I like the idea of this survey, but the description mixes two different topics. The theory of natural selection and evolution have nothing to do with the origins of life on earth (the prevalent scientific theory belongs to abiogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis). I believe this may be what gwiz touched on, in that numbers 2 and 4 also refer to evolution.

Perhaps we could ask a survey that asks about the origin of life on earth? Selections could include:
1) Creationism
2) Deism (Clockwork Universe Theory)
3) Abiogenesis
4) Panspermia Hypothesis

The Gallup poll to which you refer did not focus on the origins of life, rather how life has changed (or not changed) in our recent biological history. I doubt you meant that aliens have changed life since it first began, which is why I believe two different ideas are mixed here.

@hastix you've got a point, but I think the problem is that if you look at their recent track record, there's a clear double standard.

Obama says something completely, unambiguously true, and they call it half-true because they think he was implying something that, in their opinion, isn't true.

A Republican says something that's not factually true, no matter how you slice the numbers, and they rate it "mostly true" because if you substitute the incorrect word he used with the factually accurate word he should have used, it wouldn't (in their opinion) undermine the opinion he was expressing.

Essentially they've gotten into this weird sort of state where they've stopped rating things based on factual accuracy, and have instead started trying to play referee on whether the arguments of the right or the left are correct in their opinion. Problem is, they're still issuing true/false ratings on specific quoted statements, rather than saying "we agree with the right/left on this one."

Here's the original PolitiFact article on this. The first two paragraphs read:

Liberals may want to argue with Sen. Marco Rubio’s remarks at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

But they don’t have the evidence to argue with this statement: "The majority of Americans are conservatives."

First, he said a majority of Americans are conservatives. In Gallup’s poll, the number has never crossed the 50 percent threshold. Technically, he would be more accurate if he said a plurality of Americans are conservative.

Second, we should note that while more Americans identify as conservative, that has not redounded to the good fortune of the Republican Party.

More Americans than ever identify as political independents, at 40 percent. Republicans don’t even come in at second -- that would be the Democratic Party, claiming the allegiance of 31 percent of Americans. Republicans get third place, with 27 percent claiming the GOP label.

You should be glad the focus is on this card, and not Obama's record.

1,000 DAYS OF OBAMA

DEBT: Total Public Debt Outstanding has increased by $4.2 trillion [source: Treasury Dept]

MORE DEBT: America accumulated as much debt over the past 1,000 days as it had in the country’s first 79,135 days (July 4, 1776 through March 3, 1993) [source: Treasury Dept]

DEBT PER DAY: America’s debt has increased by about an average of $4.2 billion per day [source: Treasury Dept]

INTEREST ON U.S. DEBT: $1.2 trillion has been spent servicing U.S. debt—that by itself would be the world’s 15th largest economy
[source: Treasury Dept]

JOBS: 2.22 million jobs lost [source: BLS]

POVERTY: Nearly 3 million more Americans in poverty—poverty rate has gone from 13.2% to 15.1% [source: Census]
FOOD STAMPS: 12 million more Americans living off of food stamps [source: Dept of Agriculture // Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program]
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Spent more than $9.6 trillion – 60% more than the federal government has taken in [source: OMB and CBO]

MORE GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Under Obama, the govt has spent an average of $6.6 million every minute and $111,111 every second [source: OMB and CBO]

CHINA: Owns $1.17 trillion of our debt (as of July) – a 58% increase from January 2009 [source: Treasury Dept]
GOVERNMENT JOBS: Excluding the U.S. Post Office, Federal Government has added 140,000 jobs [source: BLS]

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: Has averaged 9.4% under Obama [source: BLS]

MORE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: Has been at or above 9% for 840 of the 1000 days [source: BLS]
UNDEREMPLOYED: Nearly 5 million more Americans are underemployed [source: BLS]

REGULATIONS – NEW RULES: 7,076 new final regulatory rules issued [source: Federal Register]

REGULATIONS – FEDERAL REGISTER: 45,696 pages of new regulatory rules were added to the Federal Register
[source: National Archives and Records Administration, Office of the Federal Register, various years]

AVERAGE WEEKS UNEMPLOYED: Unemployed out of work for an average of 40.5 weeks – that’s more than double since Jan 2009 [source: BLS]

JOB APPROVAL RATING: Dropped nearly 30 percentage points [source: Gallup Tracking]

SPEECHES AND PUBLIC REMARKS: Roughly 806 speeches/public remarks made – once every 1.24 days.

SPEECHES — JOBS: Has said the word “jobs” 4,718 times in 591 speeches

SPEECHES — ECONOMY: Has said the word “economy” 4,541 times in 605 speeches

CIVILIAN LABOR FORCE: Has decreased by 168,000 [source: BLS]

MANUFACTURING: 818,000 manufacturing jobs lost — a -6.5% drop since Jan. 2009 [source: BLS]

BANK FAILURES: 371 Banks have failed [source: FDIC]

STATES: 37 States have higher unemployment rates [source: BLS]

GOLF: 82 rounds of golf — average of one round every 12 days [source: Mark Knoller, CBS –Fox News Tracking]

REPOSSESSIONS: More than 2.4 million homes have been repossessed for failure to pay their mortgage [source: RealtyTrac]

BANKRUPTCIES: Some 4 million total (business and non-business) bankruptcies [source: American Bankruptcy Institute]

GAS PRICES: Up more than 80% and has been over $3/gallon every day in 2011 [source: AAA/OPIS]

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS: Almost $380 billion spent by federal government on unemployment benefits [source: Treasury Dept and CBO]

ECONOMIC TEAM: 7 key members of Obama’s Economic team have resigned [Summers, Romer, Bernstein, Orszag, Goolsbee Volker and Rouse] [source: News Reports/Tracking]

HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS: Health insurance premiums (family coverage) up 9% this year and 12.7% from 2009
[source: Kaiser Family Foundation]

MEDIAN INCOME: Real median household income in the U.S. in 2010 was $49,445, a -2.3% decline from 2009 [source: Census Dept]

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: Spent more than $26 billion on the EPA – FY2011’s spending will be about 40% more than FY2009 [source: Treasury and OMB]

1,000 DAYS OF OBAMA

DEBT: Total Public Debt Outstanding has increased by $4.2 trillion [source: Treasury Dept]

MORE DEBT: America accumulated as much debt over the past 1,000 days as it had in the country’s first 79,135 days (July 4, 1776 through March 3, 1993) [source: Treasury Dept]

DEBT PER DAY: America’s debt has increased by about an average of $4.2 billion per day [source: Treasury Dept]

INTEREST ON U.S. DEBT: $1.2 trillion has been spent servicing U.S. debt—that by itself would be the world’s 15th largest economy
[source: Treasury Dept]

JOBS: 2.22 million jobs lost [source: BLS]

POVERTY: Nearly 3 million more Americans in poverty—poverty rate has gone from 13.2% to 15.1% [source: Census]
FOOD STAMPS: 12 million more Americans living off of food stamps [source: Dept of Agriculture // Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program]
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Spent more than $9.6 trillion – 60% more than the federal government has taken in [source: OMB and CBO]

MORE GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Under Obama, the govt has spent an average of $6.6 million every minute and $111,111 every second [source: OMB and CBO]

CHINA: Owns $1.17 trillion of our debt (as of July) – a 58% increase from January 2009 [source: Treasury Dept]
GOVERNMENT JOBS: Excluding the U.S. Post Office, Federal Government has added 140,000 jobs [source: BLS]

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: Has averaged 9.4% under Obama [source: BLS]

MORE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: Has been at or above 9% for 840 of the 1000 days [source: BLS]
UNDEREMPLOYED: Nearly 5 million more Americans are underemployed [source: BLS]

REGULATIONS – NEW RULES: 7,076 new final regulatory rules issued [source: Federal Register]

REGULATIONS – FEDERAL REGISTER: 45,696 pages of new regulatory rules were added to the Federal Register
[source: National Archives and Records Administration, Office of the Federal Register, various years]

AVERAGE WEEKS UNEMPLOYED: Unemployed out of work for an average of 40.5 weeks – that’s more than double since Jan 2009 [source: BLS]

JOB APPROVAL RATING: Dropped nearly 30 percentage points [source: Gallup Tracking]

SPEECHES AND PUBLIC REMARKS: Roughly 806 speeches/public remarks made – once every 1.24 days.

SPEECHES — JOBS: Has said the word “jobs” 4,718 times in 591 speeches

SPEECHES — ECONOMY: Has said the word “economy” 4,541 times in 605 speeches

CIVILIAN LABOR FORCE: Has decreased by 168,000 [source: BLS]

MANUFACTURING: 818,000 manufacturing jobs lost — a -6.5% drop since Jan. 2009 [source: BLS]

BANK FAILURES: 371 Banks have failed [source: FDIC]

STATES: 37 States have higher unemployment rates [source: BLS]

GOLF: 82 rounds of golf — average of one round every 12 days [source: Mark Knoller, CBS –Fox News Tracking]

REPOSSESSIONS: More than 2.4 million homes have been repossessed for failure to pay their mortgage [source: RealtyTrac]

BANKRUPTCIES: Some 4 million total (business and non-business) bankruptcies [source: American Bankruptcy Institute]

GAS PRICES: Up more than 80% and has been over $3/gallon every day in 2011 [source: AAA/OPIS]

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS: Almost $380 billion spent by federal government on unemployment benefits [source: Treasury Dept and CBO]

ECONOMIC TEAM: 7 key members of Obama’s Economic team have resigned [Summers, Romer, Bernstein, Orszag, Goolsbee Volker and Rouse] [source: News Reports/Tracking]

HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS: Health insurance premiums (family coverage) up 9% this year and 12.7% from 2009
[source: Kaiser Family Foundation]

MEDIAN INCOME: Real median household income in the U.S. in 2010 was $49,445, a -2.3% decline from 2009 [source: Census Dept]

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: Spent more than $26 billion on the EPA – FY2011’s spending will be about 40% more than FY2009 [source: Treasury and OMB]

Two years ago. I wonder what they are saying now.


>> ^quantumushroom:

January 22, 2010
Public Agrees With Court: Campaign Money Is "Free Speech"

January 22, 2010
Public Agrees With Court: Campaign Money Is "Free Speech"

I reject your sanitized version of protestors, Reich. Drug use, rapes, murders and random deaths are in every camp, all the attendant chaos one would expect when socialists, anarchists, code pink commies and feed-the-flames libmedia descend anywhere. These protestors are not even 1% of the 99%.

@SDGundamX

Yogi has his/her own, personal issues with reality, so jumping in with the "Doctor" doesn't gain you a whole lot of juice.

Assuming 2.3% is correct (and it isn't even close*), that makes only 161 million, according to you, that could potentially care about the death of Mr. Hitchens. Not very Christian of the rest of you lot, now is it? I'm not even sure what your point is, yet you dedicated a whole paragraph to it. What do you think is the minimum number of caring human beings required for someone's death to matter? Why does it seem so important for you to believe that so few will care about Hitchen's death? Are you trying to dismiss his importance in this world by claiming only a few TENS OF MILLIONS of people will miss him? How many people will give a shit when YOU die?

Shinyblurry seems to have some delusion that witnessing here in the lion's den of VideoSift will score him bonus points with Allah. His every comment and video is part of a personal crusade to save us lowly heathens, and I find it offensive and TIRESOME. His comments used to get a "fair shake" from me. Now, they don't. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who is tired of his relentless, delusional lunacy. The only thing that can truly save him are an unmarked black van with heavily tinted windows, some nice men in white coats, and about 6 months of heavy deprogramming.

Christopher Hitchens is my mf'ing jesus! He hath shown me the way! Religion is TRULY the root of all evil in this world. Hitchens is one of those "crazy ones" who "move the human race forward". Religion will die a slow death, but, unlike Hitchen's legacy, it WILL die. We may even get to Mars after all.

All I have is some Momokawa saké, but I'm sure you'll understand, Mr. Hitchens. Bottoms up!




*It's around 14%. Yep, about 1 Billion atheists/agnostics (and rising).

The only thing you proved is there are idiots in every crowd.

This is certainly true. I in no way mean to imply that the offenses were representative of "all OWS participants". Obviously not all OWS people are doing these kinds of things. But there is enough of it going on though that it is becoming a serious issue with how the public views OWS as a whole.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576637082965745362.html

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/angry_manhattan_residents_lambast_RjpTU0jG2z9yrgf5o4bRcO#ixzz1bPHgxmGZ

Manhattan residents are sick of them. The data shows that the OWS is vastly different in ideological and demographic makeup than average voters. This is very different from the Tea Party, which solidly reflects actual American voters...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/Tea-Partiers-Fairly-Mainstream-Demographics.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_cont
ent=morelink&utm_term=Politics

Really - when an 'average person' encounters the OWS movement, it is like walking into the Star Wars Cantina. We hike up an eyebrow and think, "Who the heck are THESE guys?" The average American has a family, a job, and social obligations. He doesn't want to ditch all that to go camp out in a filthy tent-city with a bunch of noisy, disaffected college kids. The average American has a 401K, investments, and other property. They don't want to blow up Wall Street. They just want Wall Street to no longer be the beneficiary of government favoritism - which is a GOVERNMENT problem, not a Wall Street problem. The average person has far more in common with the Tea Party than with OWS.

OWS doesn't want a specific message because that means they'd have to defend a position. When anyone comes at them and tries to have an actual discussion, they dive back into the tall grass of being a 'vague movement' with nothing but vagueries and sloganeering. The average american demands better than that. OWS is never going to be anything but a fringe group unless they can come up with a specific message.

Now, this vid bozo seems quite proud of the fact that they have no real message beyond "we are the 99%" and "we don't like Wall Street!" Well, that's fine. Most Americans are 'mad' at Wall Street if you only keep the topic vague, undefined, and ephemeral. The problem is that OWS is using that vague, ephemeral, nebulous "we're mad at Wall Street" message and saying that it means "most of America" agrees with the OWS movement. That is blatantly false, because while both OWS and 'average americans' can both agree on that generalization, they are as different as night and day when you actually get down to any specifics.

And that really is the problem for OWS. When the rubber meets the road and these yahoos try to actually build a REAL movement (as opposed to just a tent city of malcontents) then the effort falls apart because you can't build a large movement without a specific message. And the INSTANT that any of the OWS movement ever coughs up any specifics on what they want, then they drive away average folks like me like they were plutonium.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Federal government wastes half of every tax dollar.
So what's this magic millionaire money going to do that the spending addicts haven't done already?


I agree that the government wastes shitloads of money but your link is not worthy as a citation. That's the results of a poll in which they ask people how many cents on the dollar they think the federal government wastes. It shows that mistrust is at an all-time high, not that waste is at an all-time high.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149543/Americans-Say-Federal-Gov-Wastes-Half-Every-Dollar.aspx

>> ^shinyblurry:

You have to realize that a lot of these sites that atheists congregate on are just echo chambers. The majority of Christians aren't going to be spending any time on sites that showcase secular entertainment and interests. Here is another survey to brighten your day: http://www.gallup-international.com/ContentFiles/millennium15.asp


Rofl, 87% belong to a religion, but only 32% actually attend a service one or more times a week...

I believe le bible refers to that as 'lip service' and it's not something to boast about... X D

/religioustrollfail, can I get an amen?!?!?

You have to realize that a lot of these sites that atheists congregate on are just echo chambers. The majority of Christians aren't going to be spending any time on sites that showcase secular entertainment and interests. Here is another survey to brighten your day: http://www.gallup-international.com/ContentFiles/millennium15.asp


>> ^dannym3141:
<spits out water, jim carey style>
OH COME ON! ONLY 16 PER CENT BELIEVE IN STRICT EVOLUTION WITH NO GOD INVOLVED?
WHAT THE FUCK!?

Hmmmmm.....so liberalism in America has spawned Teabaggers and right wing republicans? 'Cause those lines would describe their profile and behavior very well.

Quite to the contrary. The Tea Party is certainly not shy about its objectives - but they are not violent. That particular dubious honor is held by liberals or the various stooges of liberal groups.

Let us bury this myth about Tea Parties being some sort of radical fringe group. They are not. The Tea Party and Tea Party sympathizers are the mainstream of the United States.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspx

However - there is one thing that the Tea Party is conspicuously NOT - and that is a bunch of violent liberals. The Tea Party is generally comprised of educated, working citizens who are sick of the government's impossible fiscal policies. By definition that means they trend away from the Democrats and liberalism.

However - that does not in any way mean they are anything like these rioting yobs who are disgruntled largely over nothing, and who use violence as a means of alleviating their ennui.

@dgandhi

I don't understand why all self-reported data is "bad" data. Yes, self-reporting by itself is unreliable data. The problem with self-reporting is that you can't be sure the reason people checked a box on the survey is the reason the researcher thinks they checked the box. That's why it is so crucial to triangulate your data--for example with follow-up interviews and observation of how people actually behave (which, for example, Gallup doesn't do). Self-reported data is not "bad" so much as it is incomplete if that's all you're going to work with.

Case in point, in the article you linked to it turns out many people who only attended church once or twice a month reported themselves as attending "regularly." Yet these same people did not in fact differ in commitment to the religion as those that attended weekly--which is why they chose "regularly." So basically the Gallup poll provided an incomplete picture of what was going on (as did the weekly church attendance count--people going to church less often didn't necessarily mean people abandoning the religion entirely). In my comment to you, I was criticizing not the article you linked to but the polls cited by this video which were only surveys and not triangulated in any sort of way. Those are the ones I find unconvincing--for the same reasons the article you linked to found the Gallup data unconvincing. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. Also, have you read Ecklund's research? I would be interested in hearing your critique of the methodology used.

As to your second point, I disagree with several of your statements. You can in fact be religious and not believe in the existence of a good deity. Most Buddhists sects have been doing it for thousands of years. There was another Sift on here a while back about an aboriginal group that had only one deity--and it was evil. It basically existed to torment them. Are they not religious?

I also disagree that belief is binary. What empirical evidence do you have that belief is binary? Does anything in neuroscience support this? "Kind of" believing in something sounds a lot like agnosticism to me... you're not sure something is out there, but you're also not willing to rule out the possibility that it exists either. This guy explains why belief can't be binary a lot better than I can.

Now, the information in this video is questioning what would happen if we deported all atheists. It seems clear from the examples of atheists they show that they are referring to self-proclaimed atheists. The atheistempire poll cited by this video clearly states that 7% of the people polled described themselves as either atheist or agnostic. It's not the pinnacle of research by any means, which is why I asked if you have any other data about self-proclaimed atheists. That was the reason I was asking you to keep things simple, by the way. It's not that I don't believe there aren't a lot of hypocrites out there who claim they are religious but act in a different way--I most certainly do believe that. For the purposes of commenting on this video though, I'm completely unconcerned with them.

As an end note (to what unfortunately became a rather lengthy post--sorry), let me just explain that the only reason I commented on this video was because I was disgusted by how completely half-baked most of the sources were and at the completely unjustified conclusions it came to. Now, in your original reply to me you suggested that 10% was a conservative number for the number of atheists in the U.S. And I took that to mean self-proclaimed atheists, which I found hard to believe (which is why I asked for a source). But it's clear to me now that when you say "atheist" you are referring to everyone--the non-practicing Christian who only shows up for Christmas and Easter, the hypocrite who doesn't practice what he preaches, etc.--into the term atheist. And I agree with you--if you lump all those people together, yeah, you'll get more than 10%. But I don't agree with lumping them all together any more than I agree with your "binary" definition of belief.

>> ^dgandhi:

http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RIN%20Vol.1No.1
/RIN%20Vol.1No.2/Church_lies_polling.htm
>> ^SDGundamX:
Show me some evidence of that and I'll believe you. Otherwise, I'll stick to the numbers that actually exist.



Sorry for the late reply, work has been a little crazy lately.

Thanks for posting that link. It was an interesting read. Unfortunately, it didn't really persuade me that much. I'm not sure if you clicked the links I supplied or not, but the sources I cited didn't just do a simple survey--they did a full-on academic year-long research projects that followed up with in-depth interviews of the participants and structured data analysis. And they weren't asking about church attendance but about beliefs. But if you look at the sources cited by this video, on the other hand, most of them follow the "Gallup method" of sending out a random survey and not following up on it.

If you've got some other links, I'd be interested in reading them.

EDIT: I'm really most interested in any evidence that 10% is a conservative number for the number of atheists in the U.S., because it seems from the studies I find that at this point 7% is probably about right and maybe even a little bit of an overestimate. Just to be clear, these studies are talking about people who are full-on self-described atheists, not people who are kind of on the fence. It doesn't make sense to try to count the people who are on the fence because it gets too confusing... do you include as an atheist a guy who goes to church every week but doesn't follow any of his religion's tenets? Do you include people who think "something" is out there but are turned off by the idea of--and don't participate in--organized religion?

>> ^chilaxe:

Just to fact-check Maher - Latin America, the Muslim world, and Africa probably all have much higher rates of creationism than the US.
So the capitals around the world laughing at creationism that Maher refers to would probably be mostly restricted to select parts of Europe and Asia.


Lets call a spade a spade: this isnt a factcheck, and it isn't really applicable to anything of Maher said. Especially as Maher's final remark in the video is obviously hyper-bole.

But even so, more education means less religiosity - and ergo less belief in a supernatural creation of the world. World leaders tend to be better educated (no source). So what Maher was getting at is creationists holding power is a anomaly amongst developed nations, which marries with the data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
http://www.gallup.com/poll/7729/does-more-educated-really-less-religious.aspx
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9786-why-doesnt-america-believe-in-evolution.html