Approximately 40% of adults in the US do not believe that life has a common origin. More than the teaching of Evolution suffers in this country, though. The last president prevented federal funds from being spent on stem cell research on new embryos, due to religious reasons. Politicians, and their constituents, regularly question the importance of various lines of scientific research. Furthermore, children who like science are often socially ostracized in the US by their peers, and the media and entertainment industries not only mock scientists, but spend much time and effort promoting religious and paranormal explanations (e.g., with shows like the X-Files, as well as various specials and documentaries that present the paranormal explanation for a given phenomena, but either ignore the scientific explanation, or give it a tiny fraction of the time given to the other). What is the origin of this hostile, backward mentality? Why are so many Americans eager to embrace new technology, yet hostile to the men and women, and the methodologies, that gave them the new technology?

Granted, the questioning of Evolution is somewhat strong in non-European Western countries like Canada and Australia, though not nearly as extreme as in the US. So maybe there is some kind of dynamic that led to anti-science being stronger in the colonies than in Europe, though, in such a dynamic, the US clearly ended up as the most extreme case.

Thoughts?

Well Darwin stated that man and monkey had a common ancestor, an ancestor that HAS NOT been found yet in fossil record.

I think reserving judgment until the "missing link" has been found is appropriate.

I don't buy evolution either [yet], not because I'm a religious nut but because the "missing link" has not been found.

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Also, no scientists can really explain why/how "humans" just for all general purposes "appeared" over night.

The best they can come up with is spontaneous evolution which hasn't been fully proven yet so..

The jigsaw puzzle is interesting though.

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1) Evidence for Evolution would still be extremely strong if not a single fossil were ever found on earth.

2) As a matter of fact, hominid evolution is quite well-documented in the fossil record, despite the fact that it is extremely hard for an organism to leave any traces, something that Creationists love to ignore. Humans and monkeys have many common ancestors, and several of these have been found (e.g., mammal-like reptiles, the first tetrapod on land, the first vertebrate, the first animal, etc.).


As for humans appearing overnight, no scientist maintains that.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: the Scientific Case for Common Descent

For instance, explain why nearly all marupial mammals live in Australia (with the exception of a few that made it to the Americas prior to continental separation), and why Australia is essentially devoid of indigenous placental mammals.

The answer to the OP, is that there are a lot of stupid people, and for some reason the US socially tolerates stupidity more than other western nations. The good news is that the smart people in the US are just as smart as elsewhere, sometimes smarter.

There is absolutely ZERO evidence of human "evolution."

Sure their is ample evidence of human "adaptation" to environment but not evolution.

The only "scientists" who try to even claim, humans didn't just appear over night are those who accept human evolution without any evidence.

Human evolution is probable but its not fact yet....

For all purposes evolution is just as good as a theory as would be the theory that humans are hybrid aliens.

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29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: the Scientific Case for Common Descent

Get scientific with this.........the earth is covered with life, and the animal world has seemingly unlimited variations within different "families" of animals, yet there is but one human. And the brilliant scientific types would like us all to believe that of all the variations of primates, this one extra special one was able to evolve into man. When they get that explained, please let me know.

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Yeah, accepting nonsense is stupid.

Show me proof that human evolution is FACT and I will gladly support it.

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I agree. So what can we do about this?

My thoughts are you provided no links/sources to your original OP.
A quick study and you can see that the %'s claimed for "# of Americans believing Evolution" etc. - will net you a very wide variety of claims.

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November 2010...A change we can believe in.

Find a way to make stupidity painful?!

What is there to explain?

Well, how do we eradicate the cultural elements that are specific to the US that are responsible for this phenomenon?