cliveb wrote: > OK, we're going a bit off-topic here. > > I wasn't sure exactly what you were saying. (I thought perhaps you meant > that only 10% of creationists believed in the young Earth, and assuming > that creationists are themselves a small minority, things aren't too > bad) > > So I skim-read the linked article to discover that 10% of *ALL* > Americans believe in a young Earth!!! > Almost as worrying is that only 12% believe in non-theistic evolution. > WTF is going on in the American educational system? > Presumably these people are allowed to vote? <shudder>
Yeah, off topic a bit but I believe worth thinking about in terms of practically how -far -we can expect rationality in a society. Remember that there are tons of factors involved. For one remember that in this world ~50% of everyone has IQ < 100. This itself doesn't mean they're irrational but it does suggest limited higher cognitive capacity, certainly high IQ also does not protect one from magical thinking, but I think it does at least correlate to the potential for higher level education and exposure to figuring out for themselves what and how to think. Considering that 68% of everyone is within the median 2 standard deviations, that leaves 16% of everyone in this world with IQ < 85 (and of course 16% smart folks > 115). Then there are cultural/religious beliefs. We might be concerned about 10% young-Earth creationism in N. America, but consider the kinds of non-sense believed in other parts of the world! I can say that in my travels to Asia, this isn't any better in the kinds of crazy health fads and ridiculous claims; terrifying in places like China where religion for the most part isn't the predominant factor. Finally, remember that the mind as a creative entity is bound to "dream". Full on psychotic illnesses are easily 1% of the population. Many more percent with "subclinical" variants of people prone to magical thinking. There might even be evolutionary benefits to having these genes in society that "think outside the box" promoting creativity. I guess the bottom line for me is that people will always have unusual ideas about things. And something like a 10% "hard-core" group of committed "literal" Creationists is probably in line with our nature as a species and not necessarily statistically frightening. Most religious folks I know do not fall into that "literal" category at all. And none of the ones I've ever spoken about audiophilia seem to care if $1000 cables sound any better :rolleyes:... Of course the hope is that in time we will be able to make headway into more rational modes of thinking as a society. Audiophilia is just a speck-sized battle in the overall debate. One I think that can be won in time with education... We just want enough of a presence that newcomers to hi-fi audio can be at home with folks who don't embarrass their sensibilities and allow their interest to grow. Archimago's Musings: (archimago.blogspot.com) A 'more objective' audiophile blog. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Archimago's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2207 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=103980 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
