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.

A New Harris Poll on Belief

A Harris Interactive poll on belief in the United States was released on December 15 of this year. It consisted of a poll of 2303 adults and was taken between November 2 and November 11 of this year. There were several notable findings:

• 82% of surveyed adults believe in God
• 45% believe in "Darwin’s theory of evolution" (32% didn't)
  
• 40% believe in creationism (30% didn't)
  

The religious breakdown was even more interesting.

• 80% of Jews polled accept evolution (20% accept creationism)
  
• 51% of Catholics accept evolution (37%)
  
• 32% of protestants accept evolution (56%)
  

Unfortunately, the "protestant" category is not more finely resolved. I would be very curious to see what the breakdown is between Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. I also find it odd that there is such a large disparity between the acceptance of evolution between Jews and protestants, despite the two groups having the Old Testament in common. I don't recall Jesus saying anything about not accepting evolution. It must be one of those commandments with which I am not familiar like "thou shalt not dance," and "thou shalt not play cards."

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More on the Differences Between Scientists and Non-Scientists

Dan Vergano of USA Today has a story on how the public perceives science and how scientists perceive themselves. For example:

•Evolution. 32% of the public and 87% of scientists agree that people have evolved.

•Animal research. 52% of the public and 93% of scientists support drug testing or other experiments on animals.

•Nuclear power. 51% of the public and 70% of scientists support nuclear power development.

As the story notes, this is not surprising. I think this largely reflects science's understanding of the hows and whys and the limits of these topics, as opposed to the general public's understanding. I have been told that, here at the lab, support for nuclear power is much higher than it is out in either the cities of Oak Ridge or Knoxville. What I also find interesting is the huge drop-off with regard to evolution. This is probably due to the efforts of YEC and ID groups to promote the anti-elvislutionary, er anti-evolutionary message.