Gallup 'Darwin's Birthday' Poll: Fewer than Four in Ten Believe in Evolution
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Charles Darwin would have been 200 tomorrow, an event that Gallup is marking with a new poll showing that 39 percent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution. A quarter say they don't believe in evolution, and 36 percent say they have no opinion.
The strongest predictor of respondents' views on evolution? Church attendance.
In fact, Gallup's analysis says religiosity outweighs educational level in shaping views on evolution, even though those with the most education are far more likely to support evolution than those with the least. Just 21 percent of respondents who had up to a high school level of education believe in evolution, compared with 74 percent of those with postgraduate degrees.
But Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief, says religion is the determining factor:
Previous Gallup research shows that the rate of church attendance is fairly constant across educational groups, suggesting that this relationship is not owing to an underlying educational difference but instead reflects a direct influence of religious beliefs on belief in evolution.
Among weekly churchgoers, 24 percent believe in evolution, while 41 percent do not and 35 percent have no opinion. Among those who seldom or never attend church, 55 percent belief in evolution, while 11 percent do not, and 34 percent have no opinion.
Look to the question of how many Americans believe in Darwin's theory of natural selection, and the numbers shrink further. Gallup puts that number at 14 percent, while the Pew Research Center puts it at 26 percent. Both organizations put the number of Americans who favor creationism at about 43 percent, higher than the proportion than believes in evolution, according to a recent Pew report.
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Tags: religion | polls | evolution | science | Gallup
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Reader Comments
Natural selection
It's silly to believe that evolution is really in existence. To think that we have evolved from apes or even that over billions of years a micro bacteria has evolved and a couple billion years later turned into us is simply ludicrous.
Now what I do believe and makes perfect sense is natural selection. Survival of the fittest and from the fittest become the fittest. During the civil war there were several southerners that were claiming to be the fittest and declaring that the black man was not the fittest and that they were simply following the natural selection pattern. This idea is simply baseless and has no value. Who created you to be above another man whether he be black or white, tall or short, strong or weak. What I'm trying to say is that natural selection applies to the world around us and our environment and to us as well but because of our "Advanced society" we have not turned into animals. "And that's why barn yard animals don't rule the world."
So if you were to ask me if I believed in evolution I was say that evolution is a real thing and it does occur through natural selection but there is no such thing as transpecy evolution.
a question
There isn't any anthropologist who rejects the theory of evolution. (If there is one, I'd be glad to learn). Is it meaningless?
Ken
Ken, you mention how "evolutionists" have fallen to the level of not arguing with creationists because it is beneath them. There are so many errors in your logic that I'm afraid there are not enough hours in the day to point out all your errors. With that, and my limited time, I would have to agree that arguing with you would be beneath me. You aren't even worth my time.
Good day.
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