Gallup today reports that 46% of Americans believe God created man as he is today, no more than 10,000 years ago. This belief, despite all the science that proves this theory preposterous, has not changed in 30 years. Unsurprisingly, the more educated someone is, the more they believe in evolution. The more religious or Republican someone is, the more they believe in “creationism.”
“Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years,” Gallup reports today. “The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God’s guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.”
“Americans with postgraduate education are most likely of all the educational groups to say humans evolved without God’s guidance, and least likely to say God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. The creationist viewpoint “wins” among Americans with less than a postgraduate education.”
“Highly religious Americans are more likely to be Republican than those who are less religious, which helps explain the relationship between partisanship and beliefs about human origins. The major distinction is between Republicans and everyone else. While 58% of Republicans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years, 39% of independents and 41% of Democrats agree.”
And here’s the money quote, buried at the bottom of the conservative-leaning polling organization:
Most Americans are not scientists, of course, and cannot be expected to understand all of the latest evidence and competing viewpoints on the development of the human species. Still, it would be hard to dispute that most scientists who study humans agree that the species evolved over millions of years, and that relatively few scientists believe that humans began in their current form only 10,000 years ago without the benefit of evolution. Thus, almost half of Americans today hold a belief, at least as measured by this question wording, that is at odds with the preponderance of the scientific literature.
Welcome to Amercia.
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The "money quote" underestimates how many scientists have considered the data and concluded it demonstrates beyond doubt that man has existed for more than 10,000 years. True science thrives on uncertainty — i.e. unlike religious belief alleged not to be susceptible to changed thinking, the essence of science is to look at the data and then to attempt a "testable" explanation for how the data fit together. A scientist looks at existing scientific theories, and in his mind, challenges — "tests" them — against possible new ones. Yet, certain things are, certain things. At one point it was supposed the earth was flat; we now know for sure it is not. The people who wrote the Bible thought the earth was flat.
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