Ha! Take that, you stupid Turks!

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I find this graph easier to read. YMMV.

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Those colors are... eerily appropriate.

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That survey is incomplete. They needed to ask people if they believed humans were engineered as a slave race to an alien civilization.

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I think we are all descended from Turks.

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Weirdly, that tickmark at the bottom is not at 50%. Or at least it doesn't line up with the 50% tick at the top.

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The bottom mark is a line from the white space to its explanation.

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I knew I loved Denmark and Sweden for a reason!

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From what I hear, the native flora and fauna of Iceland are so weird and awesome that they pretty much insist a belief in evolution. See, e.g., Bjork.

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Actually, I think thats exactly why Iceland and other arctic-circle countries are so high on the list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

Its all about the gulls!

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...on the other hand the gene pool of the icelanders seems to be pretty limited (sorry for the shitty music on that page)

does that mean inbreeding leads to the "believe" in darwinism?

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WTF? Why isn't Canada on that list? Don't tell me the proportion of Canadians who believe in evolution is smaller than that of Americans! *disturbed*

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OR, it's so high that it's higher than Iceland!

... Yeah, unfortunately not, eh? I'm wondering where Canada is too.

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They weren't allowed to administer the survey because it wasn't in English and French.

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Hooray bible belt. Something needs to be done about those people.

I say we nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

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I did some digging on the CIA factbook, and Iceland has less than 3 percent atheists, and the US has 10 percent. So thats not it.

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I don't know. Its a pretty sweep generalization to make from a relatively small sample size. I'd really like to know more about the statistics and make up of the various groups in each country - especially how well they align. I'd also like to know how they validated the question. Thats just me though.

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N=1000 on yes/no/not sure surveys is supposed to put the 95% confidence interval at ±2.2% or so, IIRC.

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I've always loved the Nordic countries. Sweden, Norway and Finland are amazing even if you don't have money, and Iceland is fun if you do. (Never done Danemark, sad to say.)

That is, if you go in for cold, which I do. Finnish is an absurd language and Icelandic is weird, but if you know German (or another germanic, but German is the easiest baseline for picking up the others) most of the others (including Dutch) aren't that hard to pick up. And if you want to immigrate to Finnland, Swedish is sufficient.

Finnland looks most appealing, in terms of governmental policy and opportunity. Iceland looks most interesting, but harder both requirement-wise and language-wise. Also, we'd be doing tech, and they're weak there, so moving our company/jobs would be more difficult.

Of course, none of this matters for the topic at hand, because we ain't gonna spawn, so I don't care directly what kind of superstition they cram kid's head with, more than abstractly. I'm keeping my genes to myself.

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Sweden is #1 in the world on life span, infant mortality, poverty rate, literacy, and something else that I can't remember. They have their national debt, inflation, and cost of living well under control these days. However, a lot of people are put off by their two-bracket income tax system (0% on whatever you make under about 10% above the median wage, and, in Stockholm at least, 57% on everything above that.) People point to the Nordic country's suicide rate, but that is commensurate with sunlight in all the arctic regions, not the government or economy.

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It's just another example of the wretched Left-Wing Media trying to make the US look stupid. We wouldn't look so bad if they'd included the Vatican.

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Actually, Catholics tend to be cool with evolution too, so.

In was as a Catholic school student, in fact, that I not only learned about evolution but was informed (by a priest!) that the early Genesis stories were creation myths. That was pretty world-shaking for wee prog, right there.

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I wish to draw your attention to the fact that Turkey is supposed to join the EU in the next couple of years.
No mention of the fact that more than 50% of turks are raving creationists.

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Every time Turkey tries to join, some other country raises an issue. France said "non" to the EU constitution because of Les turques. Austria was the last country to make a big deal out of it. Not sure about the Finns - they currently hold the EU presidency. It maybe a while before they join the EU; I hope they so. I've remodeled de Gaulles definition of Europe "Atlantic to the Urals" to "Atlantic to Alaska" just for this occasion.

One of the reasons that Iceland maybe so cool about Evolution is that they recently surveyed the entire population for DNA so, in effect, they've been exposed to a huge public information program about evolution. I should speak to my mate Dicky Dawkins - well, he's more a friend of a friend really - about making a big BBC 10 part series about Evolution (along the lines of Life On Earth). They could sell it to PBS. Done right, I'm sure that would change the figures.

As a side-thought, I'm sure the American Christian Right would want to have "balance" by producing their own version. Roffles will ensue!

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The Bible also says π = 3.

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Did you get your bible in Indiana?

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I was starting to wonder why Britain was so low (6th place) and then I remembered that my (well educated, smart) mother also believes the moon landings were faked. Then I stopped wondering!

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I find it bizarre that such an enduringly superstitious and unreasonable culture could boast such a string of scientific and economic successes. You'd think that Americans would have a lot of difficulty engaging the real world productively, but that seems not to be the case. What gives?

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Brain drain.

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I am taking this moment to cash in on my German citizenship.

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