Evolution now accepted by majority of Americans
University of Michigan
The
level of public acceptance of evolution in the United States is now solidly
above the halfway mark, according to a new study based on a series of national
public opinion surveys conducted over the last 35 years.
"From
1985 to 2010, there was a statistical dead heat between acceptance and
rejection of evolution," said lead researcher Jon D. Miller of the
Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. "But
acceptance then surged, becoming the majority position in 2016."
Examining
data over 35 years, the study consistently identified aspects of education --
civic science literacy, taking college courses in science and having a college
degree -- as the strongest factors leading to the acceptance of evolution.
"Almost twice as many Americans held a college degree in 2018 as in 1988," said co-author Mark Ackerman, a researcher at Michigan Engineering, the U-M School of Information and Michigan Medicine. "It's hard to earn a college degree without acquiring at least a little respect for the success of science."
The
researchers analyzed a collection of biennial surveys from the National Science
Board, several national surveys funded by units of the National Science
Foundations, and a series focused on adult civic literacy funded by NASA.
Beginning in 1985, these national samples of U.S. adults were asked to agree or
disagree with this statement: "Human beings, as we know them today,
developed from earlier species of animals."
The
series of surveys showed that Americans were evenly divided on the question of
evolution from 1985 to 2007. According to a 2005 study of the acceptance of
evolution in 34 developed nations, led by Miller, only Turkey, at 27%, scored
lower than the United States. But over the last decade, until 2019, the
percentage of American adults who agreed with this statement increased from 40%
to 54%.
The
current study consistently identified religious fundamentalism as the strongest
factor leading to the rejection of evolution. While their numbers declined
slightly in the last decade, approximately 30% of Americans continue to be
religious fundamentalists as defined in the study. But even those who scored
highest on the scale of religious fundamentalism shifted toward acceptance of
evolution, rising from 8% in 1988 to 32% in 2019.
Miller
predicted that religious fundamentalism would continue to impede the public
acceptance of evolution.
"Such
beliefs are not only tenacious but also, increasingly, politicized," he
said, citing a widening gap between Republican and Democratic acceptance of evolution.
As
of 2019, 34% of conservative Republicans accepted evolution compared to 83% of
liberal Democrats.
The
study is published in the journal Public Understanding of Science.
Besides
Miller and Ackerman, the authors are Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch of the
National Center for Science Education; Belén Laspra of the University of Oviedo
in Spain; and Carmelo Polino of the University of Oviedo and Centre Redes in
Argentina; and Jordan Huffaker of U-M.
