Majority of Republicans Doubt Theory of Evolution

Gallup News Service ^ | 11 June 2007 | Frank Newport

[Alter Kaker]

PRINCETON, NJ -- The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant minority who doubt that evolution adequately explains where humans came from.

The data from several recent Gallup studies suggest that Americans' religious behavior is highly correlated with beliefs about evolution. Those who attend church frequently are much less likely to believe in evolution than are those who seldom or never attend. That Republicans tend to be frequent churchgoers helps explain their doubts about evolution.

The data indicate some seeming confusion on the part of Americans on this issue. About a quarter of Americans say they believe both in evolution's explanation that humans evolved over millions of years and in the creationist explanation that humans were created as is about 10,000 years ago.

Broad Patterns of Belief in Evolution

The theory of evolution as an explanation for the origin and development of life has been controversial for centuries, and, in particular, since the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's famous The Origin of Species. Although many scientists accept evolution as the best theoretical explanation for diversity in forms of life on Earth, the issue of its validity has risen again as an important issue in the current 2008 presidential campaign. Two recent Republican debates have included questions to the candidates about evolution. Three candidates -- Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo -- indicated in response to a question during the May 3 debate that they did not believe in the theory of evolution, although they have attempted to clarify their positions in the weeks since.

Several recent Gallup Polls conducted in May and June indicate that a significant number of Americans have doubts about the theory of evolution.  

One such question was included in a May Gallup Panel survey:

Now thinking about how human beings came to exist on Earth, do you, personally, believe in evolution, or not?

	Yes, believe in evolution	No, do not	No opinion
2007 May 21-24		49	48	2

It is important to note that this question included a specific reference to "thinking about how human beings came to exist on Earth . . ." that oriented the respondents toward an explicit consideration of the implication of evolution for man's origin. Results may have been different without this introductory phrase.

With that said, Americans' responses to this question are essentially split down the middle. About half say they do believe in evolution and about half say they do not.

A second question included in a June 1-3 USA Today/Gallup poll asked about evolution side by side with a similar question about creationism:

Next, we'd like to ask about your views on two different explanations for the origin and development of life on earth. Do you think -- [ITEMS ROTATED] -- is -- [ROTATED: definitely true, probably true, probably false, (or) definitely false]?

A. Evolution, that is, the idea that human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life

	Definite- ly true	Probably true	Probably false	Definite- ly false	No opinion		Total true	Total false
2007 Jun 1-3		18%	35	16	28	3	53	44

B. Creationism, that is, the idea that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years

	Definite- ly true	Probably true	Probably false	Definite- ly false	No opinion		Total true	Total false
2007 Jun 1-3		39%	27	16	15	3	66	31

These results are similar to those from the question asked in May. A little more than half of Americans say evolution -- as defined in this question wording -- is definitely or probably true. Forty-four percent say that it is probably or definitely false.  

In contrast, even more Americans, two-thirds, say the theory of creationism is definitely or probably true.

A separate Gallup Poll trend question -- also asked in May -- gave Americans three choices about human beings' origins. Responses to this question found that 43% of Americans choose the alternative closest to the creationist perspective, that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." A substantial 38% say human beings evolved, but with God guiding the process. Another 14% favored an interpretation of evolution arguing that God had no part in the process, leaving a total of 52% who say humans evolved with or without God's direction.

Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings -- [ROTATE 1-3/3-1: 1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, 2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process, 3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so]?

	Man developed, with God guiding	Man developed, but God had no part in process	God created man in present form	Other/ No opinion
	%	%	%	%
2007 May 10-13	38	14		43	4
2006 May 8-11	36	13		46	5
2004 Nov 7-10	38	13	45	4
2001 Feb 19-21		37	12	45	5
1999 Aug 24-26	40	9	47		4
1997 Nov 6-9	39	10	44	7
1993 Jun 23-26	35		11	47	7
1982 Jan	38	9	44	9

To summarize the results of these three questions about evolution and human origins:

• Across the three question wordings, the data show consistently that about half of Americans agree with the theory of evolution, believe that the theory of evolution is probably or definitely true, or believe that humans developed over million of years with or without God's guidance.

• Belief in the idea that humans were created pretty much as is 10,000 years ago is somewhat more dependent on the way in which this concept is measured. A little more than 4 out of 10 Americans -- when presented with three alternatives -- say they believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago. At the same time, two-thirds of Americans in a stand-alone question say they believe in the theory of "creationism" -- defined as the idea that humans were created in their present form 10,000 years ago.

It might seem contradictory to believe that humans were created in their present form at one time within the past 10,000 years and at the same time believe that humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. But, based on an analysis of the two side-by-side questions asked this month about evolution and creationism, it appears that a substantial number of Americans hold these conflicting views.

View of Evolution and View of Creationism Numbers Represent % of Total Sample
		View of Creationism
		Definitely true	Probably true	Probably false	Definitely false
			%	%	%	%
View of Evolution	Definitely true	3	1		2	11
	Probably true	5	14	12	3
		Probably false	6	8	1	1
	Definitely false	24		3	*	1
* Less than 0.5%

These results show that:

• 24% of Americans believe that both the theory of evolution and the theory of creationism are probably or definitely true
• 41% believe that creationism is true, and that evolution is false
• 28% believe that evolution is true, but that creationism is false

• 3% either believe that both are false or have no opinion about at least one of the theories

Without further research, it's not possible to determine the exact thinking process of those who agreed that both the theory of evolution and creationism are true. It may be, however, that some respondents were seeking a way to express their views that evolution may have been initiated by or guided by God, and told the interviewer that they agreed with both evolution and creationism in an effort to express this more complex attitude.

Importance of Religion

It is important to remember that all three questions in this analysis included wording that explicitly focused the respondents on the origin of human beings.

This wording may have made Americans think about the implications of the theory of evolution in terms of humans being special creatures as reflected in religious teachings and in particular in the Judeo-Christian story of human origins as related in the book of Genesis. USA Today recently quoted Christian conservative and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer as saying: "Most of us don't think that we're just apes with trousers."

Thus, it is not surprising to find that many of those who do not believe in the theory of evolution justify that belief with explicitly religious explanations: 

(Asked of those who do not believe in evolution) What is the most important reason why you would say you do not believe in evolution? [OPEN-ENDED]      

	2007 May 21-24
	%
I believe in Jesus Christ	19
I believe in the almighty God, creator of Heaven and Earth		16
Due to my religion and faith	16
Not enough scientific evidence to prove otherwise	14
I believe in what I read in the Bible	12
I'm a Christian	9
I don't believe humans come from beasts/monkeys	3
Other	5
No reason in particular	2
No opinion	3

The majority of these responses are clearly religious in nature. It is fascinating to note that some Americans simply justified their objection to evolution by statements of general faith and belief. Although the New Testament does not include many explicit references to the origin of humans in the words of Jesus, 19% of Americans state that they do not believe in evolution because they believe in Jesus Christ. Other religious justifications focus on statements of belief in God, general faith concerns, references to the Bible, and the statement that "I'm a Christian." A relatively small number of this group justify their disbelief of evolution by saying more specifically that they do not believe that there is enough scientific evidence to prove the theory and/or that they simply do not believe that humans come from beasts or monkeys.

The graph shows the relationship between church attendance and response to the straightforward question of belief in evolution.

The group of Americans who attend church weekly -- about 40% in this sample -- are strongly likely to reject the theory of evolution. The group of Americans who attend church seldom or never -- also about 40% -- have the mirror image opinion and are strongly likely to accept the theory of evolution.

Republicans Most Likely to Reject Evolution

As noted previously, belief in evolution has been injected into the political debate already this year, with much attention given to the fact three Republican presidential candidates answered a debate question by saying that they did not believe in evolution.

It appears that these candidates are, in some ways, "preaching to the choir" in terms of addressing their own party's constituents -- the group that matters when it comes to the GOP primaries. Republicans are much more likely to be religious and attend church than independents or Democrats in general. Therefore, it comes as no great surprise to find that Republicans are also significantly more likely not to believe in evolution than are independents and Democrats. 

Bottom Line

The data in this analysis were measured in the context of questions about the origin and development of human beings. It is apparent that many Americans simply do not like the idea that humans evolved from lower forms of life. This appears to be substantially based on a belief in the story of creation as outlined in the Bible -- that God created humans in a process that, taking the Bible literally, occurred about 10,000 years ago.

Americans who say they do not believe in the theory of evolution are highly likely to justify this belief by reference to religion, Jesus Christ, or the Bible. Furthermore, there is a strong correlation between high levels of personal religiosity and doubts about evolution.

Being religious in America today is strongly related to partisanship, with more religious Americans in general much more likely to be Republicans than to be independents or Democrats. This relationship helps explain the finding that Republicans are significantly more likely than independents or Democrats to say they do not believe in evolution. When three Republican presidential candidates said in a May debate that they did not believe in evolution, the current analysis suggests that many Republicans across the country no doubt agreed.

Survey Methods

These results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,007 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted June 1-3, 2007. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 203 Catholics, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±8 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 804 non-Catholics, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

[Abd al-Rahiim]

It works for evolutionists. Until it’s so clear they got it wrong, and then they just re-write things to make it all better.

Sounds like good science to me.

You see, good science isn't dogma. When one theory is shown to be inadequate, it is replaced by another one. For example, people used to believe in abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation. They had experiments to prove their claim (see: Spallanzani)¹. It took the genius of Louis Pasteur to devise an experiment to disprove spontaneous generation that was acceptable to the religious dogma as well as conforming to the scientific method, by no means an easy task.

What about for evolution? Before Darwin, there was Lamarck. He suggested that traits developed in one lifetime are passed on to future generations. The data, however, didn’t really support his theory all that much. So, it was dumped in favor of Darwin’s theory. Good science.

¹ It’s interesting how the arguments for creationism and its descendant intelligent design are so similar to the arguments for spontaneous generation and geocentricism. The main point some creationists, for example the user RussP, like to make is that the "evidence” is there if you only open your eyes to see it. They see something, choose to either reject or refuse to discover natural explanations, and posit that God did it all. How is that any different from the arguments used for abiogenesis and geocentricism? Abiogenesis advocates in the past claimed that the particles teeming in spoiled broth were created from nothingness. After all, there wasn’t any “evidence”; they couldn’t see anything. So, it had to have been supernatural. Same for geocentricism. To them, our planet didn’t revolve around the sun. It revolved around us. We’re not moving, so it doesn’t make any “sense” for us to revolve around the sun. Science disproved both of these. They’re now relegated to the annals of history.

^* At least the abiogenesis advocates could submit experiments that confirmed to the loose science standards of the times. Now that science is much stricter in its procedures, the "intelligent design"-ers can't tout a single peer-reviewed paper that supports their ideology.

[editor-surveyor]

Talk.origins is a dishonest site.

No evidence is presented there; only opinion, and propaganda. It’s a waste of time and bandwidth to click any evolutionist’s links here.

[curiosity]

They clearly are mutually exclusive,

It's not clear to me. Would you mind clarifying it for me?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

That's the thing. Macroevolution has been shown to be inadequate, and yet it hasn't been thrown out yet.

Spontaneous generation just was re-dubbed chemical generation.

Macroevolution is every bit as dogmatic and religious as Creationism.

[Cicero]

I’m not a Bible literalist (I think the six days of the creation could refer to periods of time rather than literal days, for example, since you can’t very well have a day or a week before the sun and moon are created).

And I believe (because I see with my own eyes) that you can have partial evolution, where birds grow longer beaks or dogs are bred for particular functions, for example).

But I think the theory of General Evolution is statistically highly improbable, if not impossible, without some sort of help beyond blind material chance. Saving the theory by positing an infinite number of universes, so that at least one of them can get it right, improves the statistics, but it also seems extremely improbable. Why on earth should we believe that? What is the evidence? What would Occam think of such a theory?

[Stultis]

there is no evidence that one species becomes another.

Sheesh. Even the strictest "creation science" types accept speciation. It's effectively essential to do so if you accept a literalist version of the "Noah's Ark" story, as there would be too many animals for the ark to carry otherwise.

Indeed such Biblical literalists implicitly invoke rates of speciation (differentiation of "created kinds" often into dozens and dozens of species, often with varying chromosome numbers and conventionally classified into multiple genera and/or sub-families, e.g. the "horse kind" including horses, zebras, asses, etc) that are vastly more rapid than any evolutionists would consider remotely plausible.

Less strict creationists also accept that speciation occurs (or did occur). In fact I've followed the antievolution movement for many years and I'm not aware of a single "professional" creationist or antievolution scientist type who believes in fixed species. You have to go back at least to the 19th Century for that.

[radioman]

They appealed only to uneducated voters, assumed they were stupid and they lost.

Good point!
.

[andysandmikesmom]

And the silly and also dishonest Answers in Genesis is just as much of a waste of time and bandwith, as you consider Talk.orgins to be...

So two websites, completely in disagreement with each other...people will read one or the other or both, and then make up their minds...

We each have our own opinoins about these websites...other Freepers, hopefully will go and check both of them out and make up their own minds..

[tricky_k_1972]

a) Christ died once for Mankind.

Great answer, although I'm sure most Catholics would argue that Christ did not have to die at the last supper in order for the Transmutation to have taken place, after all he turned water into wine which was a clearly observable fact from all witnesses to the event, why could he have not actually Transmutated the Sacrament, the answer of course is that nothing prevented him from doing so (although I'd have to say it would be icky).

b) God stated that God created the universe in a particular order, at a particular date, that is at odds with the Macroevolutionary model--that, along with Macroevolution being very far from a watertight hypothesis, is why so many Christians are Creationists.

Another great answer, but again my argument remains the same, why out of all the books of the Bible do we have to take Genesis as literal fact when we know so many passages were merely mans interpretation of what God had reveled to him?

Could not an observer of today been better able to acnowledge both the greatness of the act of Creation and been better able to interpret/describe what he was he was seeing to us today?

Why is it so hard to fathom that the observer of Gods Revelation to him of Creation was only describing it in a way he could understand?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

From your earlier post, what are some species that have actually been observed turning into other species (breeds of dogs are not separate species, even if they might be labeled subspecies)? This is an actual question, and ‘mainstream’ Creationist models have it more at a genus level, rather than species (so dogs are descended from wolves or a wolfish species; horses, donkeys, zebras are related; elephants and mammoths, too, but a lizard and a protozoa aren’t).

[dragonblustar]

Take one water bottle.

Add a vitamin pill.

Heat for a billion years...

Then poof! You have life?

[Steve_Seattle]

"Another poll designed to paint Reps as a bunch of extremists and nuts. I agree with you that it is not helpful to us."

Well, the poll shows that about 48-49% of Americans are "extremists," if doubting the all-sufficiency of the evolutionary hypothesis qualifies you as an extremist. And that includes 40% of Democrats.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

So guess that for comment 150, it is what are some lifeforms which are supposed to have crossed genera which have been observed rather than what are some species.

[Stultis]

Spontaneous generation just was re-dubbed chemical generation.

Look up the definition of "spontaneous". In any case the term "spontaneous generation" is used in science to refer to an historical view that living things come into existence from non-living material as a normal and recurring process in nature. I.e. something envisioned to happen all the time, not just at one time long ago.

In fact spontaneous generation originally arose as a scientific view in a CREATIONIST context, many, many years before Darwin came along. Although some pre-Darwinian evolutionists (e.g. Lamarck) accepted spontaneous generation, Darwin himself rejected the notion.

Bear in mind that one of the distinctive features of Darwin's theory was that it included the idea -- which previous evolutionary schemes did not -- of universal common descent (i.e. that all living things are ultimately related by ordinary biological reproduction). Spontaneous generation is INCONSISTENT with common descent. If living things are continually or even intermittently coming into existence by means other than biological reproduction then all living things are NOT related.

[JSDude1]

look around you next time you go “fossil hunting”: the “layers of sediment” all over the world show evidence of a world-wide flood!

Why would there be fossils on even some of the highest peaks (that are confirmed not to have been recent volcanoes) in the world? Why has there been miles of supposedly (dated by evolutionists) ‘old rock’ on top of ‘younger rock’. See second post for more evidence!

[JSDude1]

who’s to say that all that water was as salty as it is now, or that there wasn’t rain enough to fill fresh water run-off lakes? I am not a scientist, so I will say I don’t know, but although your question is thought provoking: it doesn’t disparage the theory of creation.

I do appreciate that you are thinking though, and this discussion is helpful, I hope!

[Retired Greyhound]

I believe in adaptation. I don’t believe that a monkey becomes a human.

Horses don’t become alligators. That’s all I’m saying.

[Steve_Seattle]

"You should change your name to godlessSteve_Seattle."

I'm not sure what prompted that remark. On these threads I'm generally sympathetic to the creationism point of view, as I've been on this thread. At the very least, I believe that a supreme intelligence exists, and that it is behind this universe, regardless of the specific manner in which human being came about.

[Stultis]

Ok, I'll go along with that as long as those scientific classroom teachers and materials fully inform students evolution is only a theory developed by some in the scientific community.

And I would go along with an anti-dogmatism statement or policy of this type so long as it is applied to scientific theories in general, instead of singling out for special qualification only those scientific theories that biblical literalists happen to object to.

Interestingly antievolutionists have often proposed statements or policies such as you describe, but they ALWAYS refuse to generalize them to all scientific theories. I've yet to find a antievolution activist who has shown the slightest concern with scientific dogmatism (supposed or actual) as a general principle. It's always invoked as a ploy in service of special pleading.

In fact it's pretty clear to me that antievolutionists generally prefer that scientific theories other than evolution are taught dogmatically, as this will make evolution seem less valid by contrast.

[Abd al-Rahiim]

I am curious.

Does this mysterious "real" science you write of include the supernatural in its explanations and findings?