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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.)
Click to expand...

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?).
 
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