Majority of American Voters Accept Evolution
It is a well known fact that the majority of Americans espouse a creationist view. The nescience of the American populace is deplorable, however a paper by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology seems to show a glimmer of hope. A national survey conducted by various scientific societies and science teachers of likely voters shows that "most of [the] folk who responded to the survey accepted that life evolved, many accepted that it evolved through natural processes, and more favored teaching evolution than creationism or intelligent design in science classes." It is encouraging to see that the electorate is not as severely misinformed as I once supposed.
A key fact presented in this paper is that the phrasing of questions in polls palpably skews their results.
An analysis by the Pew Research Center shows that Americans’ views on evolutionary science vary with the phrasing of the question, however (3). For example, when people are asked to choose whether humans developed over millions of years, with or without guidance from God (a Gallup poll question), more select evolution with guidance (38%) than without guidance (13%). A Pew poll question shows a different pattern of results. Respondents were first asked, without reference to a supreme being, if they thought humans evolved or were created in their present form. Those who accepted evolution were then asked if they thought it occurred through natural processes or with guidance. When asked this way, 18% reported that evolution occurred with guidance, and 25% accepted that it occurred through natural selection.
Another important fact presented in this paper is that the respondents were more amenable to evolutionary science when the implications on human evolution weren't as conspicuous. This reemphasizes that diction is an important factor in these polls.
I was glad to see that scientific literacy was also a factor in the respondent's acceptance of evolutionary theory. This means that belief in asinine conjectures can be curtailed through proper education. In this survey, three basic scientific questions were asked. The questions were:
the continents or land masses on which we live have been moving for millions of years and will continue to move in the future (79% correctly agreed); antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria (43% correctly disagreed); the earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs (53% correctly disagreed).
Respondents who answered all three questions correctly were far more likely to accept evolutionary theory than those who answered two correctly, and they were more likely to be accepting of evolutionary theory than those who answered one or zero of the questions correctly.
Even more encouraging was the fact that "a majority of respondents rated learning to draw conclusions from evidence (80%), to think critically (78%), and how science is conducted (63%) as very important purposes of public school science education." Many respondents claimed that teaching evolutionary theory to better understand medicine was a convincing reason to teach the theory. Respondents also told who they would like to learn about evolution from, and I was happy to see that Americans respect the experts:
Among respondents presented with a list of people who might explain science to the public, 88% expressed interest in hearing from a scientist, and almost as many were interested in hearing from a science teacher (85%) or a doctor or nurse (84%). On the topics of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, most respondents expressed interest in hearing from scientists (77%), science teachers (76%), and clergy (62%). Fewer people were interested in hearing from Supreme Court Justices on evolution (37%) or from school board members and celebrities on science (34% and 16%, respectively) and evolution (30% and 11%, respectively)
Perhaps we are not regressing as I once thought. Perhaps it is only a boisterous minority who want to systematically teach inanity by bringing Intelligent Design/Creationism into the classroom. Though this is still certainly far from perfect, overall I was delighted by these results.