Majority of Republicans believe Earth is less than 10,000 years old

The Mad Hatter · 31-01-2010 12:52am #1

From a new Gallup poll.

I believe the appropriate response is *facepalm*

Dunno if this should be in Hazards - thought it deserved its own thread.

Turtwig · 31-01-2010 12:57am

Fcking twats, it never ceases to amaze me that people think politicians that don't know jack sh1t are suitable for office.
Another one of those things that makes you want to get off this planet.

liamw · 31-01-2010 1:10am

This low figure surprised me a little. Just shows that lack of belief in evolution is almost purely driven by religious beliefs... what was that JC?

robindch · 31-01-2010 1:34am

It's date-lined 2007, so it's not all that new

The fun fact from this is that

And with that, here's proof that Republicans at least are descended from monkeys:

Dades · 31-01-2010 2:21am

Fool me once, um...

2Scoops · 31-01-2010 3:18am

YEC creationism (<10,000): 39% say "definitely true."
Evolution (>millions of years): 28% say "definitely false."

Mutually exclusive, I would have thought...

rccaulfield · 31-01-2010 10:53am

Dont worry folks the figure was 100% a few decades ago- things are changing even with those fools!

number10a · 31-01-2010 11:15am

I clicked into this thread thinking it was going to be about Irish Republicans!!

But either way, what a shower of fools!

Permabear · 31-01-2010 12:52pm

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The Mad Hatter · 31-01-2010 2:28pm

The so-called Republican "big tent" merely allows the party to dupe the Christian base, which always has an extremely high turnout and will always vote for the most Christian-seeming candidate rather than the best qualified one (see Palin, Bachmann, Bush, Regan, Bush) into voting for the interests of big businesses, and against their own.

The fact that Republicans, particularly in the senate, have voted in block, whereas Democrats (for reasons good and bad, and Lieberman's) have not, demonstrates quite clearly which party allows more freedom of opinion and expression.

Apologies for the faulty information in the thread title - I took it from a Roger Ebert tweet, and only skimmed the article.

kev9100 · 31-01-2010 2:58pm

If this was 20 years ago, I would have agreed with you. However, these days the Republican Party has pretty much abondoned the Big Tent philosophy and has replaced it with one that is more ideologically "pure" and divisive.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/gop-adopts-platform-test-_n_442776.html

Antbert · 31-01-2010 2:59pm

I thought that too. I was mildly surprised.

Then read it. And was in no way surprised.

Still despairing though.

Flamed Diving · 31-01-2010 3:03pm

What America needs is an STV system, to break up this 'big tent' stuff. But that's for Politics.

The Mad Hatter · 31-01-2010 3:35pm

Or just to demolish the two-party system that has ensured voters only a choice between the right and the extreme right.

Permabear · 31-01-2010 5:11pm

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AtomicHorror · 31-01-2010 7:00pm

I see plenty. Particularly a conflict between the interests of big pharma and the people, though perhaps I emphasise that because I'm a biologist. Similar case for oil and tobacco. All have interests very seriously out of alignment with that of the general public. All have or have in the past had very strong influence on how the US government makes policy.

The Mad Hatter · 31-01-2010 7:37pm

With apologies to the mods, I can't let this drop.

The oil and coal lobbies in the US and elsewhere rendering climate change legislation almost immobile; the quasi-slave labour employed by many production companies (do people in the third world not count?); the tobacco companies sitting on evidence for decades; health insurance companies in the US who drop people when they get sick (amazing what a fund of examples the US provides) - how do any of these companies act in the public interest? As they run America, and thus to a large extent, the world, how can they be held accountable when they act against the public interest?

Regulation does not kill business (and lack of regulation nearly killed the world economy), and across-the-board regulation does not take any advantage from any business any more than it bestows one. Who mentioned anything about getting rid of big businesses anyway?

Permabear · 31-01-2010 8:00pm

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Nodin · 31-01-2010 10:18pm

...incredible......

iUseVi · 31-01-2010 10:48pm

A randroid on the A&A forums?!

*runs away and hides*

Nah just joking but I find her philosophy overly simplistic - it doesn't work in a real world where there are weak, old and stupid people that cannot look after themselves.

Valmont · 31-01-2010 11:42pm

?!
*Dumps copy of Atlas Shrugged in the bin*

DF, I would have thought you would be a registered voter of the Libertarian party? I find it curious that you would vote Republican; Last year, Leonard Peikoff said that he considered religion to be a greater threat to America than socialism. I took that to mean that he saw the Republican party as the greater evil.

Permabear · 01-02-2010 1:20am

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iUseVi · 01-02-2010 2:00am

Oh America.

Mark Hamill · 01-02-2010 12:05pm

What, theres no more choices? Like giving these people the same working conditions like we have here? Things like realistic working hours and workers rights? If they where paying them three times the average wage (btw, in some countries its up to seven times the average wage) then couldn't they employ them for only half of the time and then employ another shift of people the other half of the time, that way giving twice the people the opportunity to avoid begging and scavenging?
The real problem with companies running these workshops in the third world is not the wages, its the conditions and thats what people forget. Wages can be different in different countries because of the difference in the cost of living in different countries, but the conditions and workers rights should be the same. People should have a maximum amount of hours they can work, young children shouldn't have to work.

Permabear · 01-02-2010 12:36pm

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iUseVi · 01-02-2010 1:05pm

There has been improvements in sweatshop quality - due to massive media exposure. But when the light is shone on one company it just moves it elsewhere, somewhere out of sight like China.

It may be "better than nothing", but that doesn't make it good.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 01-02-2010 1:10pm

you'd probably feel differently if your children had to make a choice between sweat shop labour and satisfying european sex tourists

robindch · 01-02-2010 1:43pm

The world economy almost collapsed because government-run central banks created a giant pool of cheap credit, which then caused property and commodity bubbles around the world. I don't see how this had anything to do with lack of regulation.[/QUOTE]The causes of the near-collapse are pretty well-known: at the personal level, job contracts which rewarded short-term expansion over long-term stability; at the institutional level, the former plus the assumption that property prices would keep increasing forever (and the related failure adequately to account for the risk of downturn) which fuelled the availability of easy credit; at the state-level, regulatory capture (especially in Ireland and the USA) by the institutions concerned which made it difficult or impossible for states to curb the availability of unsustainable credit and enforce safe banking practices.

These reasons are pretty well-accepted worldwide and, outside of certain segments of the Republican Party, I think that pretty much everybody agrees that banks need to be regulated more closely to avoid this happening again in the future.

Mark Hamill · 01-02-2010 2:01pm

Getting a finger cut off is better than getting your arm cut off but I dont think either one is a particularly nice situation to be in. The idea that the choice is sweatshop or begger/prostitute is a false dichotomy, supported by the apparel companies who prefer to set up factories in countries with slack workers rights in order to maximise their own profits. There is nothing stopping these companies from running the factories in the third world at first world regulations (hours, regulations, acceptable age of workers), while paying the third world workers a locally acceptable wage-the difference between paying a worker a euro to make a pair shoes that will be sold at 120 euros will still lead to major profits for these companies.

The Mad Hatter · 01-02-2010 2:02pm

Are you trying to imply that, without government interference, the tobacco industry would have either cleaned up its product or revealed that it was poisonous?

Are you trying to imply that, without government interference, the oil and coal lobbies would admit climate change and work to prevent it?

Are you trying to imply that the US insurance lobbies, without government regulation, would stop dropping patients from their coverage?

Because every inkdrop of evidence suggests otherwise.

If not, then what are you trying to imply?

Incidentally, you replied to Mark Hamill's question, but you didn't address what he actually said.

Permabear · 01-02-2010 3:11pm

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Zombrex · 01-02-2010 3:15pm

Isn't conflict between the interests of big business and the interests of the people not what drives the market?

For example, the interests of Telecoms Company X is to maximize profits. It decides to slash its support centers to save costs.

The interests of its customers is to get the best quality service for the lowest price.

The customers get tired of crappy support and jump ship to another company.

The interests of the company are in conflict with the interests of the the people, and the company suffers.

The opposite is often true as well. Say company X has bought up all its competitors and the cost of entrance into the market is so high that no company sees it as worthy it.

The interests of the company are still in conflict with the interests of the customers, but because they have no where else to go they are stuck suffering the poor expensive service if they want any service at all.

Turtwig · 01-02-2010 3:26pm

Now I'm jumping in. (Apologies Mods, but this is probably gonna drag everything off topic again.)
Science is about challenging theories, but the theory is still standing. It is not a hypothesis; it's a theory. Granted not as well established as say, evolution, but it's a theory nonetheless.
Non-believers, i.e deniers, I prefer the term Anti-Climatologists because that's what they actually are. There are genuine "skeptics" of AGW out there (me for instance

*shocker*) but the AC camp just spout pseudoscientific nonsense arguments and frequent strawmans. Their arguments about as irrational,illogical and ignorant as those of the creationist vain. Indeed, many of them (Lord Monckton for example) operate on similar principles.
As for Climate Scientists falsifying data I suggest you actually read those emails and stop reading the quotes.

ChocolateSauce · 01-02-2010 3:53pm

While I agree with everything in your post, I think a choice must be made between voting for the party which is in line with ones' economic interests and voting for one which isn't largely composed of and supported by people of less-than-admirable intellect. You mightn't feel this way, but even if I were economically Republican, I couldn't bring myself to support them because of their current reputation and practice as the party of religious nutters, neo-cons, climate change deniers and big business-only supporters.

I'd vote for the libertarian party in that case- yes, the vote is wasted, but it's either that or vote for the party whose last three presidents were Bush, Bush, and Reagan, and whole members are in very large party (majority, I think) creationists who are hostle to science, and who only want economic freedom from government, not social freedom.

A few falsified details don't invalidate the whole theory. I'm not entirely convinced that climate change is either manmade or stoppable, but that it is happening is pretty much a fact, and I think it is better to assume we did it and try to stop it than to do nothing. If it's fake, then we wasted loads of money and became cleaner, which is an end in itself, if we fail, at least we tried (and may lessen its impact), but if we don't do anything and it's real we're in trouble.

Also, I dislike morons on the left or right- the ones on the left don't understand science and misuse it, and the ones on the right don't like science and ignore it. The evidence, if properly collected, read and understood, will drown out the noise. You mistrust the left on science, but you should also be highly critical of the right's recent take on it.

robindch · 01-02-2010 3:58pm

They basically conjured it up out of thin air, via a process known as Fractional-reserve banking.

I don't believe that the full-reserve banking that you're apparently referring to hasn't existed since the 19th century (and possibly earlier than that). In standard notation, you're failing to distinguish between cash created and guaranteed by the central bank (MB) and cash created and guaranteed by the commercial banks (M1..M3). More on the different classes of money and where each of them comes from here.

Under normal circumstances, a central bank and those charged with overseeing each nation's financial system will regulate the capital and other ratios that the commercial banks must maintain. To a large extent, these and other rules were repealed, relaxed or ignored during the boom years owing to the overt or subtle degree of regulatory capture that took place.

And the belief that this might have been a good idea was supplied by the unfortunately misguided notion that unregulated markets provide the lowest prices to the consumer -- they never do: think of how monopoly or cartel positions has caused price-fixing and other convictions for world-size companies such as Microsoft, AT&T, De Beers, Heineken, LG, Samsung etc, etc, etc.

Permabear · 01-02-2010 4:40pm

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robindch · 01-02-2010 6:48pm

Exactly—they being central banks, which are arms of government.[/Quote]Er, no. The commercial banks created the M1..M3 money which was were the problem occurred. The central banks should have regulated this more closely, but they did not. The commercial banks sold mortgages they should never have sold and completely failed adequately to make proper risk-assessments of credit default swaps, which the regulators pretty much ignored and seem, to a certain extent, to have been unaware of.

And if the central banks are to blame -- which they are not, but let's roll with it -- then at what point do the commercial banks become responsible for their own actions? I don't believe that you've mentioned or criticized their role in failing completely to control their own behaviour. And by all accounts, the stories that have come out of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Anglo-Irish Bank, Irish Life etc, etc suggest that they were acting completely recklessly with their own money, the money of their shareholders, their account holders and the other institutions with whom they contracted for risks that mislead people about.

Do you think that the commercial banks have behaved responsibly in all of this?

Yes, and companies keep on creating them because it's in their short term interests. Are you saying that the regulatory agencies which limit the ability of companies to form monopolies or cartels are just another unacceptable infringement of the freedom of the market?

.

Permabear · 01-02-2010 7:35pm

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Valmont · 01-02-2010 10:13pm

Having spent close to a year in Alaska with her conservative ilk, I shudder at the thought of Sarah Palin in office. Unfortunately the Libertarian party will not be going anywhere if everyone gives in to the two party system.

Permabear · 01-02-2010 11:51pm

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Zombrex · 02-02-2010 10:33am

No, it is in their interest to maximize profits. Offering great service and great support at a low price may be a way to maximize profits, but most likely it probably isn't.

If Telecoms Company X can continue to make profits while getting away without doing this (since support and after sales service is expensive) they will and most of them do because again their focus is not pleasing customers, it is making money.

More often than not companies focus mostly on advertising and sales and leave after sales support under resourced because by the time you experience the crappy support you are already tied into a contract.

So again there is a conflict here, between what the company wants and what the customer wants.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a capitalist. But I'm also a realist. It is a myth that the free market produces the best experience for the customer. It some times does, but more often than not it doesn't because it assumes a completely level playing field and unlimited resources, when in fact this is the not the case.

The free market only ensures the best deal for the customer when it approaches infinity, when every possible company is considered to be able to enter the market.

Permabear · 02-02-2010 11:00am

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20goto10 · 02-02-2010 11:56am

Whatever happened to separating religion from state? Nasa was sued for mixing state with religion in the 60's because one of the Astraunauts read a piece from the bible while he orbited the moon. Has all that changed now?

Permabear · 02-02-2010 12:04pm

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20goto10 · 02-02-2010 12:17pm

Separation of religion and state is not the same as church and state as we have here. I'm not talking about the church having an active role in the state. Like my example shows, its as simple as reading a passage from the bible. They are teaching creationism in science classes, enough said.

I could be wrong here but I've never heard Obama even say God bless America whereas Bush would fit a reference to God in wherever he could.

iUseVi · 02-02-2010 12:51pm

You are wrong I'm afraid, he might not say it as much as Bush, but I've heard it dozens of times. I wish he wouldn't but he does.

Permabear · 02-02-2010 1:18pm

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20goto10 · 02-02-2010 1:31pm

Thought I might be...

iUseVi · 02-02-2010 1:39pm

Yeah I wish you were not. Saw an interesting documentary on the BBC about Obama's religion the other day. Didn't watch all of it but he is definitely a christian, despite some christians I know ranting about him being a muslim, LOL.

The Mad Hatter · 02-02-2010 1:55pm

I know Richard Dawkins has a pet theory that he's agnostic or atheist, but obviously you can't get anywhere in US politics without being a Christian.

ChocolateSauce · 02-02-2010 2:14pm

Statistically, it is likely that Congress and the Senate have higher rates of atheism than the national average. I think Obama is an atheist, and I think H Clinton is one too. I also have no evidence to back this up, and believe it because I find it hard to believe that either of them is taken in by nonsense. Bush had connections, Obama has brains.

*Majority* of Republicans believe Earth is less than 10,000 years old

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Majority of Republicans believe Earth is less than 10,000 years old