4 in 10 Americans believe in Evolution

[fountainhead777]

Link

interesting poll. I find it amazing that so many deny science and reason. also only 74% of postgraduates believe in evolution.

What are your thoughts?

[bluey]

Link

interesting poll. I find it amazing that so many deny science and reason. also only 74% of postgraduates believe in evolution.

What are your thoughts?

Do you think the results would be more positive if they could word that question without saying "believe in"? Belief doesn't apply to a concept you accept on the basis of scientific evidence and I know my first reaction to the words "do you believe ..." is always negative. In fact when you ask the question in the first place you're really asking about how the person being questioned comes to conclusions - on faith or by reason/evidence? - so it's a biased way of phrasing the question. If you say yes that's the "right" answer, but then you've also sanctioned the assumption that everyone necessarily goes around "believing" things. I don't think I would respond to a survey asking that.

[fountainhead777]

That is an interesting point. I do not think saying you believe in something sanctions blind belief. I base my beliefs on logical conclusions and evidence but that makes my beliefs of a different nature than most peoples. Honestly I would nto think most people would analyze the word believe too much before answering.

I suppose the most correct phrasing of the question would be "Do you think that evolution is correct?" and save the believes for irrational and unfounded ideas.

Anyways I was more alarmed at it because if accurate it reveals a bleak intellectual state of this country that needs to be corrected for any of our problems to eb resolved.

[AMERICONORMAN]

That's only because few people have been taught evolution properly. You can only know it to be true if you have performed the induction, and I would imagine it would be very near to have studied Origin of the Species. I've never read it but I get the idea and it is a much better alternative to 'god'. And you don't need to know evolution to be true to deny the validity of a concept such as 'god', though it would help enormously. .

[K-Mac]

It surprises me too, although I'm not sure why anymore.

[K-Mac]

A Pew Research study on this subject... http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=715

[TheEgoist]

Do you think the results would be more positive if they could word that question without saying "believe in"? Belief doesn't apply to a concept you accept on the basis of scientific evidence and I know my first reaction to the words "do you believe ..." is always negative. In fact when you ask the question in the first place you're really asking about how the person being questioned comes to conclusions - on faith or by reason/evidence? - so it's a biased way of phrasing the question. If you say yes that's the "right" answer, but then you've also sanctioned the assumption that everyone necessarily goes around "believing" things. I don't think I would respond to a survey asking that.

I don't buy this. While that is your statement about belief, "belief" is not used in such a rigid term elsewhere. I don't hold that "belief" only means that which is held without evidence.

You have to compensate for the nomenclature of the country. When someone asks Joe Blow on the street "Do you believe in evolution?", he probably won't go off about how belief implies some kind of faith. He'll answer yes or no.

[The Wrath]

According to this week's Economist, only 15% believe that humans evolved over billions of years.

[TheEgoist]

Well that can be more deceiving. Humans, as in homosapiens, have only existed for tops 200,000 years. Different forms of life evolved before that, but that is just a technicality.

I find it hard to believe that number, though.

[DavidOdden]

There is a graphic that compares us with the rest of the world, here. There is no question that we are in deep trouble, and this is just a single manifestation of the epistemological crisis that faces our culture. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing what causes this, except possibly the unwillingness of teachers -- at all levels -- to rigorously promulgate the idea that there is a single, knowable truth.

[Jake_Ellison]

There are three issues I have with this poll (the first already raised by bluey):

1. The use of the verb "to believe" may confuse some people, and we have no way of knowing exactly what percentage of people, and in what way.

2. I do understand that this is an issue people should be concerned about, and I don't even think we can conclude that those people who said "I don't know" don't care about the answer. If someone is forced to participate in something (like being interrupted in your house, by a lengthy phonecall), they will resist cooperating, even if they would normally want to do what they are being pressured to do. That's a normal psychological reaction. Everyone will resist doing something that they didn't voluntarily undertake.

So, in my opinion, the only valid conclusions are that at least 39% of Americans believe in evolution, and at least 25% believe it isn't true.

The rest of the people could go either way. It is unlikely that they would go toward denying evolution though, since answering no would have been a very handy act of defiance against a pollster who already raised Darwin in a previous question (and linked him to evolution, thus betraying his own opinion, by expressing knowledge of, and interest in this theory, but not any competing ones) . Which is my third issue with this.

For these reasons I don't think this poll is valid evidence of any conlusion you may form on the views of the 72% to 78% of Americans who would, with 95% likelihood, not explicitly come out against evolution, if asked.

[John Donohue]

I am in agreement with Jake, and also with the others who challenge the use of the word "believe." The first level is to counter the radical POCers who love to pound their ugly notion that belief in evolution is no more solid than belief in creation; that they are equally unprovable. The second level is to counter those who deny induction. They are deists, atheist and pragmatists who welcome any concept as coequal before the law. It's slacker validation of existents. "Belief" sets them off on their POCism and they start spouting from the mish-mash of their interior conversation.

Of those people and their champions who whirl "belief" around their head like a demented bolero, Ken Goodman was happy to coin their chant, famously, "The reader constructs meaning as he goes along."

I'd prefer the bold formulation and question as follows: "Science has proven evolution as a fact. Do you have any proof science is wrong?"

I also want to take this moment to rant about the abuse of the word "theory," which once was a perfectly clear concept. It meant a body of knowledge proven to be fact. No one vaguely doubted any theory. In order to dethrone a theory, you had to make a gigantic rational revolution. This has been accomplished maybe once or twice in the history of the West. In culture today we have perverted the word. "Theory" is used pejoratively: "Oh, that's just a theory." This is bad and wrong. It deconstructs the very existence of such things as proven facts.

The correct word for a body of connected knowledge that has been claimed to be true but is still being tested is "hypothesis."

Evolution is not a hypothesis; it is a proven theory. Happy Birthday Charles Darwin.

John Donohue

Pasadena, CA

Edited February 13, 2009 by John Donohue

[ctrl y]

Link

interesting poll. I find it amazing that so many deny science and reason. also only 74% of postgraduates believe in evolution.

What are your thoughts?

That is the most terrifying thing of any sort that I have ever been exposed to.

[John McVey]

That is the most terrifying thing of any sort that I have ever been exposed to.

That there are a minority of people who believe X rather than Y, or that the education system isn't teaching properly?

Note, btw, that "post-graduate" can mean in any field. Grad-school education in finance or economics will impart nothing about evolutionary theory, for instance, so why get so worked up that "only" 74% of people with post-grad degrees think evolution is true? I am actually pleased that the % is that high.

What's also pleasing is that rejection of evolution also tends to be related to age. Less than half of people 35+ accept it (and, on average, only 26-27% actively reject it), while 55% of people 18-34 do accept it (and only 18% reject it). I like that result, though obviously it could be much better.

The authors may be dismayed by the implications of the research, but I am not. It's surely not perfect, but also surely not grounds for saying that the sky is falling just from those results alone.

JJM

[Thales]

I'm with John. There are probably lots of people who simply don't know and thus present their answer that way.

However, for anyone who has studied the issue, it's pretty much a slam dunk that there is evolution and that natural selection is the mechanism by which it works. However, given the state of modern education, it’s probably not even taught.

Btw, I wonder what the numbers would be if they asked people if they believe in Newtonian Mechanics? Hmmm.... that could bring some interesting results.

[K-Mac]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sister-in-law, and she's probably like many Christian Americans.

She was shopping around private schools for my nephew and we were discussing the different curriculums. One school was a Christian school that focused on a "classical education" including the teaching of both intelligent design and evolution. My sister-in-law commented how curious she was to see how those lessons would go, because she's always wanted to know how evolution would fit into Christianity. I wasn't an Objectivist at the time, but I recall thinking, "Uh, it doesn't."

My point is, I think many Americans aren't sure about it at all, while many more probably think both are possible. (Which may even be scarier than the aforementioned poll results.)

Oh, my brother and his wife ended up putting my nephew in the government school system ("Private schools are just too expensive") then proceeded to get a heated pool, deck and landscaping instead. Less than halfway through my nephew's first year of Kindergarten, he was diagnosed with a behavior/psychiatric problem and put on drugs. This seems pretty typical of most Americans too.

Edited June 22, 2009 by K-Mac

[rebelconservative]

That's only because few people have been taught evolution properly.

and because few people have been taught their religion properly and they have fallen into the intellectual void that is literalism.

evolution is not necessarily incompatible with religion - the Catholic Church (eventually) accepted evolution, most Christians in the UK accept evolution as scientific fact and even ancient Jewish sages questioned whether the Creation story was literal (there is Talmud and Midrash on it, plus a reference in Psalms to a 'day' for G-d being thousands of years) and Maimonides said that if science and Scripture are at odds, it is because we have incorrectly interpreted Torah.

[TheEgoist]

Science and religion are incompatible, so there is no reason to debate whether religion and evolution are.

[Maximus]

Four out of ten? There are still a lot of stupid people out there...

and because few people have been taught their religion properly and they have fallen into the intellectual void that is literalism.

evolution is not necessarily incompatible with religion - the Catholic Church (eventually) accepted evolution, most Christians in the UK accept evolution as scientific fact and even ancient Jewish sages questioned whether the Creation story was literal (there is Talmud and Midrash on it, plus a reference in Psalms to a 'day' for G-d being thousands of years) and Maimonides said that if science and Scripture are at odds, it is because we have incorrectly interpreted Torah.

The only way to properly interpret "Holy" books of any stripe are as the results of individuals having temporal lobe seizures or psychotic episodes.

That people still believe them proves that most people are suffering from Cranial Rectumitus.

[BRG253]

Natural selection occurred to me before I learned about it.

[CWEarl]

When someone asks Joe Blow on the street "Do you believe in evolution?", he probably won't go off about how belief implies some kind of faith.

I would

[freestyle]

There is a graphic that compares us with the rest of the world, here. There is no question that we are in deep trouble, and this is just a single manifestation of the epistemological crisis that faces our culture. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing what causes this, except possibly the unwillingness of teachers -- at all levels -- to rigorously promulgate the idea that there is a single, knowable truth.

I don't think it is all that bad. I question that Gallup poll number. Besides the "believe" verbiage I would question the sample and want to see some control questions. (i.e. I would NOT be surprised to find out that 3 in 10 could even define evolution... lol, and then 4 in 10 believe in it. )

There was another poll conducted at the same time that shows (for better or worse, I guess) 78% SUPPORT teaching "evidence for and against" evolution. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/zogby...matic_jump.html That study shows some interesting results. It turns out that 9% more Democrats than Republicans think that both sides of the evolution debate should be taught.

So, even though about 80% think evolution should be taught, it apparently isn't being taught well (if we're to believe that only 40% believe it).

[DavidOdden]

I don't think it is all that bad. I question that Gallup poll number. Besides the "believe" verbiage I would question the sample and want to see some control questions.

Well, yeah, the whole black art of polling is pretty unscientific. It's kind of hard to argue with the robustness of the result (reproduced in numerous polls) that most Americans accept a falsehood (see CBS 2005 poll, Gallup 2009, and the Gallup series over a couple of decades.

[themadkat]

So, even though about 80% think evolution should be taught, it apparently isn't being taught well (if we're to believe that only 40% believe it).

It's not taught well at all. Sometimes it's not even introduced until high school or later. But some of us in the field are working to fix that. In 10 years or so give to me your children and I will set 'em up with their bio education just fine, muahahaha...