A University of Texas and Texas Tribune poll has found that roughly one in three Texans believe that humans and dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time and more than half reject the theory of evolution. According to the poll, 38 percent agreed with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago.”
Another 38 percent said human beings developed over millions of years with God guiding the process while another 12 percent said that development happened without God having any part of the process.
An amazing 51 percent disagreed with the statement, “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” Only thirty-five percent agreed with that statement.
The Texas school system has called for greater Bible reading in schools, here.
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“I think it was because of agriculture. Once humans figured out farming we were able to grasp higher level concepts. Hunter gatherers have a very short time horizon, farmers have to think long term.”
You are confusing causation and correlation, Byron. The change in mindset wasn’t the key change nor the cause for the “burst” of intelligence. The causal mover was agriculture’s direct benefit in creating free time. Free time used to think about things other than hunting, gathering and making baby humans. Like physics and law and philosophy and mathematics and art. Agriculture freed time because it is 1) contextually less labor intensive than the options, 2) capable of producing surpluses – something the more subsistence hunter/gatherers could not do as a general rule and 3) it’s repeatable nature (predictability – which would be the true cause of the change in way of thinking, us adapting to the regularity of growth cycles).
Also, measuring “knowledge” is a misguided and mistaken way to look at knowledge. It assumes too much, such as you’re using the correct yardstick that can define all knowledge from none to “perfect”. The best one can do is measure the rate of change. To this end, I point you to the work of Ray Kurzweil and his formulation of the Law of Accelerating Returns.
“We can organize these observations into what I call the law of accelerating returns as follows:
Evolution applies positive feedback in that the more capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to create the next stage. As a result, the rate of progress of an evolutionary process increases exponentially over time. Over time, the “order” of the information embedded in the evolutionary process (i.e., the measure of how well the information fits a purpose, which in evolution is survival) increases.
A correlate of the above observation is that the “returns” of an evolutionary process (e.g., the speed, cost-effectiveness, or overall “power” of a process) increase exponentially over time.
In another positive feedback loop, as a particular evolutionary process (e.g., computation) becomes more effective (e.g., cost effective), greater resources are deployed toward the further progress of that process. This results in a second level of exponential growth (i.e., the rate of exponential growth itself grows exponentially).
Biological evolution is one such evolutionary process.
Technological evolution is another such evolutionary process. Indeed, the emergence of the first technology creating species resulted in the new evolutionary process of technology. Therefore, technological evolution is an outgrowth of–and a continuation of–biological evolution.
A specific paradigm (a method or approach to solving a problem, e.g., shrinking transistors on an integrated circuit as an approach to making more powerful computers) provides exponential growth until the method exhausts its potential. When this happens, a paradigm shift (i.e., a fundamental change in the approach) occurs, which enables exponential growth to continue.” [reformatted]
from : http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
Bob, Esq., I just read the wikipedia entry on Kammerer. It noted that he shot himself in the forest of Schneeberg. I once heard of someone who shot himself in the aquaduct of Sylvinus, but I’m not familiar enough with anatomy to locate the forest of Schneeberg.
Bdaman:
I think it was because of agriculture. Once humans figured out farming we were able to grasp higher level concepts. Hunter gatherers have a very short time horizon, farmers have to think long term.
Once we had farming down we could then expend energy on other things like art and science. I think that is why you see that “explosion” of knowledge. I don’t know why it took almost 5,000 years for this to happen but it took about 30,000 years for us to figure out farming.
Certainly more to it than that but farming was the beginning. It took man all that time to get to agriculture, from there it took all that time to get to the transistor. Now we are learning asymptotically, with time on the x axis and knowledge on the y axis. I have heard it said that our knowledge doubles about every 2 years now. (I bet Gyges would know for sure what the rate is)
Farming and the transistor-2 great leaps forward in human learning.
AY,
Thank you!
Boy, the things you can learn at the Turley Blawg. Maybe JT should establish a Turley Blawg Correspondence School for Eclectic Learning.
You will need to take the spaces out in order to make the emotions.
* : – ( frown
* ; – ) wink
* : ( ““ crying
* > : ) mischevious grin
* : – / smirk or confused
* : – P smiling and sticking out your tongue
* : – D laughing hard
* > : – \ mad
You have to excuse me if the graduate class has adjourned early.
* 🙁 frown
* 😉 wink
* :(““ crying
* >:) mischevious grin
* :-/ smirk or confused
* 😛 smiling and sticking out your tongue
* 😀 laughing hard
* >:-\ mad
Bdaman–
“Kinda like a light switch was suddenly turned on.”
Unfortunately, the switches weren’t turned on in a lot of houses.
**********
“Why is it we have a mass of intelligence in say the last 2500 to 3000 years.”
Sorry to say that nowadays we also have a mass of stupidity and ignorance to counterbalance intelligence and knowledge.
Elaine:
that was great, a new line of Intelligent Design or Creation teaching aids?
The kids would really learn their “stuff” with those rhymes.
Gyges,
Are you familiar with The Case of the Midwife Toad?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kammerer
Byron–
Dinosaurs were around before the flood. Don’t you remember how Noah brought two of each kind of dinosaur–as well as other types of animals–onto the ark?
Here’s a response to your question in verse. I changed a few words in this Biblical limerick that I wrote years ago to bring in dinosaurs:
T. Rexes, raptors, and gnus
All hurried to line up by twos…
Couldn’t wait to embark
Upon Noah’s new ark
And relax on a forty-day cruise.
Ok if man is 150 to 200 thousand years old, what ever they say it is. Why is it we have a mass of intelligence in say the last 2500 to 3000 years. Kinda like a light switch was suddenly turned on.
for the future in case this iteration doesn’t work out.
Bdaman:
because God left some of us behind?
Elaine:
antediluvian times, is that before or after dinosaurs?
you are welcome. I am limited though as that is the only one I know. AY can do a scornful face so for the graduate level you will have to get him to explain the technology.
What I want to know is if we evolved from apes why are there still apes.
Byron–
I think you might have gotten that information about vegetarian/carnivorous dinosaus in the Headzup video I posted yesterday morning.
Thank you, Byron!
Byron–
I’m always correcting my own typos. I never had a typing course when I was in high school–way back in antediluvian times. 🙂
“dinosaurs”
and you being a teacher, I am so ashamed. 🙂
eLAINE:
yep 6,000 years ago. I just get nightmares thinking about being eaten by a Velociraptor or worse. Although I think one poster pointed out that all dinasaurs were vegetarian until Eve ate the apple at which point the meat eaters went extinct.
the smiley face is done by a : and a ) put together with no space 🙂 but you have to leave a space before the : or you get this:)