What Do Americans Believe About Creationism and Evolution?</

john in springfield | 10/23/2009 | jis (vanity)

[john in springfield]

What Do Americans Believe About Creationism and Evolution?

After spending time on some of the recent discussions here at FR about Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and other points of view (which I will call Old Earth Creationism (OEC) and Naturalistic Evolution), I found myself wondering: how many FReepers (and how many Americans) hold each particular view?

Obviously, there aren't any statistics on FReepers. But there are on Americans as a whole, and on certain groups of Americans.

The best general resource I've found so far on people's viewpoints is located here. I will summarize some of those here.

(Note: This page uses slightly different terms for a couple of these viewpoints, but as far as I can tell, they mean the same thing.)

American adults as a whole:

About 45% accept the Young Earth Creationist viewpoint, about 37% accept the Old Earth Creationist viewpoint, and around 12% to 14% accept the Naturalistic Evolution viewpoint.

This has held fairly steady over the past 25 years or so. The percentage who believe in NE may have increased slightly, but overall, the numbers have held fairly steady.

A CBS News poll gave a bit different percentages: YEC 55%, OEC 27%, NE 13%.

Observations:

There are a lot of people who believe in young earth creationism, and there are also a lot of people who believe in old earth creationism as well.

The vast majority of Americans believe in God.

The majority of Americans believe in evolution.

American college graduates (Gallup Poll, 1991):

The numbers change significantly among the college-educated:

YEC: 25%
OEC: 54%
NE: 17%

It is interesting to me that most - a full 54% - college-educated Americans accept the Old-Earth Creationist (or theistic evolutionist) view.

Note also the effect that a college education seems to have: With a few exceptions, people who go to college don't stop believing in God. However, quite a few do seem to shift from YEC to OEC.

This graph also means that an awful lot of people who don't go to college believe in YEC rather than in either OEC or NE.

Note that while this poll is nearly 20 years old, based on what we know from some other polls, overall beliefs do not seem to have changed greatly during this time.

Scientists (Gallup Poll, 1997):

YEC: 5%
OEC: 40%
NE: 55%

Note: The word "scientist" seems to be very vague in this poll, which apparently includes a lot of people with professional degrees in fields completely unrelated to biology, geology, etc.

In any event, a majority of "scientists" don't seem to believe that God was involved in the development of life on earth. It's not a very large majority, though. "Scientists" are divided as to whether God was involved. Most of those who think He was believe that this involvement included the process of evolution.

Earth and Life Scientists

A 1987 Newsweek article claimed that well under 1% of earth and life scientists in the United States support the YEC viewpoint of origins. While I have some doubts about the reliability of their estimate (a nationwide total of 700 YEC earth/life scientists seems just too small to me), that number would still seem to be a very small one.

However, given that only 5% of "scientists" support YEC, the under-1% figure may well be true. I just don't know. Nor do I have access to the original 1987 Newsweek article to see exactly how they got their information.

If there's another poll or two out there on this, it might be interesting to know about.

Beliefs of Christians Concerning Origins

A 2007 Harris Poll showed the following percentages of Christians who accept the theory of evolution:

Catholics: 43%
Protestants: 30%
"Born-Again Christians": 16%

Can One Believe in God and Evolution?

Finally, a 2005 CBS Poll stated that a full two thirds (67%) of Americans believe that it's possible for one to believe both in God and in evolution.

[mnehring]

You didn’t muddy it, that is one of the biggest challenges in all of this. You are just running into the same that causes problems in all the debates on this subject.

[ColdWater]

No problem.

[mnehring]

For the sake of working with the charts, that is probably as close as you can get. Just know everyone will find something to disagree personally with it. :->

[john in springfield]

Per ColdWater, no.

[ColdWater]

And then there is Deist Evolution. God created life but left it to evolve on its own.

[mnehring]

Technically, that’s Theistic, not Deistic (see 48) The difference is involvement. Deists believe God just let it run from there, man and all. Theists believe God then got involved with man’s spiritual journey outside the naturalistic. Deists don’t believe in miracles, salvation, etc. Theists do.

[Safrguns]

>>> Per ColdWater, no.

Ok then... if OEC has 0% evolution but is OE, then I’m OEC.

I think that NEC is based simply upon the presumption that Genesis 1:1 refers to the same time period as the 6 day account of creation after Genesis 1:2.

An unspecified amount of time passes between verses 1 and 2, and before the 6 day account of creation of life, reference is made to earth as being formless and void (lifeless).... and yet the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters... so “formless” cannot be interpreted to mean that the earth itself did not exist yet.

[mnehring]

See #55..
Welcome to the jungle. The combination are endless. Mostly what I believe the OP was trying to reconcile was how to rationalize the charts, which means none of us are going to find a 100% label that works.

[faucetman]

When asking a question about evolution, you have to define it for the great masses who may answer yes to evolution when they really mean adaptation. Birds growing longer beaks v birds becoming dogs. Major evolution v minor evolution, or whatever you choose to call them. Polar bears are white, Arctic foxes are white. It's easy to understand why. But the foxes are still foxes & the bears are still bears.

I saw a video by some “save the bears from global warming” morons, and when Polar bears showed up and mingled with Brown bears to feed on this dead whale, they exclaimed in amazement. “Look the Polar bears are soooooo hungry they are competing with the Brown bears for food!!!

No, you IDIOTS, they showed up because there is a HUGE DEAD WHALE TO EAT! It's called FOOD. Food attracts ALL bears. They have the best sense of smell of any animal by a mile, actually TWENTY MILES.

[GodGunsGuts]

I quite agree. According to Gallop, the more time your spend getting brainwashed in our mostly publically funded Temple of Darwin indoctrination centers, the more likely you will become a libtarded, evo-atheist, Obamabot:

EDUCATION

Obama/McCain
High school	47	53
College	55	45
Postgrad	65	35

[Safrguns]

>>> none of us are going to find a 100% label that works.

yeah... a lot of the problem is tied in with correlating the creation of the earth with the creation of life.

It’s too easy (and proper) for creationists to concede the point that the earth is billions and billions of years old without forfeiting their belief that life as we know it on earth began less than 10,000 years ago... even in a creative process that took only 6 days (24 hr periods) to complete.

[scripter]

I found your post quite refreshing.

[john in springfield]

I understand the "brainwashing" dynamic, but the correlation between education level and voting for Obama still mystifies me.

[mnehring]

Kind of like the other chart discussion, I believe that oversimplifies things. For example, in the post grad voters, how many are working in practical fields versus are professional students or are in theoretical fields? The same with ‘high school only’. How many of those are just regular working Americans or those with trade degrees or apprenticeships versus those who are stereotyped as poorly educated? A very general chart like this, more often than not, can actually distort facts more than it reveals them. There are far too many variables within the three choices to say that it is due to a level of intelligence or a level of indoctrination.

..and let’s not even get into what percent may have lied to the pollster.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[southland]

Your point is good...

[profit_guy]

both Creationism and Evolution tell you that homosexuality is deviant behavior...yet the self-proclaimed “intellectually superior” pervs on the left say otherwise

[profit_guy]

both Creationism and Evolution tell you that homosexuality is deviant behavior...yet the self-proclaimed “intellectually superior” pervs on the left say otherwise

[Walkenfree]

Perhaps they’ve been educated beyond their intelligence?

[Wiz]

ping