New Poll From Gallup on Human Origins

Gallup has released a new poll on what people think about human evolution.  Here is their takeaway blurb:

Forty percent of U.S. adults ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years. However, more Americans continue to think that humans evolved over millions of years -- either with God's guidance (33%) or, increasingly, without God's involvement at all (22%).

Beyond this are details in the numbers.The poll was conducted from June 3-16 and contained a random sample of 1015 adults.  Some of this is not new and has changed little since the last poll.  There is a high correlation between those with a college education and those who accept human evolution.  The correlation is also high between those who have no religious affiliation and those who accept human evolution.

Other interesting tidbits from the attached PDF:

• Acceptance of God-guided human evolution does not seem to change with political party affiliation, gender or ethnic background
•  Acceptance of God-guided human evolution rises only slightly with age
• The idea that God created humans in their present form drops substantially from 55% (Republican) to 34% (independent and Democrat) as well as ideology (54% Republican, 29% democrat)

There are more observations buried in the data. Have a look.

USA Today Presents A Reasonably Balanced View of the Gallup Poll Results

In what could easily have been an exercise in bashing organized religion, USA Today took a stab at the results of the new Gallup poll which reflects changing views of evolution and creationism in a sample of the American public.  Tom Krattenmaker writes:

New polling data show that for the first time in a long time there’s a notable decline in the percentage of Americans — including Christians — who hold to the “Young Earth” creationist view that humankind was created in its present form in the past 10,000 years, evolution playing no part.

According to a Gallup poll conducted in May, the portion of the American public taking this position now stands at 38%, a new low in Gallup’s periodic surveys. Fifty-seven percent accept the validity of the scientific consensus that human beings evolved from less advanced forms of life over millions of years.

Has atheism taken over so thoroughly? No, and that’s why this apparent break in the creationism-vs.-evolution stalemate is significant and even instructive to those in search of creative solutions to our other intractable public arguments.

As the poll reveals, the biggest factor in the shift is a jump in the number of Christians who are reconciling faith and evolution. They are coming to see evolution as their God’s way of creating life on Earth and continuing to shape it today.

As I noted in a previous post, I find this encouraging.  One of the things that has troubled me for quite some time is the large number of kids who come out of Christian homes but then walk away from the faith in college or after.  Anecdotally, I think that a large factor in this is that, when they enter college, (unless they go to a conservative school like Liberty University) they come face to face with the abject lack of evidence for the young earth argument and it angers them and sours them on the faith that they have been taught. 

If, on the other hand, this poll shows that more people are coming face to face with the evidence of an old earth and YET hanging on to their faith, then this is, indeed, cause for great hope. 

Aside: despite Mr. Krattenmaker's statement to the contrary, you do not have to be a religious liberal to accept evolution and an old earth.  He should take a trip to the BioLogos site some day.  Furthermore, not to throw cold water on his hopes but most young earth creationists that I know do not link that perspective with the health care debate.  They only peripherally link it with the climate change debate, as it is.  Neither of those issues are viewed in the context of scriptural interpretation.  There might be a low level of correlation among them but I doubt there is more than that.  The only debate that likely has an R-square even remotely approaching significance is the correlation between creationism and the LGBT issue, for which most Christians (creationist and otherwise) tend to view things more conservatively.

Gallup: Belief in Creationism At All-Time Low

Color me skeptical, but the Gallup organization has released its latest poll on the acceptance of creationism and the numbers are down.  Art Swift writes:

The percentage of U.S. adults who believe that God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years or so -- the strict creationist view -- has reached a new low. Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults now accept creationism, while 57% believe in some form of evolution -- either God-guided or not -- saying man developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.

This is the first time since 1982 -- when Gallup began asking this question using this wording -- that belief in God's direct creation of man has not been the outright most-common response. Overall, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe God was involved in man's creation -- whether that be the creationist view based on the Bible or the view that God guided the evolutionary process, outlined by scientist Charles Darwin and others. Since 1982, agreement with the "secular" viewpoint, meaning humans evolved from lower life forms without any divine intervention, has doubled..

As the pollsters suggest, this may reflect a growing secularization in American society and not necessarily a change in the way that people understand evolution.  As with most of these polls, however, education plays a role:

Higher education levels are associated with less support for creationism and higher levels of belief in the evolutionary explanation for human origins. Belief in creationism is 21% among those with postgraduate education versus 48% of those with no more than a high school diploma. Agreement with evolution without God's involvement is 31% among postgrads versus 12% among Americans with a high school education or less.

However, even among adults with a college degree or postgraduate education, more believe God had a role in evolution than say evolution occurred without God.

This is not surprising considering that most left-leaning colleges and universities do their level best to beat belief in God out of the students.I came along at a time before the advent of oppressive political correctness and identity politics, so it was okay to believe in God and still be educated. 

What is always interesting to me is the “religious preference” part of the chart. Catholics consistently accept God-driven evolution at a higher percentage than protestants. As with previous polls, at least 50% of protestants believe the young earth creation position, although that number appears to be dropping just a bit.  It is encouraging that 45% of those with post-graduate degrees think that evolution occurred but that it was a God-directed process.  Here's to hoping that number increases.

New Gallup Poll on Belief in Human Evolution

On June 2, the Gallup organization released another poll on acceptance of human evolution.  In a random sample of 1028 adults (18 years +), they found the following:

• The percentage of people that accept some form of theistic evolution has dropped since 2012 from 46% to 42%.
• The percentage of people who accept a young earth creation model of human origins is exactly three times that of people who seldom or never attend church: 69% to 23%.
• While the percentage of people who have less than a high school education and who accept the young earth model of human origins is 57%, of those who have a college degree, only 27% accept this model. 

The authors of the poll results hasten to mention that education may not play as large a role as one might think: 

These relationships do not necessarily prove that if Americans were to learn more about evolution they would be more likely to believe in it. Those with less education are most likely to espouse the creationist view and to be least familiar with evolution, but it's not clear that gaining more education per se would shift their perspectives. Many religious Americans accept creationism mostly on the basis of their religious convictions. Whether their beliefs would change if they became more familiar with evolution is an open question.

This tracks with modern-day young earth creationism, for which I do not know a single adherent who is not an evangelical Christian.  I do not know whether or not the relationship is real or not.  I do know that I have several friends who are Ph.D.s who are highly skeptical if not doubtful of evolution.  This is not because they have familiarity with the subject (one is a materials scientist, the other a chemical engineer) but because they think it is inherently anti-Christian.  My pastor, who is quite intelligent, and I engaged in a long conversation about it and yet I am quite certain that he remains unconvinced of its authenticity because, as he has stated since then, it conflicts with his understanding of scripture.

The writers also note:

However, significantly fewer Americans claim familiarity with "creationism" than did so seven years ago. In 2007, 86% were familiar, including 50% who were very familiar. Now, 76% are familiar, with just 38% very familiar. In short, even though the adherence to the creationist view has not changed over time, familiarity with the term "creationism" has diminished.

Given the current news climate and what I perceive to be the increased importance of this subject in Christian circles, I find this unusual. Given that these results are not broken down by age, however, it is possible that the drop is related to the rise of people that are more a-religious and thus do not come into contact with this controversy.  If this is the case, this is disheartening. 

Gallup: “In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins”

Here is the original Gallup poll report.

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I am in a weeklong summer teaching institute so I probably will not get a chance to post this week. In the meantime, have a look at a new Gallup poll on acceptance of evolution. HuffPo has a post by Michael Dowd. It is disappointing.

Hat Tip to the best man at my wedding, Jon Reid.

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