mouth vague claims that there's tons and tons of evidence--I'll bet that most of those people couldn't explain any specific evidence at all. And they sure don't know enough science to evaluate the evidence for themselves. They (like me) rightfully accept the word of those who are competent to judge the evidence. They are right to do so, but they are not right to imagine that they are less ignorant and more open minded than the (alleged) rubes who believe in Adam and Eve and vote for Republicans. If you ask me, the "holier than thou" self-righteousness of a lot of liberals explains as much about why so many working class folk have gone over to the Party of Privilege as does the alleged inability to follow rational argument.

Keith

The American Richard Rorty and the Frenchman Jacque Derrida are just two of many well-known left-wing academic thinkers who have become famous for questioning the conceptual 'foundations' of modernity (often called postmodernist thought).

Anyone who studies these influential thinkers can see that their anti-theories are lending influential support to right-wing anti-modernism as strongly as left-wing re-evaluation of the modernist 'rationality'. For instance, it makes perfect sense within their framework to put 'warning labels' on evolution text-books ("This is a THEORY of man").

The German progressive theorist of communication Jurgen Habermas has become famous himself for taking exactly this position - the tremendous influence of 'deconstruction' of the rational foundations of modernist thought by self-styled 'post-modern' liberals is helping to fuel the rise of the right and specifically NEOCONSERVATISM! (the right-wing response to modern nihilism).

It is a paradoxical situation, because both sides have strong points.

Although the academic-ese may seem obscure, the underlying issues are potently relevant to understanding the current cultural division in America.

Some points of departure:

http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/gaynor/ep.htm

http://www.sirreadalot.org/philosophy/philosophy/rortyR.htm

http://www.geocities.com/philodept/diwatao/derrida_and_lyotard.htm

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/postmodern.html

- Tom McDonald

This campaign has been going on for awhile and it
peaked in 2002.  During the election of 2002, control of the Wake County Board of Commissionerss swithched from Democratic Control to Republican.  They also gained control of the county school board.  After they gained control of the school board, they started to require the teaching of creationism in school.   They also restricted the teaching of sexual education to abstinance only in school.  This is in a county school board that had been ranked in the top 5 in the country and is located in an area that boasts one of the leading research and technology areas of the country.  

This is a prime example of why we need to redefine our message and not our principles.  Wake County has it's share of rural voters, but also is an area of the country with one of the highest level of PHD's per capita.   We have to win over some the exurban and suburban voters.
We cannot win them back by reacting negatively to everything the conservatives believe in.  They have pushed the cultural divide on abortion, gun control, religion and gay rights.  We have responded in knee jerk fashion by running to the other extreme in our political party.   I do not think we would have to change our principles to win these voters back.  We have to have an open and welcoming message that accepts members who do not agree with us on every issue.   As General Wesley Clark said on the Al Franken show earlier this week.   A leader has to spend more time on receive mode than transmit mode.  We will not change the ideology of voters over 29, in the next election cycle or two.  Nor should we want to change their ideology, by their very nature ideologues will resist change.   We can spend more time listening and change our message to make more voters feel at home voting for our candidates

The war against modernity is not a religious war, but a world view war.  It really doesn't matter what the religion is, although we seem to think it does.  Let's face it, the Muslim insurgents aren't about being modern, they're about [perpetuating their worldview of top-down, patriarchal, static relations on the rest of humanity.  And so ar the so-called Christians.  They don't give a hoot about anything except their theocracy.  

This means that those who have a future oriented outlook will always be on the other side of the divide.  Hard times and fear tend to make people retreat fromt he future and look to more static roles and a more static, paternalistic society.  The brand anme doesn't matter.  Religion, once again, has nothing to do with it, except as a self-righteous justification for retreat from teh future and from progress, back to the womb of certainty and static (controlled) society.

For a very nice insight into this, read Robert Heilbroner's Visions of the Future.  This nice, small text captures the essence of the problems we have with teh fight against modernity.

even beyond conservatives, how well will "reality based" arguments really work in our electorate?"

I asked this very question in our discussion of  Philip E. Agre's, What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

As this poll (along with other evidence) suggests, Americans are shunning critical thinking and logic for pseodoscience and mass hysteria. "Reality based" arguements will not work with them, because of their built-in confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance and willful ignorance.

We must target those who embrace logic (even those that are religious), and begin teaching critical thinking in our public schools. This is the only way that we can devlop a forward-thinking, progressive population ready to take on the challenges of the future.

...That this poll was conducted almost 14 years ago.  I'm not saying things have changed much, but just wanted to point that out since your story didn't mention it.

Also, wording is a major factor in polling results.  If you look at the wording of the evolution question, it says, "In your opinion, how true is this? ...Human beings developed from earlier species of animals..".  It could be possible that people just don't know this...?  I may be grasping at straws here, but a large section of our population is ill-educated and may not know that this is what evolution really means at its heart.  Valiantly trying to save face for the American people...

The big questions are not fit to be answered by science. Evolution is the process of how life evolves, not an answer to why it would even want to exist in the first place. This enigma could not be deduced through logic and the scientific process. Politics is policy making, period. It doesn't need to mingle with questions outside the realm of science. The theocracy of our fascist enemy is not a design we want, nor need, to emulate.

I think post-modernists are correct in challenging the so-called "objective" foundation of modern science. But that critique means we must also challenge the scientific paradigm in all walks of life - the technologies of production, consumption, etc. The problem with creationism is that nearly all of its adherents claim that scientific principles apply in most areas of their lives, but arbitrarily select certain regimes where scientific principles do not apply. So, the belief in Biblical Creation (7 days is 7 days) requires a rejection of all scientific inquiry into whether that was even possible. It's a waste for Creationists to try to challenge evolution at the margins of empirical validity because success there only leads to a more sophisticated reading of how species change over millions of years, and not to a scientific proof that the Earth was created in 7 days as spelled out in Genesis.  In other words, the Creationist position is, by definition, anti-scientific.  It is a dogmatic position - every bit as dogmatic as science, I might add - that the Earth was created a certain way BECAUSE it was written in the Bible and the believer swears full allegiance to that text based on non-rational grounds of faith. There is, of course, nothing wrong with swearing full belief to a text, but one cannot ignore the epistomelogical consequences of that act. By denying that science has ANY role to play in establishing the origins of man, creationists must either reject science in all facets of life, or fall into the circular trap of saying that they reject science only when their faith tells them to, which would mean that science isn't really an epistemological principle in the end at all, just a mode of convenience when the Bible doesn't "fill in the blanks".

1. Evolution and Creation are not conflicting "theories" or anything else. Evolution says nothing about creation...other than to assume that it happened...starting with the obvious fact that it occurred, evolution attempts to determine what happened next. Creation "science" concerns how it happened but doesn't go any further. They have nothing to do with each other.

2. "For a true believer, no proof is necessary. For a non-believer, no proof is sufficient."