U.S. opinion polls on evolution & creation science

1987: Beliefs of earth & life scientists.
1982-2017: Beliefs of American adults.

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1987: Beliefs of American earth and life scientists:

According to Newsweek in 1987:

"By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science..."

That would make the support for creation science among those branches of science who deal with the earth and its life forms to be about 0.15% ₁

The American public generally believes quite differently. By the end of 2010, about 40% of adults believe in creation science.

Unlike other controversial topics like interracial marriage and same-sex marriage where beliefs have changed rapidly, beliefs about creationism and theistic evolution have remained surprisingly constant over the previous three decades. The only major change has been belief in naturalistic evolution which has doubled.

Trends between 1982 and 2017: Gallup polls:

The Gallup Organizations periodically asks randomly selected American adults about their beliefs on evolution and creation. They have conducted a poll of U.S. adults on at least 12 occasions between 1982 and 2014. By keeping the wording of their questions almost identical, each year's results are comparable to the others. The main change that they have made is to use "human beings" in place of "man" -- presumably because it is less ambiguous. Keeping the questions unchanged facilitates the detection of trends. ₂

The next Gallup poll on this topic will probably occur in 2010-MAY.

* This is the lowest value in 35 years of polling. 2017 was also the first year that creationism was not the most popular belief system. ₅

These polls typically involve slightly over 1,000 subjects. The margin of error is ~+mn~4 percentage points.

One might expect a gradual increase in support for the creationist view, because of the increasing percentage of older Americans -- the Baby Boomers born shortly after World War II. People tend to be more committed to religion with age. However, support for creationism seems to have declined slightly during the 21st century.

There appears to be a slow increase in belief of naturalistic evolution from its minimum of 9% in 1999 to its present value of 19% in early 2014.

Since 2008, belief in evolution -- in its theistic or naturalistic forms -- have increased and now stand at 50%. Belief in creation science has decreased, and now stands at 42%. ₃

The two segments of the population that most favor naturalistic evolution are:

• 30% of adults aged 18 to 29.
• 34% of adults who seldom or never attend church. ₃

Since young adults tend to retain their beliefs for decades as they age, and since the percentage of adults who rarely attend church is increasing, we can expect that belief in naturalistic evolution will continue to increase in the future.

1991: Gallup Poll showing breakdown by gender, race and income:

Results for the poll taken between 1991-NOV-21 and 24 were:

These results show how difficult it is for people to maintain their beliefs in creationism in college. See below for 2010 data.

1997: Gallup Poll comparing scientists with the general population:

Note the major differences between the beliefs of the general population and of scientists:

The "scientist" group would presumably include biologists and geologists. But it would also include persons with professional degrees in fields unrelated to evolution, such as computer science, chemical engineering, physics, psychology, business administration, etc.

Political science professor George Bishop of the University of Cincinnati published a paper in 1998-AUG listing and interpreting 1997 poll data.

"Bishop notes that these figures have remained remarkably stable over time. These questions were first asked about 15 years ago, and the percentages in each category are almost identical. Moreover, the profiles of each group has been constant. Just as when these questions were first asked 15 years ago, creationists continue to be older, less educated, Southern, politically conservative, and literal Bible believers(among other things). Women and African-Americans were more likely to be creationists than whites and men. Meanwhile, younger, better educated, mainline Protestants and Catholics were more likely to land in the middle as theistic evolutionists." ₄

This topic continues in the next essay

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

1. Larry Martz & Ann McDaniel, "Keeping God Out of Class (Washington and bureau reports)". Newsweek (Newsweek Inc.) 1987-JUN-29, Pages 22 & 23. ISSN 0028-9604
2. "Reading the Polls on Evolution and Creationism," Pew Research Center, 2005-SEP-28, at: http://people-press.org/
3. "In U.S., 42% Believe Creationist View of Human Origins," Gallup Polls, 2014-JUN-02, at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/
4. Johnathan Moore, "What do Americans believe about the origin of species," Public Religion Project, 1998-OCT-12.
5. Art Swift, "In U.S., Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low," Gallup, 2017-MAY-22, at: https://news.gallup.com/

Copyright © 1995 to 2018 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally published on 1995-NOV
Last update: 2018-AUG-30
Author: B.A. Robinson

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