45% of Americans still believe "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so". Which is the same percentage as the last time this poll was conducted in February 2001.

Read the rest here.

[ 19 November 2004: Message edited by: Snuckles ]

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Although 45% of Americans believe that humans were created by God pretty much in their present form at one time 10,000 years ago -- a view that corresponds to the account of creation as presented in the Bible -- only 34% of Americans believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word:

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Originally posted by WingNut:
How many Americans right this minute are engaged in an attempt at counting the number of angels on the head of a pin?

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Scientists have unearthed remains of a primate that could have been ancestral not only to humans but to all great apes, including chimps and gorillas.
The partial skeleton of this 13-million-year-old "missing link" was found by palaeontologists working at a dig site near Barcelona in Spain.

Details of the sensational discovery appear in Science magazine.

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Poll: Creationism Trumps Evolution

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(CBS) Americans do not believe that humans evolved, and the vast majority says that even if they evolved, God guided the process. Just 13 percent say that God was not involved. But most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Support for evolution is more heavily concentrated among those with more education and among those who attend religious services rarely or not at all.

There are also differences between voters who supported Kerry and those who supported Bush: 47 percent of John Kerry’s voters think God created humans as they are now, compared with 67 percent of Bush voters.

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[ 23 November 2004: Message edited by: Snuckles ]

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Meanwhile, in the real world possible missing link found in Spain....

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The way they used to teach the origin of the species to high school students in this sleepy town of 1,800 people in southern Pennsylvania, said local school board member Angie Yingling disapprovingly, was that "we come from chimpanzees and apes."

Not anymore.

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Their ninth-grade curriculum now must include the theory of "intelligent design," which posits that life is so complex and elaborate that some greater wisdom has to be behind it.

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This intelligent design stuff is must be the funniest thing I've ever heard.

Intelligent design? Whoever designed me wasn't that bright.

They gave me nipples...I'm still trying to figure out what they're for (I should point out I'm male).

They gave me a vermifrom appendix, which apparently exists so that I can die in extremem pain from appendicitis, which has a lifetime occurence of 7%.

They gave me fingernails, which would be great if I could use them for something besides chewing (perhaps that's what they're for).

Earlobes, I guess they're like the fins on a '56 Caddie...neat, but useless.

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It's a throwback to a time when paleontologists thought humans had evolved from apes -- that is, apes of the kind that exist today

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To be even more precise, it is a throwback to the concept of "the Great Chain of Being". According to that theory, there was an ascending order of animals, culminating in man. It was like a staircase, with one and only one species occupying each step.

The idea was that one of the links of the chain was missing, the transitional on between ape and man. Now we know that evolution is like a bush, not a staircase, with multiple associated species, dead ends, etc.