Viva la Evolución!

Creation, a Darwin biopic starring the wonderful Paul Bettany, came out recently. In a disgusting development, the majority of US distributors have refused to pick it up. This is a film which would tear the nation apart, apparently. It would prove so hugely controversial in this, our country of Big Macs, guns and superstition, that they could only lose money on it.

That's my charitable interpretation, and the most likely scenario.

The uncharitable one, and the idea that fills me with fear, is that they are simply willfully ignorant, backwards people themselves. The elites, the presumably well-educated potentates who mandate what we see and hear and experience - because media is far more powerful than politics - could themselves be prey to the same regressive pettiness that the rest of us proles face. As a shameless elitist myself, I suppose I had more faith in the sinister media oligarchy.

Numbers after the jump.

From a Gallup article on the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birthday last February:

On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity.

Here are the poll numbers from the article, in descending order from most to least depressing.

Overall - horrendous and alarming:

Sorted by church attendance - ugh, but predictable:

Finally, a faint glimmer of hope - sorted by level of education:

A slightly brighter glimmer - sorted by age:

Education seems to inoculate against this sort of thing (link goes to an Epiphenom post with more data on religiosity and education), but the fact that only 53% of college students graduate scientifically literate bothers me. I blame the philosophy majors.

The anti-science movement is growing, and this is only one part of it. It's a focal part, certainly, but the whackjob fringe of the religious right has its grasping, pernicious fingers pressing deeper into all sorts of pies. China will soon surpass us as the leading producer of scientific research, which - given that it's China - is not a great prospect.

We're falling behind.

We may be the most powerful country in the world, but we're certainly not the smartest anymore. Many more people are going to college now, which is a plus, but that may not be enough. The numbers by age suggest that we may be on the right track, but it's not happening fast enough.

I don't have answers. All I've got at the moment is paranoia and frustration. Perhaps "impotent incandescent rage" describes it better.   

Maybe I'll find another poll that does the numbers by state. I'm sure it exists. Then I will take a road trip across those states, plastered in bumper stickers and clad only in this t-shirt.