Half of US still believe in Iraq's WMD
In an article published in Mainichi News, a July '06 Harris poll shows that fully 50% of Americans still believe that Iraq did have WMDs when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003. When in fact...
The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million -plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.The article goes on to speculate why Americans are still so out of touch with reality. I suppose it's true that people need to feel justified in their support of this invasion and occupation of Iraq. But I doubt this is quite so self-inflicted. What I believe, quite simply, is that the Mainstream Media in this country, and particularly the TV Networks, are doing a very good job of manipulating the minds of your average American viewer.
Go read the article.
You'll see why it ends with this stunning Fox News headlie:
"ARE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMDS NOW IN HEZBOLLAH'S HANDS?"
We used to laugh at market tabloids with headlines that screamed:
"WAS THIS MAN'S BRAIN STOLEN BY ALIENS???!!!"
We don't laugh so much no mo'. And why does my head hurt?
posted by Alyosha @ 10:16 AM
9 Comments:
55% of Americans (67% of Bush voters) believe that God created humans in their present form. Go figure.
You head wouldn't hurt so much if you stopped banging it on your keyboard.
Johnny
Maybe that's it! I thought aleins were stealing my brain, cell by loathsome cell.
So what's the source of that stat, that 55% of Americans believe God created humans in their present form? I realize we're here in the enlightened NW, but I don't know ANYONE who thinks that.
I just read this over at DailyKos and it cracked me up: 12% of Americans think Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.
I'll bet 98% of those are republicans.
CBS news. Although it looks like my number was from 2004. Here's the link to a 2005 survey. Money quote:
"White evangelicals (77 percent), weekly churchgoers (74 percent) and conservatives (64 percent), are mostly likely to say God created humans in their present form."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/22/opinion/polls/main965223.shtml
I wonder if this comes from a tendancy in this country to accept the notion that two (contradictory) truths can be legitimately held; one based on science and one on faith. If faith contradicts science (or even reason) it can still be held.
Certainly the relativists take this tack, as well as many so-called "religious" people. (Not that they'd recognize each other in the same camp!)
For me, it's impossible. But I've been schooled in Thomist teachings who held that there is only one truth, and that contradictory views cannot be held at the same time, in the same mind.
It was Siger of Brabant who argued against St. Thomas, claiming that:
The Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world, which contradicts the supernatural world. While we are being naturalists, we can suppose that Christianity is all nonsense; but then, when we remember that we are Christians, we must admit that Christianity is true even if it is nonsense.
In other words, Siger of Brabant split the human head in two, like the blow in an old legend of battle; and declared that a man has two minds, with one of which he must entirely believe and with the other may utterly disbelieve. To many this would at least seem like a parody of Thomism. As a fact, it was the assassination of Thomism. It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.
G K Chesterton
This became known in the medieval world as the Siger heresy. (He later recanted, duh...)
Anyway...
On a completely different note, I wonder if the survey asked "do you accept evolution as fact?" Because I'd answer "no" to that myself, since it is a theory and just that. Sure, it still may well be true, and I'd say that it was true with a high degree of certainty. But I don't see that as being the same thing as a fact.
You mean like the Theory of Gravity?
Yes, exactly. You can experience gravity as a fact, but the theory is just that, a theory, and not a very comprehensive one. They are just now learning what gravity actually is and how it works, related to electro-magnatism and particle theory at the quantum level. Newton's theory of gravity is passe, you know. Haven't you been investigating string theory lately?
Which is also a theory, mind you.
But scientific theories can and do change (constantly, as we learn more, and our observations improve with technology). When this happens, the theories have to be reworked.
Newton's theory of gravity is little more than an observation that mass is attracted to mass. Einstein's theory of gravity is much more comprehensive, but still can't square itself with quantum physics.
Facts are empirical and static. Proposals are not empircal, they are ideological, and hence not 'a fact.'
So I would say that evolution is not a fact so much as a theory (proposal based on facts) that can change.
But that'd be hard to say in a survey question over the phone when dinner is in fact burning on my stove.
At least I wouldn't have to say it twice.
The enemy is ignorance first. Fundamentalism can follow, but it is just a symptom of a greater evil (culpable ignorance).
People need to feel justified about every moral choice they make. Justification isn't the problem, it's when they distort the truth in order to justify their actions that it becomes evil. Because there is only one truth, and you can't be of a divided mind, holding two contradictory notions at the same time.
My only point about such surveys is that I'd probably give an answer that didn't fit their preconceived categories. I don't think evolution is a "fact" - but that doesn't mean I don't believe it is true. I believe a lot of things are true that aren't empirically tested.
But blah...
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