Cluelessness and Religion: Correlation or Causation?

Astronomy: Exoplanet: a planet like earth?

NASA has found a new planet outside Earth’s solar system that is eerily similar to Earth in important aspects.

Scientists say the temperature on the surface of the planet, known as Kepler-22b, is about a comfy 72 degrees (22 Celsius). Its star could almost be a twin of Earth’s sun. It probably has water and land.

It was found in the middle of the habitable zone, making it the best potential target for life. However, getting there would take some time: Kepler-22b is about 600 light years away (A light year is the distance light travels in a year, or about 6 trillion miles.)

The discovery announced Monday was made by NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting telescope. This is the first time the agency has confirmed a planet outside Earth’s solar system in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold habitable zone. This is the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist. The planet is estimated to be 2.4 times the size of Earth, which would make it the smallest found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star like our sun.

Twice before astronomers have announced planets found in that zone, but neither was as promising. One was disputed; the other is on the hot edge of the zone. Kepler 22-B is the smallest and the best positioned of the more than 500 planets found to orbit stars beyond our solar system to have liquid water on its surface — among the ingredients necessary for life on Earth.

Science is interesting, huh? Well, not to everyone; in face many remain skeptical and some, downright hostile to science.
Is religion one reason why? There is some data that suggests that:

It also seems obvious that religion impedes acceptance of not just evolution, but science in general—at least that brand of science, like stem-cell research or work on global warming—that threatens religious views. That conclusion has just been buttressed by a new paper by Darren E. Sherkat in Social Science Quarterly, “Religion and scientific literacy in the United States.” Sherkat’s analysis plainly shows that even excluding issues of evolution, religion in America plays a substantial role in reducing science literacy. (I’m not sure if this paper is behind a paywall. If it is, email me and I’ll send it to you.)

Sherkat took data from the 2006 General Social Survey (GSS) collected by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) here at the University of Chicago, a survey of 4,510 randomly chosen Americans who were asked questions about their race, income, immigrant status, geographic region of residence, gender, urban or rural home, and so on. To a randomly sampled subset of 1,863 of these individuals, NORC gave a 13-question science literacy exam. Here’s what people were asked:

Surf to Jerry Coyne’s blog to find out.

But results were tabulated:

The percentage of correct answers on the science exam was strongly (and statistically significantly) affected by religious beliefs. Those who take the Bible as the literal word of God scored 54% correct, those who see the Bible as “inspired by God” got 68% correct, and those who see the Bible as a “book of fables” got 75% correct. This classification explained 13% of the total variation in science literacy. [...]

To put these figures in perspective, race accounts for 9% of the variation in science literacy, education for 20%, income 9%, and gender 4%.

Of course, I wonder if this is causation or correlation; does religion attract anti-intellectual people or does religion encourage one to become anti-intellectual?

So, what of religious liberals, say those who call themselves Christian but don’t take the Bible literally. I really wonder which miracles they cherry pick and why they choose those. Seriously.

Consider this woman:

It is easy to dismiss this obese, uneducated with missing teeth person. But one thing is sure: she understand that the Bible takes things like astrology and witchcraft very seriously. So if you don’t, then you don’t take the Bible seriously (which is a good thing, IMHO). But I wonder how much these liberal Christians really “believe”; astonishingly I have found that many of them see the world more or less as I do. I really wonder how many educated “Christians” really don’t believe in a personal deity that intervenes in the affairs of this universe.

Being Successful in the Republican Primary: be an idiot, or pretend to be one…

Workout notes
I kind of got off to a bumbling start this morning. The weights: same old, same old; I did get 8 reps with 160 in the pull down, did my dumbbell presses standing up and got 10 x 135, 4 x 170, 4 x 170 and 9 x 155 on the bench. Yes, the bench has the lower rack for emergencies, but there weren’t enough people in the gym for me to push my limits.

Swim: 10 x 100 on the 2 (slow), 18:17 for 1000, 200 cool down. There were people in the pool today. One woman was pretty fast; I couldn’t stay with her. I know; that doesn’t mean that she is fast.

Republicans
Paul Krugman is less than impressed with the Republican presidential field:

There are two crucial things you need to understand about the current state of American politics. First, given the still dire economic situation, 2012 should be a year of Republican triumph. Second, the G.O.P. may nonetheless snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — because Herman Cain was not an accident.

Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year — and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!).

And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.

So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or totally clueless

Krugman goes on to note that Mitt Romney is not a stupid man, but he plays the party base…or at least attempts to. Then Krumgan talks about Newt Gingrich:

And Mr. Gingrich has some advantages none of the previous challengers had. He is by no means the deep thinker he imagines himself to be, but he’s a glib speaker, even when he has no idea what he’s talking about. And my sense is that he’s also very good at doublethink — that even when he knows what he’s saying isn’t true, he manages to believe it while he’s saying it. So he may not implode like his predecessors.

The larger point, however, is that whoever finally gets the Republican nomination will be a deeply flawed candidate. And these flaws won’t be an accident, the result of bad luck regarding who chose to make a run this time around; the fact that the party is committed to demonstrably false beliefs means that only fakers or the befuddled can get through the selection process.

Of course, given the terrible economic picture and the tendency of voters to blame whoever holds the White House for bad times, even a deeply flawed G.O.P. nominee might very well win the presidency. But then what?

Might…maybe. But maybe not.