While that will apply to "some folks," it doesn't make sense that 88% are not convinced and that most want evo and creation taught together so that the student can make up his mind. Evolutionists don't seem to want students to make up their minds. Whatever happend to "Think For Yourself" bumper stickers?
Science is not a popularity contest. It is not democratic in the least.
What percentage of the population do you suppose could describe how a television set operates, and under what principles television transmissions take place?
My guess is less than 2% of the population. Yet, 99% of the population can turn a television set on and receive programming.
Polls do not measure scientific information. They can measure levels of ignorance of science, of course, but the have nothing to do with science.
If we begin teaching the sciences based on public opinion, we have lost the whole thing.
"Evo" and creation are different things. They are not competing theories to be given equal balance. People on these threads have made the comparison of astronomy and astrology, and I think that is accurate. Do you advocate teaching the astrology "theory" with equal weight to astronomy? Evolutionists don't seem to want students to be taught non-scientific subjects in science class.
The problem here is simple. People who interpret their religious beliefs to be opposed to evolution are against evolution no matter what the evidence is. Proponents of CS and its spin-off, ID, have both been trying to get this religious belief into the schools. CS was stopped by the Supreme Court in the 1980s, and now ID is in the docket.
Definitions:
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory"Belief: any cognitive content (perception) held as true; religious faith
As a conservative, you should be ashamed for bringing left wing populist lines of argument into this discussion.
most people in America cannot accurately and distinctly define:
evidence, fact, observation, record, repeatable, accurate, precise, experiment, variable, science, know, think, feel, notion, guess, hypothesis, theory, falsification criterion, prediction, predictive value, et cetera ad nauseam.
in fine: Most Americans lack the basic understanding of science required to differentiate between a valid theory and a mystic dogma dressed up in a cheap lab coat.