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Only 32% of Americans Believe in Evolution?

Magrat

Mrs. Rincewind
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I came across this article while looking for something else.

What struck me was this paragraph:

A minority of Americans fully accept the scientific explanation for the origins of human life. According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 60% of Americans say humans have evolved over time, but only about half of that group (32% of U.S. adults overall) believes that humans and other living things evolved solely due to natural processes, the explanation accepted by the vast majority of scientists. About a quarter of U.S. adults (24%) say that humans and other life evolved, but that this evolution was guided by a supreme being. The same survey found that a third of Americans (33%) reject evolution entirely, saying humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.​

Highlight mine.

So my question is not why do some people reject evolution entirely, I know the answer to that. My question is, why do so many people reject the idea of solely natural evolution?

(I apologize if this is in the wrong forum category, please move it if it is...it seemed to fit in several different places.)
 
RogueKitten said:
So my question is not why do some people reject evolution entirely, I know the answer to that. My question is, why do so many people reject the idea of solely natural evolution?
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I do it because it so thoroughly annoys a certain kind of atheist, and because there is no practical advantage to *not* doing it.
 
theprestige said:
I do it because it so thoroughly annoys a certain kind of atheist, and because there is no practical advantage to *not* doing it.
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That's why you say you do it, but what's the real reason?

The group most strongly associated with that belief is white evangelical protestants. Coincidentally (or not) they are also the group most likely to vote Republican. Are they the people you really want to be associated with?

I'm betting the answer is - YES!
 
I suppose, if you believe that the universe were created by a Supreme Being for some purpose, then nothing is "solely due to natural processes" -- everything is either designed or at least guided.

Frankly, I am surprised that the number of Americans who believe that humans and other living things evolved solely due to natural processes is as high as 32%.
 
theprestige said:
I do it because it so thoroughly annoys a certain kind of atheist, and because there is no practical advantage to *not* doing it.
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Sounds like you're cool with ignoring reality simply because it provides you certain (perceived) advantages.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
That's why you say you do it, but what's the real reason?

The group most strongly associated with that belief is white evangelical protestants.
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I thought the evangelicals (25% of US) fell into the 33% who don't believe in evolution at all, not the 24% that believe that evolution occurred but was guided by God.

.............
As for the OP question, I guess they find evolution easier to believe in than abiogenesis. They can go pretty far with the scientific explanations, but that last little step of the origin of life is too much for them. If that answer is too axiomatic, then I will go with Mark6's response.

ETA 20% of the US is Catholic, might many of those folks account for the 24% who like evolution but insist on a Divine creation.
 
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While I do not agree that evolution was guided by God, this actually appears to be an improvement if 56% accept evolution.
 
Well, I don't "believe" in evolution at all. I just accept it as the best explanation we have as to how alleles have changed over time. It's not a belief!

There is the fact of evolution, which comes down to physical evidence of changes in species, and speciation, over billions of years, and the theory which is the best answer we presently have as to how it actually happened.

There is no "believe".

Norm
 
fromdownunder said:
Well, I don't "believe" in evolution at all. I just accept it as the best explanation we have as to how alleles have changed over time. It's not a belief!

There is the fact of evolution, which comes down to physical evidence of changes in species, and speciation, over billions of years, and the theory which is the best answer we presently have as to how it actually happened.

There is no "believe".

Norm
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That is kind of semantics
 
RogueKitten said:
I came across this article while looking for something else.

What struck me was this paragraph:

A minority of Americans fully accept the scientific explanation for the origins of human life. According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 60% of Americans say humans have evolved over time, but only about half of that group (32% of U.S. adults overall) believes that humans and other living things evolved solely due to natural processes, the explanation accepted by the vast majority of scientists. About a quarter of U.S. adults (24%) say that humans and other life evolved, but that this evolution was guided by a supreme being. The same survey found that a third of Americans (33%) reject evolution entirely, saying humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.​

Highlight mine.

So my question is not why do some people reject evolution entirely, I know the answer to that. My question is, why do so many people reject the idea of solely natural evolution?

(I apologize if this is in the wrong forum category, please move it if it is...it seemed to fit in several different places.)
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Because they are ignorant tools/fools undeserving of the good things science has done for them.
 
There do seem to be a lot of people (Americans especially) who think it's reasonable to accept evolution but still believe it was guided by a supreme being, but of course it isn't. It's like saying you accept the theory of gravity but still believe water is guided down a hill by a gravity god, or accept the modern scientific understanding of meteorology but still think it makes sense to pray to the rain god for rain.

It's the theory of evolution by natural selection. You can't just leave off the italicised bit and still claim to accept evolution. The italicised bit is the whole point.
 
The way I see it, the more Americans who believe in this sort of nonsense and use it to make work choices for their children and communities and businesses means more technical advantage flows to the rest of us living outside America. We have no such barriers, generally, which means we will be better and better equipped over time to move successfully into the future.
 
Norman Alexander said:
The way I see it, the more Americans who believe in this sort of nonsense and use it to make work choices for their children and communities and businesses means more technical advantage flows to the rest of us living outside America. We have no such barriers, generally, which means we will be better and better equipped over time to move successfully into the future.
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Thing is, we're doing all we do with that albatross tied around our neck. How? Simple, American religiosity has no depth. In private, away from the public eye, Americans are (from my sixty-five years of observation) no more religious than Hitchens was. They just say what they're supposed to say when they had to say anything. Yes, there's a hard core minority who pray to god to make the toast turn out better than yesterday, but they're dwindling with time.
 
I have a bit of a heretic view. Evolution of course is an observable fact. BUT I contend with other rational Christians on this point. What a trivially small God that creates a process He needs to guide? There is no need for guidance of evolution. If God created the entire universe, He would be perfectly capable of creating a universe that includes natural selection. He created nature, why limit it and all its processes to need guidance? Life itself is a self regulating self healing complex biological system. Far more awe inspiring and complex than a system that needs guidance. But I can live with that kind of Christian. I think their idea of God is too small, but it really isn't anything worth arguing over. There is another type of Christian I do contend with vigorously, that being the YEC or other form of literalists. I don't even think they are worthy of being called Christian at all. More likely a disciple of "the other side".:mad: If there is anything that needs guidance, clear to me that thing is humanity itself. That's where the focus of the Bible is, and should be. A YEC will ignore the actual teaching and purpose of the Bible in favor of a literalist interpretation that gains humanity nothing but harm? Not worthy at all in my small mind. But then again, neither am I worthy, being a simple heretic.
 
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What are the limitations of the study?

I talk about this in my class all the time. But I've used this as an example

http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx


The limitations of the study are

SURVEY METHODS

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 8-11, 2014, with a random sample of 1,028 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
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So basically they did phone polls of about 1000 people and then extrapolated that to mean it was representative of 320 million people.

Meanwhile, the questions were loaded.

They did a phone poll. What kind of person is willing to participate in a phone poll? Average working, intelligent people are not going to sit on a phone answering questions.

When did they call them? Oh about 2 weeks after Easter.


And voila we go to the actual research that the article is based on

and we get this:


About the Survey

This report is based on telephone interviews conducted March 21-April 8, 2013, among a national sample of 1,983 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (1,017 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 966 were interviewed on a cellphone). Interviews were completed in English and Spanish by live, professionally trained interviewing staff under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International.
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Again. What kind of person do you know who is willing to sit on a phone answering questions? Bored people with nothing to do for the most part. Older people who are retired maybe?


And what exactly did they ask them? Did they ask them DO YOU BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION? Um not likely.


The survey questionnaire included a split-form design whereby an additional 2,023 adults were asked a different set of questions, including the questions on animal evolution reported above. The total number of interviews conducted was 4,006. Thus, the data collection involved two simultaneous surveys; where the same question was asked on each form, the results of the two forms can be combined to yield a representative survey of U.S. adults with the full 4,006 respondents.
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Never believe a headline until you have examined the limitations of the study. And btw calling 2000 people up and asking them what they believe is basically standard practice for creating "statistics" It's a bunch of ******** as far as I'm concerned.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/
 
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That wasn't the "Pew!!" poll this thread's about (now you corrected it, well done!)

The poll we're discussing favoured to reply what the person would prefer to be the truth, not what they think. It's like making people provide their signatures and from those deduct what's the current state of calligraphy continent-wide (weren't talking of America?).
 
aleCcowaN said:
That wasn't the "Pew!!" poll this thread's about (now you corrected it, well done!)

The poll we're discussing favoured to reply what the person would prefer to be the truth, not what they think. It's like making people provide their signatures and from those deduct what's the current state of calligraphy continent-wide (weren't talking of America?).
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I didn't correct it. I pointed out that I use a different one in my class that has the limitations of study right there. (Maybe I didn't word it clearly enough, sorry about that!)

The article the OP linked to didn't have the limitations of the study on the same page. I had to go to the actual study and find it.

When you do though, you see it's the same type of crap as the one I posted.


What's interesting as well is the breakdown in ages

18-29

30-49

50-64

65 and older.


We can see that the majority of people that answered this were older than 29 years old. That is something to consider.
 
2000 is a big enough sample for the results to be reasonably accurate, provided the sample is representative - which is the trick, of course. The size of the population from which the sample is taken is not a factor. It's like tasting soup: give it a good stir, and whether the spoonful you sip comes from a small saucepan or a large cauldron makes no difference to your ability to tell whether more seasoning is required.

I've agreed to take part in a phone survey only to be told "thanks, but no thanks" when I answered the first question (name and gender). Obviously the interviewer had filled their quota for my age/gender. I imagine that must happen quite a lot as a reputable pollster looks for the right people to ensure their sample is representative.
 
Pixel42 said:
2000 is a big enough sample for the results to be reasonably accurate, provided the sample is representative - which is the trick, of course. The size of the population from which the sample is taken is not a factor. It's like tasting soup: give it a good stir, and whether the spoonful you sip comes from a small saucepan or a large cauldron makes no difference to your ability to tell whether more seasoning is required.

I've agreed to take part in a phone survey only to be told "thanks, but no thanks" when I answered the first question (name and gender). Obviously the interviewer had filled their quota for my age/gender. I imagine that must happen quite a lot as a reputable pollster looks for the right people to ensure their sample is representative.
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I don't think it's like "tasting soup!" People are not soup in some blended mix of beliefs. Many people have very different beliefs cognitive dissonance and also might not answer the question correctly.

People are often asked to choose from an OPTION of choices, not asked what they actually believe.


When I use the first example in my class I point out how the HEADLINE doesn't match what they were actually asked. There is a lot of equivocation on these types of polls, they are, as you pointed out, looking for a specific end result.

But that's how polls are done in the U.S. It's considered the correct way to do it. That's why we get statistics that say over 90 percent of Egyptian women have endured female genital mutilation when it's total ********.

Who paid for the poll? The WHO. Gee I wonder if they are using confirmation bias to justify their need for funding to "solve this problem."
 
The thing is when it comes to origins of life that there will probably always be those saying something like this:

Can you make life from non-life, organic from inorganic?
Sure, there you go.
Can you make this life to evolve?
Sure, there you go.
Can you make this into human?
Sure, there you go.
Oh well, if you could do it, someone else could also do it!

And you are **********.
 
Well the questions also have to be meaningful and properly formulated, of course.

I was only taking issue with the suggestion that a sample of 2000 is not enough to get a reasonably accurate idea of a population's views when the population from which the sample is taken is 320 million. It certainly can be enough, provided it's a representative sample. From memory 2000 should give you about a 95% chance of achieving an accuracy of plus or minus about 2%.
 
It is obvious that the US lacks education in this area.

In Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), for instance, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring public school students to learn both evolution and creation science violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on the establishment of religion.
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This is ridiculous and where I live unimaginable.
 
truethat said:
We can see that the majority of people that answered this were older than 29 years old. That is something to consider.
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The median age in the USA is about 38 years (32 in my country, 42 in a typical European country). So I would be extreme surprised if among adults those being 30 or older aren't at least 83% of the total. Do you have evidence that contradicts that?

I insist the poll has little value, and not because of the sampling procedure. Like most polls, it's measuring the interests and/or prejudices of the ones designing and delivering the poll. Good polls aren't cheap.
 
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Cabbage said:
Sounds like you're cool with ignoring reality simply because it provides you certain (perceived) advantages.
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But it's not ignoring reality.

The belief that God guided our evolution is a religious belief, it is not a scientific belief. But it still fits the data, which is that humans evolved. The reason that it is not scientific is because it's not falsifiable. But for exactly the same reason, it doesn't conflict with reality either. If it did, it would be falsified, and it's not.
 
Ladewig said:
I thought the evangelicals (25% of US) fell into the 33% who don't believe in evolution at all,
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Correct. They are the largest subset of those who don't believe in evolution.

RogueKitten said:
why do so many people reject the idea of solely natural evolution?
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If you don't think evolution is natural then what you believe in isn't evolution.

"I believe in evolution, but only within kinds".

"I believe in evolution, but guided by the hand of God".

"I believe the twin towers were downed by hijacked jet planes, but building 7 was a controlled demolition".
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
Why do you think that's true?
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Unless you doubt evolution, the part of that belief that can be disproven, then how could it not fit the data? Does evolution not fit the data? If it does, then adding something on that doesn't depend on data still fits the data.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
But the most common belief of religious types is that humans didn't evolve. That doesn't fit the data.
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Well, you're right that doesn't fit the data, but that wasn't what Ziggurat was addressing and it's also not clear it's true that that's the most common belief among religious types. That view is usually ~33% view amongst the population at large and then might comes close to 50% amongst religious depending on the poll and definitions.
 
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RecoveringYuppy said:
Unless you doubt evolution, the part of that belief that can be disproven, then how could it not fit the data? Does evolution not fit the data? If it does, then adding something on that doesn't depend on data still fits the data.
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No, I mean why does a god or gods fit in there at all. You might as well stick a plumber's helper to the theory.
 
Cabbage said:
Sounds like you're cool with ignoring reality simply because it provides you certain (perceived) advantages.
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See what I mean?

;)

Anyway, if ignoring gravity meant I could fly, or ignoring digestion meant I could go for weeks without food, then hell damn yeah I'd ignore reality.

Meanwhile, the process of evolution is about as important to me as is the name of the capital of Canada: If I ever actually need it for some practical purpose, I'll look it up.

The only difference being that if I wanted to visit the capital of Canada, I could find out the reality of its name, location, and other vital information, from a variety of sources, with a high degree of reliable factuality.

Whereas, if I wanted to visit evolution--or do whatever useful thing one does with evolution (which would be what, exactly?)--I could find out... ooh. Good question. What's the vital information I need to know about reality of evolution?

Tell me, Cabbage, what is the real, useful thing I should know about some evolutionary event a million years ago?
 
Pixel42 said:
Well the questions also have to be meaningful and properly formulated, of course.

I was only taking issue with the suggestion that a sample of 2000 is not enough to get a reasonably accurate idea of a population's views when the population from which the sample is taken is 320 million. It certainly can be enough, provided it's a representative sample. From memory 2000 should give you about a 95% chance of achieving an accuracy of plus or minus about 2%.
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I get it, believe me. But I like your analogy of soup because that's how it's done. Like it's a taste of soup. This is based on the idea of the "melting pot" phenomenon which is inherently racist and biased. A better example would be the mosaic.

So perhaps a tossed salad instead of soup. I've you reached into a tossed salad and grabbed 2 percent yeah it MIGHT accurately represent the whole salad. But you also might grab a bunch of onions and cucumber and that doesn't really represent the whole thing.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
No, I mean why does a god or gods fit in there at all. You might as well stick a plumber's helper to the theory.
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Synthesizing the myth (which many people learnt at a young age) to the scientific idea (that many people don't learn until at least middle school). The myth is an emotional idea, evolution the logical. Also, many, maybe even most, people do not fully understand evolutionary theory or biology, whilst the myth of Adam and Eve is, at its face, simple.

That's what I think anyway.
 
Ziggurat said:
But it's not ignoring reality.

The belief that God guided our evolution is a religious belief, it is not a scientific belief. But it still fits the data, which is that humans evolved. The reason that it is not scientific is because it's not falsifiable. But for exactly the same reason, it doesn't conflict with reality either. If it did, it would be falsified, and it's not.
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It is, by definition, impossible for anything related to a god to fit any data. The supernatural is not natural, and therefore not real.

However, the claim that a god created the forces of the universe and let evolution do its thing because it knew humans would evolve is minor enough that I won't fight it.
 
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