NEWSWEEK: 27% of atheists& agnostics think God guided evolution; 13% say God made us as we are

[Bucky]

What a weird poll! Basically, four out of every ten atheists and agnostics either know or suspect there's no god, but still think He (existing or not) either "guided evolution" or created all of the world in its present form. Can I assume that there's some error in the polling methodology? I mean, other than the fact that findings from the scientific method isn't a function of a freaking popularity contest?

March 31, 2007: Conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

on edit: image not working; follow the link and see questions #12 and 13

My advice: if you're ever going to do a poll, don't go with Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

[Kutjara]

1. Is Pascal's Wager making a comeback?

"I absolutely, positively, irrevocably don't believe in God, but He did some awesome work when He created the Universe. Hear that, Big Guy?"

Or maybe it's further proof that about 30% of any given population is comprised of granite-skulled cretins.

[karlrschneider]

4. The ultimate CYA.

:rofl:

[Dr.Phool]

20. I'm a dyslexic atheist.

And I don't believe there is a dog.

[Bucky]

24. I'm a dyslexic theist...

I've been tempted by Santa

[karlrschneider]

26. The Santa Clause is a corollary of Pascal's Wager.

:rofl:

It's an option, available this week only for $39.95

[varkam]

14. No. eom

[ends_dont_justify]

25. Maybe it's proof that 30% of the given population is an error ratio? ;) N/T

[Kutjara]

29. I'd like to think so, but given the 30 percenters...

...who still support Shrub, still think Iraq is going swimmingly, still think the War on (fill in the blank) is a good idea, I'm not so sure.

[DCKit]

2. Fundamentalist Athiests

Not even smart enough to know they're not supposed to believe in God.

[Warpy]

10. "Fundamentalist atheists?"

I keep seeing that oxymoron. What the hell is it supposed to mean?

Remember, there is no holy writ to refer to, no tradition, no liturgy, no hymnal, no nothing.

[varkam]

15. It doesn't actually mean anything.

That is assuming you're using the language we've all agreed upon. It's largely an attempt by theists to paint atheists in religious tones.

[Warpy]

46. Apparently so

because that's who I'm seeing it from.

I just wish they'd stop. It's only basic respect afforded another human being.

[melody]

21. Of course there's a holy writ and tradition to atheism

It's called Alpha primate politics -- it's born in the blood. Just look at the howling atheists
on this board who need to think they understand everything. lol The assertion that you need to
have a written tradition or orthodoxy to be a religion is an arbitrary game rule put in place by
those who want to deny their orthodoxy. Any body of beliefs IS a belief system. When you assert
your narrow, defined views alone are the only right ones and any consideration of anything BEYOND
that is "religion", then you are yourself participating in an arbitrary belief system ... a preferred
belief, if you will. To say otherwise is to be either disingenuous or ill-advised.

[Warpy]

45. Sorry

But that's one of the silliest things I've ever read.

I don't believe in anything.

[melody]

65. No, what's silly is you're applying my statement to you when it doesn't apply

Even the absence of a belief system is a belief system. If you believe you don't believe, you're still believing
something. That's Zen 101.

But if your belief system is not fundamentalist, then I'm not talking about you.

If you come from a standpoint of true non-belief, then you're not weighing in and proclaiming that you, as Dawkins,
have the answers to everything. Fundamentalist atheists absolutely have a fundamental belief system, if you come
from the perspective that science has answered the *fundaments* of all of existence, everything is explicable and there
is no place for other perspectives. That's every bit as fundamentalist, authoritarian and Old Testament-like a "god"
as any far-right fundie Christian's.

[Warpy]

72. Your statement was in reply to my post

and it was very, very silly.

[melody]

73. Very typical of a fundamentalist thinker

Calling things "silly" or "stupid" or "sinful" or "sacrilegious" without explaining why you think so. Let's
face it, you don't even understand what I wrote.

You think I'm wrong? Cite your reasons. Show your work. Otherwise, you're just a kid throwing spitwads.

Many of the atheists on this board (many, not most or all) don't even have the simplest logical
reasons determined for why they disbelieve what they disbelieve. They're just as belief and emotion based as the
fundie Christians. They just grab hold of a term that suits them, ally with those that also like that term,
and pack up against the "others". Typical primate behavior. All the rationale was arrived at later, slapped
together out of bits and pieces, and did not evolve from a system of thought and analysis, as any good system of
thought does.

Argue the thesis, if you're capable -- why is the assertion "silly"?

[Canuckistanian]

54. I hope you're joking

Otherwise, I'm about to open a philosophical can o' whup-ass on you.

[Robbien]

3. self delete

[progdonkey]

5. well, considering that 27% of Atheists/Agnostics...

...also said that Evolution was either not well-supported or didn't know, I'm guessing those 27% are just idiots.

The main problem is that they have Atheists and Agnostics together, as if they're the same thing. I would be extremely surprised if even a single person among those 27% was actually an atheist, and I'd bet they identified themselves as agnostic because they think it means "don't know/don't care" instead of having a much more valid philosophical basis. (Just for disclosure, I'm a raving atheist myself.... :-P )

Right away, when you have something like what you pointed out staring you in the face, any sensible person would realize that the poll is fundamentally flawed and would re-design it. This proves one thing, at least: 100% of Princeton poll designers are utter morans.

[hlthe2b]

7. Sounds like 27% of respondents were too embarrassed to admit

they didn't know the meaning of "atheist" or "agnostic"....

[ClintonTyree]

44. My thoughts exactly....

and they embarrass the crap out of me. :eyes:

[applegrove]

6. Agnostics think there is something out there at the start of the universe. Could

be Atheists shouldn't have been added to that group. It could be 90 % of agnostics and zero % of atheists believe in that theory. It isn't clear from your opening why the two groups of people were lumped together and then averaged.

[Kutjara]

11. The belief that some intelligence started the whole shebang...

...and then retired from active involvement is more of a deist stance than an agnostic one. If this study lumped deists in with agnostics and atheists, it's even more stupidly designed that it appears.

[Bucky]

12. I lumped them together b/c Newsweek lumped them together. Newsweek did so because...

well because their pollster lumped them together. And their pollsters lumped them together, apparently because their pollsters are idiots.

Friends, this isn't valid data. It's a badly designed study and you can't learn shit from it. I don't doubt that only 45% of Americans believe in random and environmentally dependent evolution of life forms or that 39% think that evolution is not fully supported by data. But you can't go any deeper with these numbers if your polling data doesn't more clearly delineate the self-declaration categories that you're trying to break people down by. This is crap science on the level of intelligent design.

[applegrove]

16. Yup. Weird little poll.

[charlie]

19. Ayup

Questions 12 and 13 use the category Agnostic/Atheist. But when you reach #20 -- "What is your present religion?" -- the category proffered is Agnostic/Atheist/No religion. Believers without a religion can wind up as A/A elsewhere, since they didn't tweeze them apart. The least they oughta do is stick with using the categories as named in their polling.

[bananas]

49. That's probably it

People who don't belong to any organized religion chose "No Religion".

[Zensea]

30. Agnostics think there is no proof

They do not think there is something at the start of the universe except in the sense that scientists do also -- the big bang.
More accurately, they might think there is, but they don't know because there is no proof. Agnostics could believe either way, that there may or may not be a god.
Agnosticism is about whether there is proof or not, not about the continuum of belief.

You can be an agnostic and believe in god or God. You can be an agnostic and not believe in god or God.
Agnostics do not deny the possibility of the existence of God, they just don't think the existence has been proven.

It's got to do with the distinction between believing something and knowing something.

[applegrove]

36. Thanks for going into detail. I was being vague to make a point. I've never

seen it put so well. as: belief vs. proof.

[Jonathan50]

37. Agnosticism is the expression of a lack of knowledge..

To be agnostic is to acknowledge that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not.

[Wiley50]

8. "Can I assume that there's some error in the polling methodology?"

I was hiking the other day
and came upon a guy in a funny hat and robes
squatting over a slit trench latrine.
As he stood up, a bear came up
and kneeled before him.
Then he crossed the bear and slipped something into it's mouth,
pulled out a flask of MD20/20 and offered some to the bear

So You tell me

Is the bear catholic?

or

Does the pope shit in the woods?

[theoldman]

9. What difference does anyone's opinion of God or evolution

make in our life. Either there is a God or there isn't. Evolution is either a fact or it isn't. Polls of people's opinions are worthless.

[melody]

13. The difference is in what they know versus a personal hunch

I'm an agnostic. I think there's much behind evolution we don't understand. In fact, I wonder if it's so
complex, we can't understand it. I wonder and think a lot of things. I especially think people (from whatever
perspective) start stuffing complex ideas into neat little packages like "God" and try to use them for and
against others.

Essentially, I don't presume to know what the hell is going on ... the world perpetually confounds me. And anyone who
suggests they DO absolutely know "what is going on", is nothing more than a Jesus-hawker in sheep's clothing.

The interpretation of the input (along with the structure of the query itself) is probably at fault for the
seeming contradiction.

[varkam]

18. Evolution is a natural process that is incredibly well supported by empircal evidence

from across different disciplines. So sure, they may be a good deal yet to understand about it, but there's not a lot of sense in denying that it's how we got to where we're at.

[Bucky]

27. Yeh, but you have to admit that they're shitty at marketing compared to Creationists

And that's the real problem with scientists: they can't market for poo and so they're losing the big argument. A whopping 39% in the poll don't think evolution is supported by enough data. Evolution is an observed fact, about which there are various theories trying to explain how and why it occurs--natural selection being the core process for most of those theories.

But scientists are doing a lousy job of getting their ideas out there. That's the unreported scandal here.

[varkam]

56. I don't think it's a problem with marketing at all

They don't need to jesus-up evolution. It's a problem with religion and with theists insisting that, in the words of Sagan, their god remain a little god.

[Bucky]

74. You can't ignore inconvenient facts and then criticize fundies for doing the same.

Yes it's bad marketing on the part of the scientfic community. They need a new Sagan, a new popularizer to counter this destructive up-is-down movement. When, by one measure, 48% of the country is disputing evolution and that number has been growing for a decade now, then I'd say there's absolutely a marketing problem there.

The good guys are losing this fight and it's time they started getting their asses in gear.

[varkam]

85. Why is it then

that most of the rest of the civilized world accepts evolution as scientific fact? It's something unique about the United States - not the scientific community as a whole.

[rug]

17. Got to blame the agnostics here.

[Bucky]

28. In fact, you should be blaming the Clenis

[ComerPerro]

63. too true

[Clark2008]

22. Those probably were agnostics - people who think there is

some higher power, but aren't sure organized religion is telling the truth.

[baldguy]

I wonder how many bible-thumping fundamentalists don't believe in god?

But, we can't ask that question of course.

[papau]

23. Peer Pressure turning the religious to agnostic/atheist - interesting :-)

n/t

[charlie]

34. Doubt it

Sloppy data presentation is more likely. Polling for beliefs, "Atheist/Agnostic/No religion" was the category offered. That same bunch is listed elsewhere as "Atheist/Agnostic", which is of course, not the same.

[Eric J in MN]

31. Maybe people who aren't religious, but aren't true Agnostics,

...picked "Agnostic" as the self-description which came closest of the choices.

[symbolman]

32. I think the margin of error in this nation

is now at 30-35 %.. :)

[jmowreader]

33. ATHEISTS believe God guided evolution?

The ONLY way this shit works is if the 27 percent includes "no religion"--a category which includes lots of people who believe in God but don't belong to a church.

Or....they're just making shit up again.

[WindRavenX]

35. I'm guessing the latter

Or, the poll was worded *extremely* weird.

I'm an atheist and believe no supreme being or anything guided evolution or anything like that.

[Bucky]

40. They probably just muddled the categories. But still, it invites a closer look at their work

Or better yet, an off-handed dismissal of any of their work. Some polling surveys go badly some times. The bigger error is in putting such a piece of crap to print.

[AlCzervik]

38. how can something or someone you don't believe guide anything?

this poll or the respondents to the poll are f'd up.

[Bucky]

41. You mean outside of the Republican party, right?

[Swamp Rat]

39. Apparently the Newsweek pollsters are idiots. n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

42. The question is more than 12 words long.

"Which one of the following statements come closest to your views about the origin and development of human beings? Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process (or) Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process (or) God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so?"

So I am just guessing that at least 60% of the respondants had no clue what they were asking. Word says that this question has a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 17.2. That would be at the one year post-grad level. The question, in my opinion, was deliberately designed to be misinterpreted.


"Abstract
Many poll questions offer several alternatives, among which respondents are asked to choose. When questions are "tight" the order in which these alternatives are presented makes little difference in the choices of respondents, but when the questions are "loose" more respondents tend to choose the alternative which is stated last. An experimental survey indicates that questions which are long and which contain difficult words tend to be "loose" and should be avoided whenever possible."
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-362X(194924%2F195024)13%3A4%3C653%3ACSIQC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

I'm thinking this question was in the 'loose' category.

[WindRavenX]

43. That statement was written at a post-grad level?

You've got to be kidding--people can't be that stupid can they?

Oh, wait, yes, yes they are.

:banghead:

[Warren Stupidity]

67. I just report what the numbers are.

The suggested level for comprehension in the general population is 8. The point is that the folks desiging polls know all of this stuff, and know, for example, that if you ask a long 'loose' question like this one, you will get a lot of false hits on whatever the last choice happens to be.

[Jonathan50]

47. I barely graduated from high school and I had no problem understanding the question..

"Which one of the following statements come closest to your views about the origin and development of human beings? Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process (or) Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process (or) God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so?"

If it takes a post grad student to understand this then the educational system in the US is in even worse shape than I thought. And my opinion of education wasn't all that high to start with.

[Bucky]

51. Yeh, but you read printed words. They heard those words over the phone just once.

One problem with long phone surveys is that they can get tedious and respondents can start to give sloppy or poorly thought-thru answers.

[Jonathan50]

58. Good point...

However, the poster who analyzed the question did so as if it were a *written* question, not a verbal one.

[Bill McBlueState]

81. also, respondents were probably cold-called

Everyone in this thread clicked on it expecting to think a little about evolution. If someone gets a polling call while they're in the middle of making pancakes for breakfast, they're going to be even less likely to understand a lengthy question than they would normally be.

[edhopper]

48. According to the poll

those surveyed were either Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical Protestant or Atheist/Agnostic.
Must be because this is a Christian nation. And if your not Christian, your belief doesn't count.
Really stupid poll.

[muriel_volestrangler]

86. That may be because the other categories are too small to subdivide meaningfully

Question 20 is the one that categorises people as "evangelical protestant" etc. The 4 categories (though the last one is, in full "atheist/agnostic/no religion" - and that "no religion" may be important) are those that are at least 10% of the total - meaning there must have been at least 100 respondents with that answer. There is some meaning in dividing those up further with the beliefs about evolution; but for, say, Mormons, who were 2%, or about 20 people, further division won't mean much - there's likely too much random variation.

So:
10% said their present religion is "Agnostic/Atheist/No religion"
6% said "No" to "Do you believe in God?"; another 3% said "Don't know"

Of the people characterised by the poll as "atheist/agnostic", 13% said God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years; another 27% think God guided evolution.

My guess is that means several people say they don't know whether they believe in God because they don't believe in any idea of God as put forward by a religion, but they do believe there's 'something'. With a certain amount of error due to people being confused by the questions, most of these also think God had some involvement in the design of humans.

While the fuzziness or inconsistency of the atheist/agnostic/no religion group may be a bit annoying, what's really worrying is the "God created humans in the last 10,000 years" group. 48%! Very nearly half of Americans will ignore huge amounts of scientific data about archaeology, anthropology, geology, chemistry, physics and biology, in preference for a book of unknown authorship in a language they don't know, written when maybe half of their ancestors weren't building anything more sophisticated than wattle and daub huts, and didn't have a written language at all. When the Intelligent Design advocates are the ones who are the dangerous thinkers in comparison to half of the population, you know that education, intelligence and gullibility are producing a country unable to succeed in the 21st century.

[SmokingJacket]

50. More proof that these polls are dumb.

They didn't really give enough alternatives -- totally makes no sense.

Even if you're an agnostic, you'd be "unsure" if god guided the process...

[Phredicles]

52. Is Princeton Survey Research Associates in any way affiliated

with Princeton University? If so, the latter should be embarrassed - sloppy, sloppy work here.

[TahitiNut]

53. Since Atheists/Agnostics were only 10% of those polled ...

... the margin of error on that particular question would be quite high - perhaps as much as +/- 15%. It must be noted that those declaring "no religion" were included in that group as well, so people who might regard themselves as 'spiritual but not religious' could easily regard some "Ultimate Is" patterning evolution. Clearly, an agnostic would have a strong bias to answer "Don't know."

Rather than bash polls, it might be worth taking a breath and thinking of human beings as not very easily type-cast. We are each individuals with our own unique attitudes. There's more error in interpreting polls than in conducting them, imho.

Afterthought: To get an idea of the 'fuzziness' of that particular question, it might be useful to mentally reduce all the percentages by 90% ... looking at them at a magnitude that's comparable to what MIGHT be the margin of error - maybe about 3%. (The article is HUGELY remiss in not citing the size of the sample and the margine of error, imho.)

[Marr]

55. I assume the self-described Agnostics are responsible for the

seemingly nonsensical results. Agnostics really shouldn't be lumped in with atheists- and certainly not when a question like this is being asked.

[ToeBot]

57. Religious zealots screwing with the poll, Sorry, but atheists, agnostics aren't that stupid. n/t

[Synnical]

59. Ditto your advice n/t

[paparush]

60. They must all have Bush for a last name...

[cgrindley]

61. Although it's a controversial topic in Atheism

a lot of us like to collectivize and personify the laws of physics, the mechanisms of evolution... the universe and the ways in which it functions under the word "God".

It allows us to talk to religious people without too much conflict.

Personally, I believe that the rules themselves are equal to god, their manifestation in objective reality is the incarnation of god, and the connection between their theorization and their realization is the holy spirit. Sort of a Neoplatonic view of the One True Good all the way down to us.

I go to church once a month or so, high church episcopalian, as it is my cultural background and I enjoy the rituals.

[Jonathan50]

66. Interesting..

I've been an atheist since about 1966 and I'd never heard that before.

[cgrindley]

77. It merits a chapter in Dawkins' latest book

he hates it when people do that. The whole Einstein's god thing.

[The Count]

62. My Gods! That's why I don't believe in polls (any more than God)

Polsters manufacture reality - and they are too dumb to even know what they want to manufacture! I'll keep this one in mind whenever someone worries about some poll around here!

[ComerPerro]

64. how did they classify non-Christians who were not agnostic or atheist?

[Telly Savalas]

68. It looks like they oversampled members of the Atheists for Jesus organization

[ecstatic]

69. Even an atheist is required to go on faith at some point

How was Earth formed? The galaxy? How did our environment get created in the first place, which then brought rise to the first life forms? Whether the answer is religious or scientific, it's still all a big guess.

[Warren Stupidity]

79. er, uh, no.

None of the list of things you mentioned requires a supernatural deity or any particular design or purpose. Science guesses and then tests those guesses through experimentation. Religion just makes stuff up and declares it to be 'just so'. There is a difference.

[Bill McBlueState]

82. there are tons of scientists working on these problems

I can guarantee that planet formation and galaxy formation are two very popular subfields of astronomy. What I and my colleagues do isn't faith or guessing; it's research.

As for the beginning of life, I'm not a biologist, but I'm sure there are plenty of people researching that topic as well.

[riderinthestorm]

70. The polling population was flawed unless they were also trying to target those who are believers but

not associated with a religion. Their population is atheists/agnostics/no religion which encompasses those who are believers but not associated with any kind of religion imho.

[shrike]

71. That's got to be the dumbest statement I've ever seen

And I'm not even an atheist/agnostic.

I'm also not a believer in the end times, but stories like this make me wonder.

[BlooInBloo]

75. Shorter headline: Americans are batshitfucking stupid.

[Nikki Stone1]

76. Looks like the answer came from mixing Atheists and Agnostics

Agnostics can claim not to know whether there is a God or not, but can still believe in "something out there" and that it could guide evolution, especially when evolution is sold as "progess" and not just random processes. (There are patterns in randomness, but that's beyond this post.)

Probably a better way to have phrased the question would have been to have asked if God, the father of Jesus, or God--Yahweh had guided evolution. Then the agnostics could have said no, but that some other force might have.

[Bjorn Against]

78. I could believe that many agnostics hold that as a possibility...

While it would seem the number of atheists who would answer such a question in the affirmative would be 0%, many agnostics do believe strongly in the possibility of a God they just don't know who or what that God is. They may have answered the question thinking that, yes they believed in such a possibility although when they answered the poll I doubt very many of them felt with absolute certainty that an affirmative response was the correct response.

[JerseygirlCT]

80. I'm so confused!

How's that work?

[w4rma]

83. agnostics and athiests are entirely different. Agnostics have no/little faith. Atheists do

have faith/believe that there is no Creator.

[Lars39]

84. "Guided evolution" = Intelligent Design

Crappy poll.