They are also places, as Ferdinand T ennies observed in the 1880s, of weakened kinship ties, contractual relationships, extreme individualism, and where traditional bonds of shared sentiments and religious faith are replaced by monetary obsessions. Summarized below is the relationship between where one was raised and attitudes toward premarital sex both in raw percentages and when the data is standardized controlling for sex, age, religiosity, and education. Among the supposed hallmarks of the modern mind is the reliance on scientific ways of knowing whereby fiction can be separated from fact. Less than 50 percent of American adults understand that the Earth annually orbits the sun, only one in five could explain what DNA is, and but 9 percent knew what a molecule is. Let's examine the relationship between Americans' scientific knowledge and their confidence in the leadership of the scientific establishment.
Nature is really a fierce struggle for survival of the fittest.
Human beings developed from earlier species of animals. I am going to name some institutions in this country. It is interesting to note that while more than six out of ten American adults either agree or strongly agree that nature's game is the survival of the fittest, more than half disagree that humans evolved from earlier species. Click here for further analyses of Americans' attitudes toward science and their concerns about global warming.