Richard Dawkins was not very pleased with the latest evolution survey in Great Britain. Image from Wikipedia.
Joel Kontinen
Charles Darwin is not having much of a heyday in his native UK on the eve of his 200th birthday. In a recent survey of 2,060 adults, 51 per cent stated they believed that evolution is incapable of explaining the complexity of life and a designer is needed.
In addition, almost a third (32%) believed that God created the world under 10 000 years ago.
Commenting on the survey conducted by ComRes, Richard Dawkins said that most people are “pig ignorant” about science.
Science is obviously Dawkinsese for “evolution”.
The world outside Richard Dawkins’ mind appears to see reality in somewhat different terms. Even some prominent British scientists and academics suspect that Darwinian evolution is wrong. They see evidences of design in nature.
There seems to be an interesting trend in Britain and elsewhere: the more Old Darwin is promoted, the less the public trusts his theories. Perhaps it has to do with the clothes emperor Charles is wearing.
Professor Dawkins would probably not be able to wash his hands entirely clean of the blame. For instance, he has not always been overly careful with his data, such as the supposed poor design of the human eye, the existence of memes or the selfishness of his own genes.
“Pig ignorant” is a rather interesting adjective phrase. I was unable to find its definition in any of my dictionaries but I suspect that Richard Dawkins did not use it as a compliment.
The expression suggests that theories of language evolution are miserably outdated. English is definitely not evolving; it is devolving, thanks in part to prof. Dawkins.
Source:
Wynne-Jones, Jonathan. 2009. Poll reveals public doubts over Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Telegraphy. co.uk. (31 January 2009). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4410927/Poll-reveals-public-doubts-over-Charles-Darwins-theory-of-evolution.html
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