Second, the research team found that individuals with anti-abortion, pro-life views typically associated with the conservative wing of the Republican Party were significantly more likely to reject evolution than those with pro-choice views. In Europe, having pro-life or right-wing political views had little correlation with attitudes toward evolution.
Third, the study found that adults with some understanding of genetics were more likely to have a positive attitude about evolution.
In a 2005 study, 78 percent of U.S. adults agreed that plants and animals had evolved from other organisms, but 62 percent also believed that God created humans without any evolutionary development in play.
The year 2009 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (and Abraham Lincoln) and 150 years since Darwin penned “On the Origin of Species,” and it would appear, at least in the United
States, there has been little “evolution” in the thinking of the average individual to embrace an idea that becomes more grounded in proof each passing year.
Darwin’s ideas about evolution were not perfect. Few transitional ideas in science are created perfect, and that is the beauty of science and discovery because scientific ideas and theories are testable.
When further experimentation and analysis cannot confirm earlier hypotheses, those earlier concepts are discarded and replaced by newer concepts, which are then subject to proof as well.
Even though Darwin’s theory has been expanded upon and modified over time, the basic tenet has not been discarded. Rather it has been reinforced and strengthened.
Now back to the study of 2006. It has been six years since that study was conducted. However, it is unlikely that much has changed in the interim.
Today, there is a great hue and cry about the adequacy of science education in this country. If science education cannot be improved in the U.S., there is little likelihood that there will be much change in the acceptance of evolution as a sound theory for the development of man (and all other creatures and plants).
There are probably many who think the controversy over evolution came to a conclusion with the ending of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Today, schools across the country are under assault by special interests that are trying to invest high school curricula with “creation science,” an oxymoron if ever there were one. And some states have allowed these inroads to be made.
Science requires evidence for support, even if that evidence changes over time, most often when new more provable evidence becomes available, as has happened ever since Darwin’s theory first was published.
If a long-term goal of U.S. education is to foster science and legitimate inquiry, the percentage of adults in this country who believe in evolution theory — a very basic scientific premise — must eventually rise higher than number 31 out of 32.
