I really don't see how this really matters in the grand scheme of things. I know several incredibly smart and successful people who belong to the group "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Sure, it's ignorant. But for most people, knowing such things are pretty trivial in their work and life. Heck, Carl Everett was a damn good baseball player, and he thinks that the moon landing was a hoax.
LMAO, I suggest you register for that course: http://www.gallup.com/poll/101872/how-does-gallup-polling-work.aspx Excerpt from - http://media.gallup.com/PDF/FAQ/HowArePolls.pdf Anything else you have to add?
From a personal standpoint, I don't get how fundamentalists can interpret their Holy texts as it is literally. It doesn't take you one step away from God to question whether something is factual or metaphor. While some people accept the results of new scientific studies immediately, the difference is that a person's religion should matter to him deeply, and that person's commitment to the Truth should be greater than clinging to the word of some guy he/she sees standing in the podium broadcasted on TV or whoever else is hammering in these easy to digest facts.
Repped, just coz you said it first. Sorry OP, your paltry attempt at a "people who don't agree with me are stupid" thread is way too obvious.
Could be worse. . . . could be folx beleive it is blind luck. Like. . . if you travel in space long enough . . . . you will run into a fully equipped working 1965 VWBug with a tank of gas ready to roll because. . .well . . . statistically speaking. . it *is* possible it could happen without a guided hand .. . . just not probable. Sort of like a planet inhabited by thinking machines with a self sustaining ecosystem . . . luckily coming into existance on its own . . . Statistically is it possible. . . just not Probable . . Rocket River
We have no idea how probable or improbable it is. You can't determine a statistical distribution from one data point, which is all we have at the moment.
If you actually understood how statistics work (as in, by taking an intro to stats class as was suggested), you would know that although the process of polling is mysterious, the science behind it is sound.
except natural selection, over billions of years, is a perfectly viable explanation. the reason the ecosystem works in such beautiful rhythm and harmony is because it is such a gradual, intricate process. we all came from the same matter: every animal, human, fish, tree...perhaps the first ever sign of life - the condensation of our planet out of gas and dust - was lucky, the ensuing billions of years was mutation and selection.
Natural selection is a biological process that is responsible for the evolution of life on Earth over the last 3.8 billion years or so. The universe is about 14 billion years old and natural selection has nothing to do with its origins.
Why is the natural selection paradigm limited to biological phenomena, though? Things that can adapt to their immediate and larger environments tend to persist over time, while things that can't, don't. I don't see what makes "life" unique in this respect other than the characteristic presence of nucleic acids and other such molecules.
The reason natural selection only applies to biological phenomena is that life, by definition, is able to respond to stimuli. Part of this response is to adapt to its environment over long periods of time. It's true that some things persist for a long period of time and some don't. But without the ability to actively adapt, there is no natural selection. Planets as a whole, for example, don't respond to stimuli. The Earth is not located where it is in it's orbit around the Sun because this is a favorable spot for the Earth. It exists there because this is where it formed. If it had formed a little closer or a little further out, that's where it would still be (unless it was disturbed by gravitational interactions with other planets).
A sample size of 1,000 will never be an accurate portrayal of 300 million people, especially in such a big ethnic melting pot like the United States. Gallup even polled people on polling:
Awesome. If a poll says that it doesn't work, then it must not! You do understand that scientific methods and facts aren't true or false based on public opinion, right? That they work or they don't on the basis of scientific principals?
Where the hell did this come from? I was talking about the inaccuracy of small sampling sizes in polls. What does that have to do with the scientific method?
This is one of my pet peeves when someone criticizes the theory of evolution by saying it doesn't show how the Universe or matter came to be. The theory of Evolution explains how speciation came to be. Its a profound misunderstanding to try to attribue to Evolution as a theory of everything when technically it doesn't even explain how life came to be. You might as well criticize the theory of Aerodynamic lift for not showing the Universe came to be.
We're born, we die, life sucks in between? No matter how it came to be? Kind of a lot of inevitability in things. We all have to watch our a** no matter if we have a purpose or not.
He was referring to the fact that you used your quote as if it was scientific proof that small sampling sizes is not accurate, when in fact your quote was only the opinion of the people, who probably don't have a strong understanding of statistics. The truth is inaccuracy of results has nothing to do with sampling sizes. Gallup uses clustered stratified random sampling techniques and their choice of selecting between 1000-1500 participants is actually reflective of the population in the US. You are confusing the need for comprehensive sampling (in the way you are using it) with the need for precision through the margin of error and/or the 95% confidence interval. In fact, if you need to understand the beliefs of a large group of people, 1000 clustered random samples will provide you a fairly accurate portrayal. Hence, the reason why most polls, such as elections, only poll a small number of people that may appear inaccurate when it really is not so... However, the process is not perfect as I mentioned that there is still a margin of error around 3% on both sides, and only 95% confidence in our interval.
Statistical error margins and effective sampling methodology are determined through scientific principals, despite "public opinion" to the contrary.
