As we are studying evolution in America, it is interesting to hear the views of the students and our professor in class. I thought it would be interesting to see what America felt about evolution. I found a Pew research study that came up with six interesting facts on evolution to commemorate Darwin’s 209th birthday.
Fact 1 – Only a minority of Americans fully accept evolution through natural selection.
Only 33% believe humans evolved solely from natural selection, with 25% saying evolution was controlled by a supreme being, and 34% think humans existed in their current form since the beginning of time.
Fact 2 – Only two-thirds of Americans perceive that scientists generally agree about evolution.
Even though 98% of scientists belonging to the American Association for the Advancement of Science believe humans evolved over time. Of the Americans who do not believe in evolution, 47% say scientists agree with evolution and 46% figure they do not.
Fact 3 - A series of court decisions have prohibited the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in public schools.
This is true mainly because of the prohibition on the establishment of religion, but does the Constitution really ban this? A great discussion question.
Fact 4 - Of all the major religious groups in the U.S., evangelical Protestants are among the most likely to reject evolution.
Most Christians groups and Muslims have high percentages of always existed in present form or evolved through the guidance of a Supreme Being with the exception being the Buddhists and Hindus.
Fact 5 - those who are more religiously observant are less likely than others to see this clash between faith and science
I was surprised by this fact, of those who regularly attend church 50% believed there’s a conflict between science and religion with 73% among those that do not or seldom attend church.
Fact 6 - Compared with the U.S., even larger percentages of people in many other countries reject evolution.
Source - Pew Research
As with all poll results, these require extensive interpretation and analysis to convey an accurate contextual understanding. With respect to #5, for instance, this is not likely to stand up in regions (like ours) heavily imbued with a tradition of literalist fundamentalism. And #6 is a lot more informative when the "many other countries" are specified - they tend to skew towards the less developed, less educated sectors of the globe.
ReplyDeleteAs for #3, what's considered officially "unconstitutional" always depends on the makeup of the courts. That's obviously in extreme flux just now. My view: I agree with Jefferson, teaching religion as fact is a disservice to both religion and science-whatever the judges say.
Most favorably disposed: Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Japan...
Deleteand least: Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus, USA, Turkey
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/14/science/sciencespecial2/20050815_EVO_GRAPHIC.html
People in the United States are much less likely to accept Darwin's idea that humans and apes share a common ancestor than adults in other Western nations, a number of surveys show.
DeleteA new study of those surveys suggests that the main reason for this lies in a unique confluence of religion, politics, and the public understanding of biological science in the United States...
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html?source=rss