Prevalence of Creationism in USA Unchanged

[KiwiKid]

News like this makes me a little sad:

Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.

Complete report on Gallup.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

News like this makes me a little sad:

Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.

Complete report on Gallup.

It's not all that surprising to me. The average Joe off the street doesn't have that much science education. If they are lucky maybe chemistry and biology 101 in high school. This leads people to form an uninspired and muddled view on the topic.

 

[phoenix:\\]

I believe aliens guided human evolution...

 

[Andre]

It's even more sad to see that..

15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.

... went down from 16% last time.

 

[leroyjenkens]

I believe evolution guided our creation of god.

 

[Gokul43201]

It's not all that surprising to me. The average Joe off the street doesn't have that much science education. If they are lucky maybe chemistry and biology 101 in high school. This leads people to form an uninspired and muddled view on the topic.

Further down in the report, they show that a plurality (46%) of college graduates are still Creationists. I think this suggests that it may not be so easy to dissolve the constructs that were carefully set up over the entirety of one's childhood. It's not for no reason that churches actively seek out and engage with very young children who are hardly equipped to question or debate the beliefs fed to them.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Further down in the report, they show that a plurality (46%) of college graduates are still Creationists.

Heck, to meet my science requirement in college I took Geology, that's it. There are hordes of very educated people out there with little science education.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Heck, to meet my science requirement in college I took Geology, that's it. There are hordes of very educated people out there with little science education.

I met a college graduate who was apparently a history teacher and said she hated to read when asked what her favourite book was. With teachers like that... :-/

 

[SW VandeCarr]

I met a college graduate who was apparently a history teacher and said she hated to read when asked what her favourite book was. With teachers like that... :-/

Who needs to read when you have the History Channel?

 

[ThinkToday]

News like this makes me a little sad:

Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.

Complete report on Gallup.

Doesn't bother me at all. Faith is something you have or you don't, and not just in religion. The world is round, flat, center of the universe or not, big bang is how it started or maybe not, atoms only have protons neutrons and electrons, the universe will continue to expand or it's own gravity will compell it to contract and repeat the process, the chicken had to come before the egg...

 

[Angry Citizen]

The difference is that all of those things have, y'know, evidence, much like evolution. Scientists don't need faith. They have math and experimentation.

This, frankly, is sickening.

 

[atyy]

The poll did not ask whether the respondents considered all pairs of the options mutually exclusive.

 

[Danger]

the chicken had to come before the egg...

Actually, that one is easy. The egg came first. Dinosaurs laid eggs, and chickens evolved from them.

 

[Bobbywhy]

I believe evolution guided our creation of god.

I agree with leroyjenkens. Evolution of the human family naturally produced gods to satisfy the unknowns that our ancestors faced. Today when you sum the two largest religions (Christianity and Islam) you get around one third the human population of our planet. So what accounts for that huge number of believers? Our ancestors' "primitive minds" needed to create spirits to answer questions about where we came from, our natural environment, and where we are going.

Modern science, as we know it here on PF, is in its infancy. When compared to the unbroken chain of thousands of generations who continue to hand down spiritual myths to succeeding generations modern scientists are on the vanguard.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

So 48% believe humans evolved, slightly more than those who don't. I don't know if that's statistically significant. I would like to see a poll among the 48% to find out how many believe in evolution as a matter of faith as opposed to those who actually know any of the science behind it.

 

[ThinkToday]

The difference is that all of those things have, y'know, evidence, much like evolution. Scientists don't need faith. They have math and experimentation.

This, frankly, is sickening.

Respectly disagee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith or http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

 

[leroyjenkens]

the chicken had to come before the egg...

I think the egg probably came first. I don't know, but at the point in evolution where the chicken would be considered a chicken, they were probably hatching from eggs for a while.