Scientists are Idiots Who Spread Crazy Rumors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/22/republicans-climate-change_n_7119158.html

     This article by Katie Sola reveals the result of a recent Gallup poll on climate change. The poll discovered that 59% of people who identified as conservative Republicans stated they do not believe we are experiencing climate change, and 70% of the same group don't believe that climate change is caused by humans. 40% don't believe it will ever happen at all, and 19% believe it will affect future generations instead of us. This poll included around 6,000 Americans of various ideologies and took place from 2010 to 2015. While the general scientific community agrees that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are resulting in climate change, most conservative Republicans believe that pollution and rising temperatures are unrelated. They are the only group identified to have a majority believe this.
     *Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale, inhale...* So, let's discuss this rationally. Like evolution and gravity, most scientists agree on climate change and the relationship it has with carbon dioxide. While it's true there have been extreme changes in temperature in the past (for example, during the ice ages), scientists state that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere never varied more than 100 parts per million and that the range was between 180 ppm to 280 ppm. Today, they state that carbon dioxide levels are up to 400 ppm. And... I could go on and on. But I will not. I refuse to spend my night refuting people who are so resistant to science. I mean, seriously?! So you're just going to let us pollute and screw up the atmosphere, happily sitting there telling everyone there's no way we could cause any of the climate change problem?! Or, ooh, I know, let's pretend it's all made up by the crazy, stupid scientific community, who are of course always wrong when they reach a general consensus. Do you know how competitive scientists are? They love proving each other wrong! So if they all agree on something, and everyone's put tons of money into research on the topic, maybe you should believe them and start helping to fix it! Ok *Deep breaths, deep breaths*. The main reason this bothers me is that one person keeping their factory from going green or telling others they don't need to worry about carbon dioxide levels can undo the work of hundreds of people trying to protect the environment. If you have a baby, and twenty people work to keep it away from germs, and then someone just comes up and pukes on it, then it doesn't matter how hard everyone worked (weird analogy I know but I'm super tired right now). So yeah. I am displeased with these people. And continually disheartened by society in general. Yep. Good night.

Religion - How Much Do You Know?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/14/map-these-are-the-worlds-least-religious-countries/?tid=sm_fb

    In this article, Rick Noack explains a recent Gallup poll on world religion. Keep in mind, Gallup is considered relatively accurate and unbiased in its polls. As a note, the options were strongly atheist, non religious, religious or unsure. The survey, which focused on 65 countries, found that 63% of the world is religious. China is the least religious country in the world with the highest number of atheists or nonbelievers (90%- most being atheist), while Sweden is the second (76%- equally atheists and nonbelievers). The most religious country is Thailand (94%). Most young people in the world are more religious than their elders, unlike the United States, where the reverse is true. As countries become wealthier and more advanced, they tend to become less religious (here again, America is an extremely obvious exception). Educated people tend to be less religious. America was 56% religious, 33% non religious, 6% atheist, and 5% unsure. This makes it the 41st most religious country (with 1st being most religious) out of 65.
     I find this survey extremely interesting. I feel like I definitely expected the number of religious people to be higher, I guess because people always talk about how the religious majority is forced to concede to a non religious minority, like a '90% obeys the 1%' thing. But it's more like a third of America as opposed to a 1%. Gotta say though, ain't many of those non religious people living in South Dakota. So probably why I thought there weren't many.