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.
- Read more by Dan Gilgoff.
- Read more about science.
Tags: religion | polls | evolution | science | Gallup
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (50) | Print
Reader Comments
Natural Selection
Man, I'm about to jump into some serious stuff here. Anybody who speaks truth in this venue becomes a candidate for roasting over a slow fire. Oh well, here goes:
Evolution is not a theory. It is a observable phenomenon of nature. Just like the fact that the Sun comes up in the morning and goes down in the evening. There is no such thing as a "theory of evolution." Much like the geocentric presumption of the biblical scribes, which was later proven wrong by Copernicus and confirmed by Galileo, much to his chagrin, as he lived in Italy, well within reach of the Pope, and got to choose whether to recant or roast; Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection would never have survived the Inquisition of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome. That has absolutely nothing to do with it's merit. That has to do with raw temporal power. That's why the founders were adamant to separate church and state. When the church has temporal power it will use it to supress whatever it finds offensive. Amen.
Darwin's theory has been abused since its inception to confirm a Calvinist Christian concept that has since been named "Social Darwinism." The ridiculous extrapolation that the rich are rich because they deserve to be and the poor are poor for similar reasons. Darwinian Natural Selection applies to speciation, not to competition within established species. If you choose to try to understand science from what you hear on Faux News, you will never understand anything.
A Christian Perspective
I am a Christian with a bachelor's in biology. I'm going to add my two cents here.
First, I often hear many Christians saying there is "no evidence" for evolution. I am the first to admit that that is a very stupid statement. There is plenty of evidence for evolution. The reason many Christians become defensive in regard to evolution is because they believe it contradicts the Bible. I would argue that it only contradicts a long standing interpretation of Genesis 1. There are biblical passages that speak of the sun "hurrying back to its morning position." Clearly, this is a rendering of the perspective of the psalmist, but it was interpreted as geocentrism until heliocentrism was proven correct. Interpretations can be faulty. Properly interpreted, the Bible can still be God's Word and coincide with evolutionary theory.
All that being said, I'm still of the opinion that man did not evolve from animals (though I am convinced that all other life has evolved). Yes, I will recieve fire from most all scientists on that, but as of yet I remain unconvinced. Could God have given a Spirit to Adam and Eve at a certain point in the evolutionary line? Yes, and if the evidence for human evolution appears incontrivertible to me, then I will adopt that position. There actually are holes in the evolutionary theory (for example, to my knowledge no specimen has been discovered yet that has an intermediate between feathers and scales - feathers simply appear). However, I do not find the argument from silence valid, as many biblical cities, etc., were considered false until they were discovered and validated later by archaeology.
Belief in the evolutionary theory does not negate belief in God. The only thing that really bothers me is when atheistic scientists refuse to accept the possibility of a Supreme Being interceding when no scientific explanation is possible (e.g., something coming from nothing). They don't have to believe that a Supreme Being is responsible, but when there is no scientific explanation, then it should remain a possibility.
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.
advertisement
