In a transparent attempt to support their campaign TFN has conducted and has been promoting a clearly biased and misleading survey. TBSE feels it is critical for the public to see how TFN’s "results" compare to other polls across America, which have been conducted by unbiased and nationally recognized pollsters. (In contrast, TFN not only picked their own pollster but they also supplied the list of people to survey!)
[img:center]
http://www.strengthsandweaknesses.org/images/polls.bmp[/img]
http://www.strengthsandweaknesses.org/NewsletterArchive/PR2009.01.05.htmHow much of a "strength" is dishonesty? Guess we'll be finding out once again.
This does not seem to apply to the actual validity of the theory of evolution or the contention that the God did creation in 6 days 6000 years ago.
It appears from this article that the TFN group conducted a poorly, perhaps even dishonestly, constructed poll. If we were to believe that the honesty of some who adhere to a belief actually had anything to do with the validity of that belief, then 6-days-6000-years-ago-creation belief would have been completely invalidated by the repeated dishonesty of Duane Gish.
The article has a Gallop poll result:
Gallup polls routinely show that only a small minority (typically less than 15%) of Americans actually believe, even after decades of nearly exclusive evolutionary instruction, that a purely naturalistic materialistic evolution is capable of explaining life.
While the poll information is probably correct, this doesn't really say that 85% of the country believes the theory of evolution to be incorrect. Many believe that God used evolution and even guided it. The article implies that this means most people don't accept evolution.
Here's a quote from the article that I thought to be rather amusing:
That poll goes on to examine the question of "When Darwin's theory of evolution is taught in school, students should also be able to learn about scientific evidence that points to an intelligent design of life." 78% agreed with the statement, either strongly (53%) or somewhat (25%). Only 13% disagreed, either strongly (8%) or somewhat (5%).
And that scientific evidence would be.....? Perhaps if the majority of the population knew that the intelligent design movement was not conducting any scientific research then they might change their opinion.
Another funny contradiction was the fact that they say in this article:
Further, over one-half of their hand-picked group (consisting of known pro-evolution segments of academia) did not respond at all. While some undoubtedly just didn't care, it is not a stretch to suggest that at least some of those who did not respond chose not to do so in order to avoid possible persecution (see the "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" documentary for more examples).
While their article in February 21 2006 states:
Hundreds of Doctoral Scientists Question Evolution Dogma: The number of scientists who publicly question Darwinism and encourage critical thinking on the issue has now topped 500. Given that these fully credentialed PhD scientists risk retributions at work for going public against the established dogma, this is particularly newsworthy.
Yet there are no stories from Feb 2006 to the present showing any of those scientists being persecuted. Michael Behe even testified in the Dover case and he still has a job.
Seems like the persecution is very subtle.
