Quote:
Originally posted by bigben2k
It's no wonder only 5% of the US population believes in Darwin's theory! (quote: USA Today).
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I have a 1991 Gallup poll that says naturalistic evolution is accepted by about 10% of American people, and statistics that indicate a much higher acceptance in the upper class, or with people having more education - 5% of people with no high school diploma and 17% of people with a college degree claim to believe naturalistic evolution, which may or may not mean all those people actually *understand* it.
A test on scientists only was only about 55%, which is a bit disconcerting, especially since no breakdown is given - assumedly this includes electrical and computer scientists, programmers, physicists, chemists, engineers, lab technicians, mathemeticians, etc. who would be no more read in biology than the general public.
I've seen a poll of biologists indicates personal belief in evolution of about 99.8% or thereabouts. Keep in mind that one of the good things in the scientific community is that we needn't take oaths about what we do or don't believe, nor do we have to actively believe in any scientific theory so long as we accept that the rest of the community accepts it. I think the fact that so many people who actually study or are very near to studying evolution both understand and believe it rather than simply understand it and do not believe it is testament to its authenticity as a personal worldview.
I've found some internet polls, but I don't trust their results at all. Some indicate as much as 50% of fundamentalist Christians believe and understand naturalistic evolution, which doesn't seem right to me.
Atheism seems to be around 14% of the US population right now - seemingly lower than most first-world countries, though I'm unsure (this is from a Creation website). Atheism and evolution are comparable in that they are more highly held onto among more wealthy people, and more educated people. The evolution stats are from the same Gallup poll, but I have only a footnote mentioning the atheism. In this sense, I believe atheism is equivalent to "no religion" - that is, not people actively believing there is no god but people who simply do not identify with any organized religion.
How to interpret these results? Is religion an opiate of the masses? A mental exercise for the uneducated? Does going to high school or college indoctrinate people into non-religion so that they can become soulless cogs in the machine of the American economy? Or is it that higher education opens a world of creative outlets to students, and the awe and wonder of the world, rather than directed to a god or a religion, is directed to learning more?
In any case, I'm sure these people will be happy to know their pro-creation site helped me find a good bit of unbiased info. I have to admit this site is well-written - the tone makes it difficult to tell whether the writer thinks its conclusion, improvements in science education eventually causing people to cast aside organized religion, is a profoundly good thing or a profoundly bad thing. I'd imagine the writer believes the latter. Their agenda is more clear in specific pages about evolution - many paragraphs of very good discussion followed by a misleading statements or outright lies.
http://nwcreation.net/atheism.html
For assuredly unbiased info (that is, a site with no agenda), religioustolerance.org is always a good read.
Alchemy