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The U.S. lacks belief in evolution in reference to the rest of the West. Why?
- Thread starter rousseau
- Start date
Separation of Church and State, ironically.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
In the 20's, religious fundamentalists declared war on evolution, and have battled that tooth and nail ever since then. And with some success. Early on, with radio, religious believers utilized mass media effectively in the US. Later with TV, and with cable TV, they kept up that strategy and anti-evolution was a big component of their media message. Organized creationism has long been part of the general mix. In 1972, Dr. Henry Morris re-energized creationism and it has become a powerful organized movement that has managed to also become politically saavy and arose with movements like Moral Majority to become politically powerful in the US. In no other Western modern nation has anti-evolution been so well entrenched and spread with such widespread zeal. In much of Europe, post WW2, rebuilding their nations has been important and absorbed their attention while the US went on a religious kick instead. Fed by the cold war. We had that luxury.
ronburgundy
Contributor
This nicely touches upon the religion-evolution clash in the US that began around the 1920's.
There broader backdrop that gave rise to this continuing clash has to do with the fact that from the beginning most colonists and immigrants to the US were uniquely non-denominational Protestant, combined with fears of rapid economic and cultural changes among rural Americans at the start of the 20th century.
Since its founding, the US had been moving toward greater and greater religiosity, in the opposite direction of Western Europe.
It starts with the anti-intellectual nature of the Protestant revolution itself. The Church had tethered religious power to knowing Latin, higher-learning, and theological scholarship, because they controlled who had this knowledge and credentials. While the Church's intellectualism was mostly pseudo-intellectualism, that association meant that Martin Luther's revolution against the power of Church authority entailed a rebellion against intellectualism and the notion that reason and scholarship were how one understands God. Protestantism is largely defined by this and by pushing the notion that it is an emotional direct connection with God that is the path to know God and that science and reason are largely the enemy.
A famous quote by Martin Luther is: “Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
This had more impact on the US because most colonists and early immigrants to the US were unaffiliated Protestants with very strong anti-Catholic hatred, due in part to being persecuted by the Church, which is why some left Europe in the first place. Also, most immigrants severed ties with any Protestant religious authority in Europe, such as the Church of England. This meant their was a power-vacuum of no central religious authority in the US. Being recent immigrants often in just forming communities, few Christians were members of any specific church in the 18th century. The Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries were in large part about self-appointed religious leaders trying to grow their brand of Protestantism and compete for all those unaffiliated Christians. They did this by trying to one-up each other in being the "real" soul of Protestantism. That meant being the most anti-Catholic, anti-intellectual, anti-science, and pro-emotionalism they could be. They also tethered affiliation to their new sects as a form of nationalistic pride since many of them were unique to America.
With this as the backdrop, along came the Industrial Revolution that spurred rapid modernization and change in every aspect of US culture. People fled rural America for the cities, rural farms suffered, WW I brought many Eastern European immigrants, and the radio gave rise to decadent and irreverent pop-culture. At this same time (around 1900) schooling became compulsory up to age 14, which meant a massive reduction in how rural farmers could use their kids as free labor. Evolution was began being taught to primary school students at this time too.
A fear-based backlash formed a dangerous ideological association in the minds of religious rural Americans between the evils of modernization, education, science, evolution, new immigrants from "swarthy" nations, and the economic hardships they faced. The KKK was born and pushed this ideology tethering all these things.
The Scopes Trial of 1925 was a manifestation of all that and you can see it in the comments of Bryant and others involved in the trial for whom Evolution was really just a symptom of what they feared.
In short, for various historical reasons, the US is more religious than most of Europe, and while all religion is largely anti-intellectual, the prevailing strains of religion in the US are acutely so.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
Is there a breakdown by U.S. state?
I think it's simply because there is more room - literally - between people in the U.S, which allows people to remain in ignorance. Also, it is more isolated in terms of sharing borders with other nations. So there is less cultural sharing and transfer and the place stays more religious.
Do new religions still arise in other countries like Mormonism and Scientology did here?
I think it's simply because there is more room - literally - between people in the U.S, which allows people to remain in ignorance. Also, it is more isolated in terms of sharing borders with other nations. So there is less cultural sharing and transfer and the place stays more religious.
Do new religions still arise in other countries like Mormonism and Scientology did here?
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
Creationism-evolution by state
http://twentytwowords.com/how-many-people-in-your-state-believe-in-evolution/
Yes, new religion still happen outside the US. Raelians, Aum Shinri Kyo, Moonies, Macumba and other African polytheistic religions in South America and the Caribbean. The so called Godmen of India. Swarms of Christian sects and cults in Africa. Another Raelian type new religion is the Czech based Universe people. Solar Temple in Switzerland.
I'd think it'd be a lot more illuminating if you did it by county. I'd expect some of the lighter states are lightened up via bigger cities. Would probably mirror red vs blue voting exactly.
untermensche
Contributor
It is filled with religious fundamentalists.
ronburgundy
Contributor
Close but not exactly. Acceptance of evolution is correlated with race and education differently than political party is. A majority of Black Protestants reject evolution but are overwhelmingly Democrat. Despite being heavily Catholic, Hispanics are less likely to accept evolution that white Catholics. Also, evolution acceptance increases steadily with each increasing year of education. However, party affiliation does not relate as consistency and strongly to education. While post-graduates lean heavily Dem, those with some college are actually less Dem than those with no college.
Since both race and education level differ between rural and urban areas, this creates a bit of divergence on how party affiliation versus evo acceptance vary between specific rural and urban areas.
Malintent
Veteran Member
Yes.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
In my experience the largest group of people who don't accept evolution don't understand evolution. They don't accept evolution because you can treat a chimp like a human from birth but it will will never be a human. Duh! Or you can't get a chicken to turn into a duck. Double Duh!!
Another group simply has no need for understanding evolution. What has evolution got to do with me having a good time "goin' muddin'" in my truck or being able to find a good paying job? And in truth, just about zip. It likely will never bring about your owning a better cell phone.
We have a lot of those two groups in the U.S., and I think their numbers will grow.
The understanding of Evolution is an intellectual pursuit primarily. It has payoffs for everyone but not everyone needs to understand it anymore than your typical steelworker needs to be a metallurgist.
Add to that the anti-religious association and I think its easy to understand why the U.S. lags behind. Lots of americans aren't proud of their poverty, but they are damn proud of their ignorance.
Another group simply has no need for understanding evolution. What has evolution got to do with me having a good time "goin' muddin'" in my truck or being able to find a good paying job? And in truth, just about zip. It likely will never bring about your owning a better cell phone.
We have a lot of those two groups in the U.S., and I think their numbers will grow.
The understanding of Evolution is an intellectual pursuit primarily. It has payoffs for everyone but not everyone needs to understand it anymore than your typical steelworker needs to be a metallurgist.
Add to that the anti-religious association and I think its easy to understand why the U.S. lags behind. Lots of americans aren't proud of their poverty, but they are damn proud of their ignorance.
abaddon
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Yes many Americans are proud of their ignorance. The last thing they'd want to be is a snobby elitist intellectual pencilneck geek who "thinks he knows things". It looks like hubris to them. "You think you're better than me? Well, you're not!"
They feel "ruggedly individualist" but they’re extremely conformist which makes them prone to con artistry of all kinds, from conspiracy theories to marketing manipulations to political bullshit.
They feel "ruggedly individualist" but they’re extremely conformist which makes them prone to con artistry of all kinds, from conspiracy theories to marketing manipulations to political bullshit.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
There is hope in that Millenials seems to be much more receptive to the idea of evolution. As soon as the older generations, who have the least belief in evolution die off, the rate of belief of the population as a whole will rise.
fromderinside
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Is the old dying to get rid of those less old aging? Seems to me that as people age mortality becomes more important and therefore religion gets center stage. Since we are a nation of protestants, not withstanding the last 100 years have been dominated by Catholics immigrating to the US, our religious threads tend to increase in proportion with population growth and age. Since we've now become a net positive growth nation again - US flirted with negative rates in '80s - our latest rate of growth is 0.7%/yr. *
I don't see how older people dying and population growth rates be positive, but, low leads to the conclusion that we will become more evolution friendly any time soon.
*http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...wth-hits-slowest-rate-since-great-depression/
I don't see how older people dying and population growth rates be positive, but, low leads to the conclusion that we will become more evolution friendly any time soon.
*http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...wth-hits-slowest-rate-since-great-depression/
bilby
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That used to be the case; but if young people no longer see a connection between mortality and religion as they grow older, then religion will inevitably decline.
Mortality is inevitable. Religion is just a (poor) choice. The relationship between the two is a lie, and fewer and fewer people believe that lie.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
From various studies I have seen on line, the older generations have always been more religious and less accepting of evolution. There are some who have claimed that as we age we become more religious, but that seems to not be true.
Again, I think the rising number of skeptical Nones has a lot to do with it. And almost every good discovery of new dinosaur species etc ends up on the internet on Yahoo news and other news sites, so we get a lot of pro-evolution facts that make it harder for young internet users to point blank deny evolution.
For many, creationism is beginning to look like a quaint old fashioned superstition, like believing comets were portents of misfortune.
or
fromderinside
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This graph from Pew in 2007 suggests people are becoming less likely to move over the past 60 years which agrees with my intuition that we are about as likely today to wind up within 25 miles of our origins as people were 10k years ago.
That is to say most people are not really impacted by current events. Yes a greater proportion know how to read. But do a greater proportion actually read anything other than local news? I think not.
So coupled with people who grow old having less progressive beliefs this lack of travel statistic suggests people tomorrow, overall, will be as likely to be non-evolutionists as are people today.
Global tendencies seem also to repeat. For instance we seemed to be in a more universalist trend, but, now we are back to tribalism. Goes around comes around?
That is to say most people are not really impacted by current events. Yes a greater proportion know how to read. But do a greater proportion actually read anything other than local news? I think not.
So coupled with people who grow old having less progressive beliefs this lack of travel statistic suggests people tomorrow, overall, will be as likely to be non-evolutionists as are people today.
Global tendencies seem also to repeat. For instance we seemed to be in a more universalist trend, but, now we are back to tribalism. Goes around comes around?
Speakpigeon
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