paleonet

["Breandán" <macgabhb@xxxxxx>]

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. You can produce numbers to support
anything, if you try hard enough. The "creationists" have not, in the past,
been shining examples of how to use facts and figures to support your argument
in a proper scientific fashion (they're worse than government spin doctors).
This statistic strikes me as one the surveyors wanted to find.

One of the reasons creationism is so seriously taken by some, i think, is that
it's hard to understand evolution, and because the creationist parody of it
(the "do you really believe your great-granfather was a monkey?" type of
argument) seems to make sense if you don't understand it properly. And to be
quite honest, I don't think the majority of people are that interested in
understanding it; after all, it doesn't really have a huge impact on most
peoples lives or work. I, like Jere, would love to see everyone taught
Critical Thinking, Evidential Reasoning and How to Judge Authority, but I
don't think most people want to invest the time and effort to understand
something, which although important to us, doesn't really impact on daily
life.

Breandán