Most Americans Agree with Evolution [new poll]

Angus Reid Consultants ^ | 01 September 2006 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

More adults in the United States believe the theory of evolution is correct, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 51 per cent of respondents think that humans and other living things evolved over time, while 42 per cent say they existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

Charles Darwin’s "The Origin of Species" was first published in 1859. The book details the British naturalist’s theory that all organisms gradually evolve through the process of natural selection. Darwin’s views were antagonistic to creationism, the belief that a more powerful being or a deity created life.

In the United States, the debate on the topic accelerated after the 1925 Scopes trial, which tested a law that banned the teaching of evolution in Tennessee public schools. In 2004, Georgia’s Cobb County was at the centre of a controversy on whether science textbooks that explain evolutionary theory should include disclaimer stickers.

The theory of intelligent design suggests certain biological mechanisms are too complex to have developed without the involvement of a powerful force or intelligent being.

Last month, Austrian cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said the two views are not necessarily incompatible, declaring, "There is no conflict between science and religion, but a debate between a materialist interpretation of the results of science and a metaphysical philosophical interpretation. (...) The possibility that the Creator used evolution as a tool is completely acceptable for the Catholic faith."

Polling Data

Some people think that humans and other living things evolved over time. Others think that humans and other living things existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Which of these comes closest to your view?

	Jul. 2006	Jul. 2005
Evolved over time	51%	48%
Existed in their present form since the beginning of time	42%	42%
Don’t know / Refused	7%	10%

Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press Methodology: Telephone interviews with 2,003 American adults, conducted from Jul. 6 to Jul. 19, 2006. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

[Torie]

Well I was not "high" at graduation, but high both before and after, often. It was grand. I treasure the memories. I admit it.

[ml1954]

What a shallow, irrational attempt at condescension!

I've responded rationally since I posted to you and you have responded with no rational argument and insults. You've thrown 'arrogant' and 'condescending' at me, unsupported and with no basis in fact. I've asked you questions and you've responded with unsupported assertions and insults.

Teaching kids the ability to reason and letting them come to their own conclusion ~is~ the best thing we could teach them, IMHO

A fine idea and sentiment and goal. However, I doubt anyone who's had kids would wholeheartedly jump on board here. And I doubt you would be so 'liberal' when your kids want to 'decide' for themselves on other things.

[Torie]

I should add, that my parents were confident, that no matter how high I was, in the end, my ambition to sue folks, as a professional occupation, and make them miserable, would trump all. They were right. Parents are not always dumb. Well sort of. It is more complicated than that, in fact a lot more complicated. My Dad was a very wise man. I was very fortunate to have him as my Dad, very fortunate.

[HairOfTheDog]

To tell you the truth, I'm bored to tears by this tedious exchange with you, we're getting nowhere about nothing, and it's past my bed time. Good night. :~)

[spinestein]

[And so you think it shouldn't be discussed at all, even though whether or not there was a flood is a topic that exists in the world the kids will live in? That just doesn't make any sense!]




The crucial qualification of whether or not to discuss the religious explanation with kids is the location of the discussion. We're specifically talking about a public school science class and they should be learning science in that classroom, not religious stories.

Properly practiced science is difficult to learn since the type of thinking required for the methodology is nonintuitive. Teaching kids to discipline their minds for this purpose takes a lot of class time, and the proponents of bringing ID or creationism into the classroom are necessarily supporting a practice that says to the students "Okay, all the science that you've learned up until now, and all the critical thinking and adherence to the scientific method you've been taught, we didn't really mean that because now we want you to consider some religious philosophy and we want you to think of it in the same way you think of the scientific method and it has equal scientific validity only it gives different results."

This is not a wise way to teach science.

[metmom]

They're still doing it (discussing creation v. evolution; aka *teaching the controversy*) in schools today, where it isn't oppressed.

[Hoplite]

Oh Torie - how could ya?

I was actually questioning whether 'beta' referred to one of the classes described herein.

= )

[blowfish]

And although it's an unpopular point of view, I think the fairly even nature of this poll represents where our students come, and therefore those who say both points of view ought to be discussed in school are correct.

Great. Science by polling. A lot of people believe in ghosts and reincarnation. Shall we teach those theories in Biology classes?

[HairOfTheDog]

Good to know :~)

Good night and goodbye everyone... I think I've done said and repeated my only point enough here tonight :~)

[ml1954]

To tell you the truth, I'm bored to tears by this tedious exchange with you, we're getting nowhere about nothing, and it's past my bed time. Good night. :~)

Well h*ll, I only occasionally respond to broken record creationists because I usually find them tedious and boring. And I'm tired too. It appears we have something in common. Most likely, beyond this issue, we have a lot in common...Like not wanting to see Pelosi as Speaker Of The House.

[Virginia-American]

... I still don't want to see creationism and ID in high school science classes. To keep with the time frame, those subjects would have to be discussed and dismissed as science in only a few hours.

True, if you're discussing them in the context of biology. They are however, good examples for a discussion of the scientific method, what distinguishes a possible theory from a non-testable claim. They can be contrasted with things like Flood geology or phlogiston, which make testable claims and were thereby falsified.

[babygene]

You have to have a huge sample size to get an accuracy of + or - one percent...

[spinestein]

Regarding this mini-debate about whether 51% qualifies as "most", the methodology of poll taking always includes a minimum margin of error, in this case, plus or minus three percent. That translates to a possible RANGE of outcomes if this poll were repeated of from 48% to 54%. This encompasses "most", "exactly half" and "fewer than half" with any of those three outcomes having equal validity.

Declaring "most" is misleading and unacceptable and the proper way of reporting results such as these is to say "half".

[RunningWolf]

Ernesto is very illustrative to the limits of technology and scientific knowledge. And you can take these limitations orders up in magnitudes as to toe.

condensed

//The forecast pointed toward Texas or Louisiana. Ernesto flopped ashore on Plantation Key. For a while it was going to arrive as a Category 1 hurricane, when it did arrive it was barely a tropical storm. It was expected to produce flooding rain, but it delivered less rain than a thunderstorm.

Day after day, Ernesto disobeyed forecasts issued by the National Hurricane Center. So . . . what happened? When it came to Ernesto, forecasters at the hurricane center -- and nearly everywhere else -- crashed into the limits of technology and scientific knowledge.

''Until the science gets better, we have to deal with some uncertainty in these forecasts,''

No genuine scientist (who was not seduced by his own desires) would posit that a million year old 'transitional' that he built up out of 2 or 3 parts, or a million year old 'transitional skull' he built up out of two or three hundred parts was anything but a model of his own imagination. And yet that is what we see as bedrock to their 'mountain of evidence' And that is the problem in the mountain of evidence in toe, every where you lift up the cover and take a look at it you see just how ephemeral it is

fossilized human skulls in the Herto Bouri area of Ethiopia. Volcanic layers immediately above and below the layer were dated to 154,000 and 160,000 years

Figure 2. A close-up view of the reconstruction of a Homo sapiens idaltu child's cranium (left) by Dr. Berhane Asfaw. The skull had been broken into more than 200 pieces, scattered over sands churned by cattle, goats and camels. Above, the most complete specimen, BOU-VP-16/1 was from an adult male.

David L. Brill / Brill Atlanta

[ml1954]

All Those Skulls Are Fake, Part 3: Placemarker

[jennyp]

...maybe 9/11 was fake too PLACEMARKER.

[KeepUSfree]

NEVER underestimate the quantity and quality of ignorance.

[Junior]

I think we can induct the "51 percent ain't no majority" claim into the 1^720 Club.