Neal's Gadget silence

Careful, that is succumbing to the same form of confirmation bias that you are frustrated by in others. That being said I agree with your overall point in general.

This is an even greater example of the same. I’ve been connected since the 80’s, there has always been disinformation flowing through the tubes. There has certainly been a shift in the whys and hows behind the distribution of misleading data as the internet entered into the purview of corporations & state actors, but it has always required effort to filter out incorrect & deceptive information online.

Also in my experience once you get outside of an individuals’ area of study or expertise they tend to fall into the traps as the ‘uneducated’.

The theory of evolution is an unpopular truth? Is this the USA we’re talking about? Because only in a very religious country the theory of evolution could be unpopular. For us Europeans it’s the only truth more often than not.

(I know we’re going far off top at this point but the this comment made me curious)

Percentage of the population that believe humans have always existed in their current form:
USA - 18%
Bulgaria - 31%

Percentage who believe humans have evolved & the driving force behind evolution:
USA - Natural selection 33, Guided by a higher power 48
Bulgaria - Natural selection 48, Guided by a higher power 10

Edit: In case I presented that in a confusing manner. 33% of American adults believe in evolution & that it is the result of natural selection while 48% of American adults do believe that humans have evolved but that the process of evolution was guided by a higher power (ie god).

So a higher percentage of Americans believe in evolution but a much higher percentage also believe that evolution is guided an by an outside force.

Interesting that around 9% of Bulgarians replied with no response or don’t know. That appears consistent with other central/eastern Europeans who took the survey.

Source: Pew Research Center 1, 2, 3

Interesting statistics. There must be something wrong with the research though. For my 36 years, outside of very old people, I met literally a handful of people that claim evolution isn’t real and they were all clearly insane on more than one level.

Maybe they conducted the survey in weird areas of the country where people are more religious and less educated.
I’m sure you can relate to this - a survey in Alabama and California would yield very different results. In the same way the 5 largest cities in BG are vastly different than the other areas.
I also haven’t been stopped by people on the street (cough NYC cough) to explain to me the miracles of Jesus and stuff. We don’t have “one nation under god” in our anthem, nor do we mention god in our currencies, nor does our politicians mention god.

Also from your links: “Our estimate of the share of Americans who reject evolution and express a creationist view drops considerably (from 31% to 18% of U.S. adults) when respondents are immediately given the opportunity to say God played a role in human evolution.” There’s a small problem. The bible doesn’t mention anything about evolution, afaik. So either god created the Earth, or there was evolution. You can’t have both, but some people are trying to.

Anyway, I hope you don’t take it personally what I said about the USA, I have in-laws in Georgia and I’m sure it’s very different there than other parts of the US. As the US is the most religious out of the developed countries, I assumed there’s a great amount of people that denies evolution, but I guess I was wrong. If you want we could continue this subject on DM, let’s not ruin the user’s thread further :slight_smile:

This thread is starting to be rather offensive to people with other beliefs/priciples.
Not agreeing on something does not mean the other is not playing with a full deck.

Sorry I was just baffled by the claim that Evolution is “unpopular truth”. I don’t mean to continue this discussion, at least not in this thread.

Or you are placing too much weight on your anecdotal experiences. Think about your immediate response of “it doesn’t support what I believe therefore it must be wrong”. That is a perfect example of why we as individuals often find it so difficult to differentiate bad data from good.

I would imagine not as it was written while the country was still under communist rule. :smiley:

(It just made me chuckle)

shrug The doctrinal beliefs of various denominations (or more, the beliefs of individuals that aren’t in line with official catechicsm) regarding what is allegorical & what is literal is it’s own convoluted discussion & far beyond what would be acceptable here.

That isn’t at all what he said.

Wow you just had to be a dick, hadn’t you :slight_smile:

Sorry but it’s a bit too hard to believe that in the USA, the country with the highest amount of religious people out of any other developed country, the country that started the flat earth movement, only 18% reject evolution. Especially after it turned out the data actually states 31%, but some people “changed their mind” after they were presented with a “modified” version of the question. Sure that’s not sketchy at all.

And no, the Bulgarian anthem was not written while the country was under communist rule. It was written in the 19th century.

Talking about good and bad data when the poll size was the enormous amount of 1600 people. OK.

Nice try, pal.

1600 people is plenty for a very accurate statistical analysis.

But coming back to the large percentage of US citizens who believe that a higher power guided human evolution, I wonder how many of those don’t actually believe it was a god but alien visitors who came to Earth in the past. I know Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick haven’t been part of the mainstream media for decades now, but they certainly had an impact on people’s modern beliefs.

I don’t fully agree here. They also never say where they conducted the survey. As I said, large cities and small cities would generate vastly different results.

After I started reading the links the user provided I found this:
“It’s important to note that our international surveys have used a different approach to ask about evolution, so results are not directly comparable to our new U.S. survey”

If I can add another layer to my “anecdotal evidence”, I’m also not aware of anybody in Europe trying to ban evolution from being taught in public schools.

And I want to clarify something for other Americans reading this pointless conversation - I’m not bashing on the US. The US is a great country that gave all the world many goodies, like the computer I’m writing this on. And I enjoy my stay every time I’m there.

You can agree or disagree, but this comes back exactly to not understanding facts and choosing to believe what you wish.

I’m just saying that statistics can present something as a “fact”, but statistics could be twisted and manipulated. Statistics are not fact themselves. They just present data, on the basis of which we can or cannot conclude if something is a fact.

For example, I’ve seen statistic that show black people on average have lower IQ than white people. Should I take this as a fact, or should I at least investigate the methods which they used to came up with this result?

And any of this has what to do with Neal’s gadgets?

Please, take all the religious/political views to PM or better still to another forum, as it always stirs up emotions. This thread is emotive enough without more being chucked on the fire.

You’re right, I apologize. I will not post anything offtopic anymore. I urge the other participants to do the same. I’m open to a civilized discussion on PM.
Have a nice Sunday everyone.

I only quoted you, must have had the quotes mixed up. Someone got a refund and a light they didn’t order so that means they got a light for free that they didn’t pay for. That’s the facts. Paypals stance or not that’s means someone got a light for free.

Actually no, I’m not.

I’ve not said anything that should be taken as confrontational.

What is your definition of ‘developed countries’?

The modern flat earth movement was started in England.

It merely reflects how complicated polling can be, and the importance of asking the right questions.

The melody for Mila Rodino was written in the 1800s, when it was re-adopted in the 1960s the lyrics were changed in the later versus. The point being that a national anthem that was allowed by the communists was almost certainly not going to have a mention of a god.

Given the population of Bulgaria at the time that is pretty large sample size. A 95% confidence level with a margin of error of +/- 4% would have been achievable with fewer than half that number.

What exactly do you believe I’m ‘trying’?

Why is this in Deal Alerts ?

Remember that there are lots of people paying attention when they hear multiple members mention that they are having problems with a vendor . Whether it's Neal,lumintop,astrolux,gearbest or Bangood ... You may feel like you're all alone and no one cares that you're getting the screws put to you or being ignored by a vendor.

This isn't just a lack of communication on their part , it's a loud and clear warning to us all .

Maybe putting this into the correct area would help new people that are considering shopping from these dealers .

I am putting ALL orders from CHINA on HOLD until things get back to normal.
I have 2 orders from different stores placed weeks before the CNY and they still have NOT shipped.

Indeed, time for SB to close this thread