Of course, their answers are also due to politics. A Miss has to be pleasing and diplomatic. A Miss who says the total truth would be too controversial and would be demoted by religious zealots.

Miss USA candidates answering "Should Evolution be taught in School?" | YouTube

Miss California gave a fairly true answer. She actually won! I doubt it was because of her good answer to this question!?

The true answer would be, in Dawkins’ style: "Should the stork theory of child conception be taught in school?" "Should alchemy be taught instead of chemistry. Or should be both sides be taught, Alchemy and chemistry?". Evolutionary theory is as much a theory as the theory of gravitation.

Let’s be sexist and enjoy what these young women do best:

Miss USA 2011 Bikini Contest |YouTube

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature is a best-selling 2002 book by Steven Pinker arguing against tabula rasa models of the social sciences. Pinker argues that human behavior is substantially shaped by evolutionary psychological adaptations. The book was nominated for the 2003 Aventis Prizes and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.  (wikipedia)

This tabula-rasa/blank-slate theory is responsible for most serious mistakes in social theories and public policies of the last century in fields like education, discrimination, gender relations. It also is related to rejection of inheritance based evolutionary theory. All this is very central to Human-Stupidity: how can a ridiculously false theory dogmatically dominate science and public policy for decades.

One simple example of always repeated conventional wisdom:

• "Children that are beaten by violent parents become violent adults". There usually is no test for the alternative  hypothesis that this has nothing to do with genetics, but that these children could have genetically inherited violent traits from their parents.

Steven Pinker: Chalking it up to the blank slate

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

See also real important reading Evolutionary Psychology Primer & Reading List Leda Cosmides & John Tooby Evolutionary Psychology: Evolutionary Theory, Paleoanthropology, Adaptationism  Evolutionary Psychology Primer & Reading List | Human-Stupidity. The Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television

Some more entertainment

Steven Pinker – The Language of Swearing (1/2)

Related articles

• Harvard’s Steven Pinker on Violence & Human Nature (brainpickings.org)
• Steven Pinker’s Stinker on the Origins of War (psychologytoday.com)
• Was Steven Pinker right after all? (psychologytoday.com)
• Sexual Selection of Rock and Roll (psychologytoday.com)
• Steven Pinker: How Innuendo Makes Things Work (downes.ca)
• Language as a Window into Human Nature (tricitypsychology.com)
• Stephen J Gould’s Critique of Evolutionary Psychology (compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com)
• Gladwell vs Pinker (lilywhitewash.wordpress.com)

Menschliche Dummheit hat sicherlich viel mit unserer evolutionären Programmierung zu tun.  Was wir heute tun und denken ist davon geprägt was sich durch natürliche Selektion vor 100 000 Jahren in unseren Vorfahren entwickelt hat.