[escepticos] Encuesta

["Antoni Mont" <ANTONIAM@...>]

Hola,

Hace algún tiempo, en una visita a la página web de "Philosophers'
Magazine", participé en una encuesta acerca de creencias personales. Me
llamó la atención porque el temario recordaba bastante nuestro
"formulario de inmigración". La encuesta ya ha sido publicada. Han
recogido casi 1000 respuestas, y me parece que vale la pena echarle
un vistazo. La incluyo en formato "plain text" para no sobrecargar el
envio; espero que no os llegue distorsionada. Incluyo también el
comentario de la revista.

A cada pregunta (entre comillas) le siguen los resultados, discriminados
por sexo en primer lugar, por el grado de relación que tiene el
encuestado con la disciplina en segundo lugar, y globalmente en tercer
lugar.

Las cifras que siguen a cada opción indican, por este orden:
Hombres, mujeres // estudiantes, licenciados, docentes, otros // Total


"A personal God exists"
Believe         29% 36% 31% 25% 29% 35% 31%
Don't Believe 71% 64% 69% 75% 71% 65% 69%

"Gods exist (i.e., polytheism)"
Believe         8% 10% 14% 5% 5% 11% 9%
Don't believe 92% 90% 86% 95% 95% 89% 91%

"Aliens have visited earth from other planets"
Believe          7% 15% 10% 5% 4% 13% 9%
Don't believe 93% 85% 90% 95% 96% 87% 91%

"Darwinian evolution accounts for the emergence of complex
organisms (including humans)"
Believe         79% 67% 65% 80% 85% 74% 76%
Don't believe 21% 33% 35% 20% 15% 26% 24%

"The first human beings were created and put on Earth by God"
Believe         13% 19% 16% 10% 13% 17% 14%
Don’t believe 87% 81% 84% 90% 87% 83% 86%

"What does around comes around (Karma)"
Believe         15% 33% 22% 15% 10% 27% 20%
Don’t believe 85% 67% 78% 85% 90% 73% 80%

"Morality is culturally relative (i.e., moral judgements can
only be made in terms of the standards of specific cultures)"
Believe         39% 46% 48% 36% 16% 56% 41%
Don't believe 61% 54% 52% 64% 84% 44% 59%

"Human beings have NOT yet landed a spacecraft on the moon"
Believe         2% 5% 3% 3% 2% 2% 2%
Don’t believe 98% 95% 97% 97% 98% 98% 98%


A training in philosophy will make you more likely to believe in
Darwinian evolution, but less likely to believe that morality is
culturally relative. These are two of the findings of a striking new
survey conducted by The Philosphers' Magazine over the last few months.

TPM has asked nearly 1000 visitors to its internet site about their
background in philosophy and their beliefs on matters ranging from God
to moon-landings. The aim has been to determine what impact, if any, a
training in philosophy has on the way that people view the world and
their place in it. The survey has thrown up all manner of interesting
patterns of belief, but the most significant in terms of the impact of a
philosophical background are those to do with Darwinism and cultural
relativity.

Asked whether they believe that Darwinian evolution accounts for the
emergence of complex organisms (including humans), more than four-fifths
of professional philosophers replied that they do. In contrast, only
about 60% of philosophy students and three-quarters of interested
lay-people people replied the same way. This kind of result was repeated
for the question on morality, only in reverse. Nearly 50% of philosophy
students claimed to believe that moral judgements can only be made in
terms of the standards of specific cultures, compared with one third of
philosophy graduates and less than 20% of professional lecturers who
professed the same belief.

Of the other interesting patterns to emerge, perhaps the most
significant is that there is a systematic difference in the beliefs
reported by men and women. For example, about 15% of men profess a
belief in "Karma", compared to about a third of all women. And
similarly, women polled in this survey are significantly more likely to
believe in a personal God and "creationism" than men. Interestingly,
they are less impressed with the claims of Darwinism than are men.

Finally, students of philosophy might be interested to hear that there
are patterns of belief that they broadly share with their teachers.
About a third of both groups believe that there is a personal God and
hardly any of either group believe that humans have not landed on the
moon!

A destacar que en la edición impresa se previene contra la tentación de
sacar conclusiones apresuradas sobre la aparentemente mayor credulidad
de las mujeres, haciendo consideraciones tales como que "si hombres y
mujeres son criados (brought up) en sociedades que tienden a ver
conexiones entre masculinidad y racionalidad, no es sorprendente que
ello se refleje en sus respectivas visiones del mundo", o que el
concepto mismo de "racionalidad" puede ser una construcción
social -masculina para más señas-.


http://www.philosophers.co.uk/poll_results.htm

Saludos,

Toni