7% of Brazilians believe in a Flat Earth

[daqq]

Oh good, we're going back to the Dark Ages. It's been such a hoot the last time around.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/06/brazil-flat-earth-conference-terra-plana

[bsfeechannel]

These guys are a bunch of losers. Everyone knows that the flat universe is the New Bossa.

[tszaboo]

Bigger problem is: 84% of people on this planet believe in "the man in the sky". And it is 93% if you exclude China and Japan.

[magic]

That's because to 90% of people it simply makes no practical difference whatsoever which shape the planet is and what's in the sky.

[Gyro]

7% of Brazilians believe in a Flat Earth

I was wondering why the Brazilian rainforest was getting flattened. 

[Halcyon]

Bigger problem is: 84% of people on this planet believe in "the man in the sky". And it is 93% if you exclude China and Japan.

Those figures surprise me. In 2016, 30.1% of Australians identified as being non-religious (up from 25.3% in the previous Census). That also doesn't include those people who merely "identify" as being of a certain religion simply because that's how their parents raised them, not because they go to church or believe in any kind of god.

I wouldn't be surprised if that figure is closer to 40% by the 2021 Census.

[golden_labels]

“Man in the sky” by itself is not a huge problem, as it is a part of “why?” — the question for religion, not science.
Flat Earth is an answer to the “how?” — the question for reason. And flatearthers are rejecting the best known method of reasoning.

Do you want another reason to smash your head against a wall?
How many people believe humans evolved from other species?
 

[SiliconWizard]

“Man in the sky” by itself is not a huge problem, as it is a part of “why?” — the question for religion, not science.
Flat Earth is an answer to the “how?” — the question for reason. And flatearthers are rejecting the best known method of reasoning.

Do you want another reason to smash your head against a wall?
How many people believe humans evolved from other species?
 

Well, I always take those surveys with a pinch of salt. But like with the flat Earth thing, the view on evolution in a given country seems pretty strongly related to the relative importance of religion in said country. So this is not very surprising at all.

Contrary to what you may have implied above, the why and how for those topics are strongly related for many people.

[george.b]

As a Brazilian, I'm quite surprised.

I thought that figure would be higher.

[golden_labels]

Well, I always take those surveys with a pinch of salt.

Why? The sample size is over 44 thousand people (approx. 1.3k/country), which is nice size. If you are afraid of trolls: they are on both sides, so they mostly nullify each other, and the reminder is unlikely to be huge — ­even with extreme values like 10% the general image on this chart is not changed. The trolls are expected to reject evolution^{(citation needed)}, so there would be a negative correlation between that and “not sure” if they would inflate the anti-evolution camp numbers. But we clearly have the opposite. I see no reason to not believe that survey unless proven wrong.

But like with the flat Earth thing, the view on evolution in a given country seems pretty strongly related to the relative importance of religion in said country. So this is not very surprising at all.

Contrary to what you may have implied above, the why and how for those topics are strongly related for many people.

The very same research doesn’t support that. First of all, there is a difference between US and European countries in correlation between various factors and the answers, which means that there is no single, one-factor model suitable for the whole world. For US the main factor seems to be the hijacking of the discussion by politicians — which, unsurprisingly, is the expected primary factor not only for accepting evolution. While in US there is solid correlation between fundamentalist religious views and rejection of evolution, it is not covering non-fundamentalists, it is much weaker in Europe and there is a known causative relation that goes from politics to religious views which explains the correlation. Finally, everywhere there is correlation between literacy and rejection of evolution, which — again — has known causative relation associated with it.⁽¹⁾

Anyway, let’s see the data. For all the countries from this research, I have charted percentage of evolution supporters and the corresponding percentage of religious people. Data based on CIA Factbook, with the exception of Denmark, for which I used whatever Wikipedia provided. 3 countries marked with red squares, Denmark included, have uncertain data due to various factors.⁽²⁾

The only thing that clearly increases with the amount of religious people is variance.

Do not oversimplify things. In particular things as complex and having as many mutual dependencies and feedback loops with other subjects as religion does.

____
⁽¹⁾ Literacy is a proxy for education, which increases amount of scientifically proven knowledge compared to knowledge of other kind. You may try to disprove the last statement though, as I don’t really recall ever seeing any research that would confirm that — it is taken for granted that education has that effect.   
⁽²⁾ E.g. Turkey, depending on the source used, varies between 0% (unrealistic official data) to 13%, and those values may or may not include or miss people who should be counted as non-religious.

[magic]

The only thing that clearly increases with the amount of religious people is variance.

Because the religious answer "no" and the atheists answer "yes"

In America the question "do you believe in evolution" really means "do you want to bake cakes for homosexuals and have your children indoctrinated into socialism" and stuff like that.
Due to the 1st amendment, religion is tightly tied into politics and while I have no doubt that many Christians genuinely believe in things like Young Earth Creationism and Flat Earth, half of them wouldn't believe if they had no immediate motivation and local social pressure for that. There is simply no reason to believe those things, as evidenced by plenty of Christians in Eastern Europe who wouldn't even think of any of that.

It's just the way America works

[Zucca]

Before they lock it...

in my experience there is no true religion without reason, nor true reason without religion.

That said I disappear from here, I have a lot to fix on my bench.

[SiliconWizard]

Well, I always take those surveys with a pinch of salt.

Why? The sample size is over 44 thousand people (approx. 1.3k/country), which is nice size.

Sociology is a soft science. It should never be taken at face value IMO. I actually think all surveys should be taken with a pinch of salt, there are known bias effects however large your sample size. We're not dealing with an objective measurement here. And surveys dealing with controversial/sensitive/political... topics are particularly subject to biases.

Expressing your opinion with a limited number of options has been known to introduce biases for a long time. This is well known with voting, as an example (refer to Condorcet paradox for instance).

So yeah, I definitely don't put much trust in surveys. They are entertaining, but we should be cautious concluding anything from them.

Anyway, let’s see the data. For all the countries from this research, I have charted percentage of evolution supporters and the corresponding percentage of religious people.

The percentage of religious people? It's a figure that is notoriously hard to get right. In some countries, it's even against the law to gather any statistics on that. So I'm also pretty wary of those figures. They are estimations at best. But anyway, what I said about "the importance" of religion in a country is not necessarily directly linked to the number of religious people. It's about the place of religion in society in general. For instance, I consider the place of religion in the US society to be much more prevalent than in most western countries, and I'm not even sure there are more "religious" people.

To me, the list of countries in the posted graph seems to me like a rather relevant classification of the importance of religion in them, but I admit it's more a general impression (based on what I know about them) than on hard figures, which again are really hard to get and trust anyway...

All that said, you'll have a pretty hard time convincing me that religion and the view on evolution are separate things.
Same with flat earth.

Oh, and back to the topic, for those ready for this (I warned you ), you can take a look there: https://forum.tfes.org/

[soldar]

- "As for that," said Waldenshare, "sensible men are all of the same religion."
- "Pray, what is that?" inquired the Prince.
- "Sensible men never tell."

- Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881), Endymion (ch. LXXXI), borrowed from Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1st? Lord Shaftesbury)

[golden_labels]

The percentage of religious people? It's a figure that is notoriously hard to get right.

That figure is not that hard to acquire and legal obstacles are… well… only obstacles. The problem is that it is quite misleading, because what “religious” means depends on specific culture⁽¹⁾, and on top of that there are different shades of religiousness — that may even be a multidmensonal variable.

And I do agree with that. But, I would like to point out, it is not me who makes claims about simple connection between “people being religious” and “believing in flat Earth”.
____
⁽¹⁾ Try comparing the mix of Shinto and various shades of Buddhism in Japan with the diverse spectrum of Roman Catholicism in Poland.

[Gregg]

Those who like to ride whatever bandwagon they have chosen, can’t help but announce their point of view to anyone else; especially those who may have a different viewpoint.  And the desire to convert everyone else is overwhelming.   
Surveys generally are skewed from the start by how the questions are worded and the people that choose to respond; those who want to convert everyone are more likely to respond to a survey than those who prefer to be left alone.  Survey takers on the street are more likely to be biased than the general public and may choose people that they think will respond favorably to their point of view. 

[soldar]

I am reminded of an old Peanuts strip.

Charlie Brown is in class and the teacher says in old times they believed ridiculous things, like, they believed the world was flat!

Charlie Brown starts laughing hysterically. "Ha, ha, ha! In old times they believed the world was flat! How ridiculous!"

After a pause and collecting himself he asks... "So, what do we believe nowadays?".

I wish I could find it.

[SiliconWizard]

The percentage of religious people? It's a figure that is notoriously hard to get right.

That figure is not that hard to acquire and legal obstacles are… well… only obstacles. The problem is that it is quite misleading, because what “religious” means depends on specific culture⁽¹⁾, and on top of that there are different shades of religiousness — that may even be a multidmensonal variable.

So yes, you are just stating that, as I said, it is hard to get right. I didn't say hard to acquire. You can acquire any figure you want, especially when it means nothing.

And I do agree with that. But, I would like to point out, it is not me who makes claims about simple connection between “people being religious” and “believing in flat Earth”.

I was clearly saying that I was not even basing this on precise figures (which as we said are really to take with a pinch of salt), but on a very rough classification.

Making a connection between religion and flat Earth or evolution is kinda obvious, at least from a cultural POV. It doesn't take a Nobel prize to figure that out, and I'd be puzzled if anyone tried to even deny this.

Now obviously there are other factors, I didn't say otherwise. I don't quite agree it's an "oversimplification", but it's clearly a simplification. Reality is more nuanced and probably more subtle, but my point is that those nuances are almost impossible to get with any kind of survey anyway. So yeah, the topic of the survey itself is a simplification, and I simplified the link with religion.

[SiliconWizard]

Surveys generally are skewed from the start by how the questions are worded and the people that choose to respond

Exactly.

[soldar]

You have two options. Do you choose option A or option B?

[Avacee]

Surveys generally are skewed from the start by how the questions are worded and the people that choose to respond

Exactly.

Sir Humphrey would have surveys done showing the other 93% also believed in a flat earth as well as a round earth, a square earth, a doughnut shaped earth and that we're really supported by 4 elephants atop a giant turtle.

[chris_leyson]

Surveying is either plane or geodetic. Plane surveying asumes a flat earth and curvature of the earth is neglected. All triangles formed by joining survey lines are considered as plane triangles. It is employed for small survey works where errors due to the earth's shape are too small to matter. In geodetic surveying the curvature of the earth is taken into account while calculating reduced levels, angles, bearings and distances. This type of surveying is usually employed for large survey works.
Survey works up to 100 square miles (260 square kilometers ) are treated as plane and beyond that are treated as geodetic.
Maybe 99.99% of surveyors believe the Earth is round but treat it as flat.

[Sal Ammoniac]

In America the question "do you believe in evolution" really means "do you want to bake cakes for homosexuals and have your children indoctrinated into socialism" and stuff like that.
Due to the 1st amendment, religion is tightly tied into politics and while I have no doubt that many Christians genuinely believe in things like Young Earth Creationism and Flat Earth, half of them wouldn't believe if they had no immediate motivation and local social pressure for that. There is simply no reason to believe those things, as evidenced by plenty of Christians in Eastern Europe who wouldn't even think of any of that.

It's just the way America works

That's a simplistic (and mostly wrong) argument.

Very few religious people in America believe in flat earth--it's mostly two kinds who do: nutjobs and people who claim to just to be silly. In either case, the numbers are quite small.

Creationism, on the other hand, is entirely different as belief in it is widespread. It's typically only the fundamentalist types who accept it, however. Many of the mainstream religions don't, but the fundamentalists are the squeaky wheels who get all the headlines. One of the biggest and most well-known young-earth creationists isn't even an American (Ken Ham, who's Australian). This is the guy responsible for the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter (a $100M full-size replica of Noah's ark).

[SiliconWizard]

One of the biggest and most well-known young-earth creationists isn't even an American (Ken Ham, who's Australian). This is the guy responsible for the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter (a $100M full-size replica of Noah's ark).

This is interesting. Maybe partly due to its very "liberal" nature, the US has fostered all kinds of very weird theories that have gotten traction, and it indeed looks like many actually were devised by non-american-born people. I guess that's the price of success.

[Cyberdragon]

One of the biggest and most well-known young-earth creationists isn't even an American (Ken Ham, who's Australian). This is the guy responsible for the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter (a $100M full-size replica of Noah's ark).

This is interesting. Maybe partly due to its very "liberal" nature, the US has fostered all kinds of very weird theories that have gotten traction, and it indeed looks like many actually were devised by non-american-born people. I guess that's the price of success.

We're gonna need a bigger wall.