Jun 1, 2010
Who Rejects Basic Big Bang Science?
In a national poll last week, Daily Kos asked 1,200 voters:
Most astronomers believe the universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago in a massive event called the big bang. Do you think that’s about right or do think the universe was created much more recently?
The results:
As Joshua Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education points out:
The South and the Republicans are the only groups in the same neighborhood in terms of rejecting basic knowledge about the universe. Disappointing, but not entirely surprising.
What is disappointing is that this mushy statement is being purported as truth. How many astronomers vs. all scientists. How many is “most.” Is this a representative sample? What kind of science is this in pop literature. Scientists should know better than to use this fuzzy language. Disappointing, I know. Skewed stats.
A couple hundred years ago “most scientists” would also say that the world is flat. Who need empirical evidence when making claims such as this? Disappointing. Irresponsible.
I think most rational individuals place “most” at something above 66%. In any case, who cares about astronomers when except for southern Republicans and strong minority of white men, most everyone else is in the 70% on this issue.
Attempts to downplay the obvious by resorting to “most” as being insufficiently direct means mostly nothing!
actually wattle most scientists didn’t believe the earth to be flat a couple of hundred years ago..It’s been fairly well known to be round since at least the Greek flowering of civilization. Perhaps you might try reading a few books ?
We could bloodlet, too. Anyone who thinks they’re smart enough to know what happened 13.7 billion years ago is cracked at worst, and arrogant at best. I simply have a problem with this type of language being used to introduce a subject like this, and see it all the time. Science prides itself on answering questions, or perhaps asking them. I just have a few more…do “most” astronomers agree with “most” biologists and chemists? Do astronomers accurately represent all scientists? Who conducted this study? Is it worthy of a science journal or just pop literature? The language used is far different than saying “a popular opinion among astronomers today is that the big bang happened…” which is the truth and less leading to those being polled.
It’s interesting way to phrase the question. When confronted with the fact that ‘most’ experts in a particular field disagree with your non-expert opinion, you might expect respondents to say that they ‘don’t know’ rather than say that the experts are wrong.
But that’s not the pattern here. The number of ‘don’t knows’ is pretty much consistent across all groups – with the notable exception of non-whites.
Why are Blacks and Latinos, generally considered as religiously more conservative and less educated than most, high on this survey?
@ Tom — They might say they don’t know. However, in an effort not to appear stupid when their opinion is clearly going to be compared to an experts OPINION, they might say the experts are right when being put on the spot like that. @ Roger — perhaps blacks and latinos are more sensitive about appearing stupid or uninformed. I’m no expert, but do have some background in social psychology. So much of what goes on as theories gain popularity is a result of a group effect. Even as contrary evidence gathers, popular opinion only increases before it starts to die. All studies or surveys need careful review to omit bias. This one was biased. Sorry.
For how well this survey was stratified, it does not specify if these 1200 people were science majors or humanities majors. There is a huge difference between “left brain” and “right brain” people and their ability to have a perception of a higher power.