# The war on ignorance may not be winnable **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 7, 2004, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497 "2004-12-07T04:40:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/1 "2004-12-07T04:40:04Z")
Some polls from the latest issue of [Newsweek](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6650997/site/newsweek/?GT1=5936) > [@](#): > > 55 percent of those polled, every word of the Bible is literally accurate…Sixty-two percent say they favor teaching creation science in addition to evolution in public schools; 26 percent oppose such teaching, the poll shows. **Forty-three percent favor teaching creation science _instead_ of evolution in public schools** ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/2 "2004-12-07T04:42:59Z")
Oops, I accidentally hit submit instead of preview, Anyway, rant, rant rant…fucking stupid Americans…blah blah blah…this is why we have a chimp running the country…etc. etc, There are some more polls in the same issue and after reading them all, i have to say it’s truly fucking scary how monumentally backwards we are as a people. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/3 "2004-12-07T04:46:53Z")
Thank god for liberal educators, by the way. They’re the only thing stopping us from becoming Saudi Arabia. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/4 "2004-12-07T04:47:20Z")
Hmmm… > [@The Newsweek Article](#): > > Seventy-nine percent of Americans believe that, as the Bible says, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, without a human father and > [@The Newsweek Article](#): > > Twenty-four percent of Americans believe the story of Christmas is a theological invention written to affirm faith in Jesus Christ Clearly, 3% of the population believes that it’s possible to create facts by inventing a story. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RealTronic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@RealTronic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealTronic)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/5 "2004-12-07T04:51:53Z")
That’s scary, and rather suprising. I knew that religion had a firm grip on US society, but to this extent!? The scariest part is the “creation vs evolution” science in schools. To someone who has a hard time even putting “creation” and “science” together as one word without laughing, I find it beyond words that people would favor the teaching of it in schools to evolution theory. ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/6 "2004-12-07T05:00:02Z")
Holy bejeepus. I hope the question was so poorly phrased that it was way more likely to lead to people saying creationism should be taught instead. Forty-three percent? ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/7 "2004-12-07T05:04:23Z")
Isn’t one problem that ‘creationism’, and ‘evolution’ to some extent, allow of different interpretations? The results of such a survey are interesting in a general way but not very informative. ---
**Author:** ![Fritz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Fritz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fritz)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/8 "2004-12-07T05:05:14Z")
I’m not even a little surprised… ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/9 "2004-12-07T05:09:03Z")
I’d be worried if I believed polls. They interviewed 1009 people by phone. I’ve taken part in polls like that, and I spend most of the poll yanking the pollsters chain just as hard as I can. That’s why the figures are so skewed. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/10 "2004-12-07T05:18:48Z")
Like I said in the other thread: Tell kids that evolution is a dirty subject, with too much sex in it to be taught in schools. Then maybe they’ll sneak into libraries to read about it and will actually learn something about the subject. I’m suspicious of that poll, too. 43% want “creation science” taught instead of evolution? I bet 80% of the people in the US couldn’t tell you what “creation science” is if you asked them to describe it. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/11 "2004-12-07T05:27:39Z")
I can’t trust any poll that doesn’t mention its confidence interval; besides, 79% of all statistics are made up. I’d like to know how the questions were phrased to see if any bias was introdiced in the polling. That said, Americans these days seem to be incrasingly ignorant of the world, science in general, and anything that doesn’t have to do with Paris Hilton or **The Apprentice**. My only surprise would be that only 43 percent believe that Mesoptamian creation myths should be taught in schools. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/12 "2004-12-07T05:31:18Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > My only surprise would be that only 43 percent believe that Mesoptamian creation myths should be taught in schools. It wasn’t in the OP, but that actually scored 62%. Positive respondents often elaborated that Mesoptamia is just as important as any other book in the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/13 "2004-12-07T05:35:31Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > It wasn’t in the OP, but that actually scored 62%. Positive respondents often elaborated that Mesoptamia is just as important as any other book in the Bible. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find that many Americans have no clue that the myths they are taught from the Bible originated in Mesopotamia or that the region figures heavily in today’s news. Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, and so forth were transmitted to the Jews during the Babylonian Captivity. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/14 "2004-12-07T05:40:34Z")
I wonder how many of them know that Babylon was in present day Iraq or what they would make of that symbolically if they knew. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/15 "2004-12-07T05:54:26Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I wonder how many of them know that Babylon was in present day Iraq or what they would make of that symbolically if they knew. “Lawdy Lawd, Jenkins and LaHaye wuz right, the End Times done come! Oh, save me from Nicolae Carpathia!” ---
**Author:** ![hildea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ebca7d/32.png) [@hildea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hildea)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/16 "2004-12-07T08:37:18Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > The war on ignorance may not be winnable Of course it’s winnable, we just have to tie it into the War On Terror, because that’s going so well, as we all know 🙂 Now, how to do that… > [@](#): > > I wonder how many of them know that Babylon was in present day Iraq Ah, well, then it’s easy. Bomb Babylon. War on ingorance is won. Mission accomplished. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/17 "2004-12-07T09:26:26Z")
I smell red states… ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/18 "2004-12-07T11:43:46Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Thank god for liberal educators, by the way. They’re the only thing stopping us from becoming Saudi Arabia. You betcha. I think they’re leaning more towards North Korea. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/19 "2004-12-07T12:46:08Z")
Oh well we had a decent run. Time to look up a country where I can raise my nonexistant kids. ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497/20 "2004-12-07T13:58:33Z")
Not to intentionally paraphrase Yoda or anything, but religion is not stronger than truth - it’s easier, quicker, and more seductive. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-on-ignorance-may-not-be-winnable/278497.md?page=2)