I read that only 28% of Americans believe in Evolution?

Question

Is this true?, I just find it difficult to believe that anybody wouldn't believe this as a fact

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/page2/200512_an_atheist_manifesto/

"The Nature of Belief
According to several recent polls, 22% of Americans are certain that Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years. Another 22% believe that he will probably do so. This is likely the same 44% who go to church once a week or more, who believe that God literally promised the land of Israel to the Jews and who want to stop teaching our children about the biological fact of evolution.

An Atheist Manifesto is the source from the link above

Answer 1

Here is a response to a similar question I posted a couple of hours ago:

99.9% of the people I see who say they "don't believe in evolution", always show that they're pretty clueless about what evolution is in the first place. Some of the most clearest give-aways are the ridiculous phrases "Why are there still monkies [sic]"? or "It's only a theory". Some I swear are just incapable of understanding that there are changes that take more than a human lifetime to accumulate.

The other 0.1% I see are compuslive types who have been through enough debates with real scientists that they ought to know about evolution by now, but elaborately try to rationalize away any counter-arguments (or just plain make up stuff) in order to defend some religious belief they think is being threatened.

Answer 2

Below is the link for the percentages. Basically 30% believe that God created animals via evolution and about 15% believe in evolution without a supernatural guidance.

51% believe in creationism, just over half. That is a little scary a number but explains many phenomena about the US like how GWB got elected the second time, how Hillary can be in the running for Prez, how Miss S. Carolina can go through High School without being pulled aside for special ed., and how the Phelps family can go to military funerals and call servicemen homosexuals.

Gosh but I wish we Canadians had more sane neighbors to the South.

Answer 3

I found this interesting site

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm

Based on gallup polls conducted since 1991. The results are about 50-50 believe-don't believe. However, by far the largest percentage of evolution believers also believe that god had a hand in how the evolution unfolded. A small percentage, around 10 %, of americans believe in evolution in which god had no part.

Answer 4

I have an engineering degree and I don't think evolution is scientific. I am however open to persuasion, perhaps I just don't know because I don't have a degree in biology. What are the defining equations for evolution then? OK, if there are no equations, how about a mechanism for one species of anything to evolve into another species which has been shown to work in the lab? Where can I read about it in the Nobel prize winning paper?

Answer 5

So far this is all hearsay. But I believe the study isn't far off from. Evolution is a widely disbelieved fact. Sometimes the most obvious truths of life simply will not be accepted.

edit:
Very nice survey, QED. Impressive, very substantive.. I love to see that on answers. I'm also pleased that if you include "Not sure" Japan is just as high on the list as Iceland.

Answer 6

It's more like 60%. 20% believe that God played a role in evolution and 40% believe that God played no role at all. I mean how dumb do you think Americans are? I know there are a few nut cases who think the world is 6000 years old but those people are few and far between.

Answer 7

The latest gallop polls are around 40%, but it can be a loaded question based on how it is asked. Some Christians, who would otherwise agree with the question, say no because they think it implies atheism or some sort of evolution without theistic assistance.

Nevertheless, you are right. See the below graph. We are just behind Turkey in the western world. Scary!

Answer 8

I hope it is not true. I live in a very progressive city and state I think the statistics here would be more like 90% accept evolution.
The deep south presents a problem for education on all levels. Besides that many don't believe in evolution, they also have the highest poverty rates in the country

Answer 9

you refer to a poll carried out by CBS, of a random sample of just 885 adults

This minute number were interviewed by telephone between November 18-21, 2004.

Of the 885 sampled, only 795 were registered voters. CBS recons that the error due to sampling could be plus or minus three percentage points for results based on all adults and all registered voters.

They found that when asked if God created humans in present form 55% said yes. 47% of Kerry voters said yes, and 67% of Bush voters said yes.

When asked if Humans evolved, God guided the process
27% said yes, of which Kerry voters said (28%) yes
and Bush voters (22%) said yes.

Finally they asked if Humans evolved, God did not guide process
13% said yes, of Kerry voters 21% said yes, but only 6% of Bush voters thought so.

If you wan't to sugges belief, you have to find a bigger sample than that. One of the most widely cited indicators of this religiosity is the extremely high percentage of Americans who say they believe in God, as measured by the standard Gallup Poll question, "Do you believe in God, or a universal spirit?" According to the Gallup organization's 1994 reading, 96% of U.S. adults said they believed in God.

Furthermore, this figure appears to be exactly the same as it was 50 years earlier, when the question was first asked November 1944. Thus the impression has grown of Americans' uniform and unwavering belief in God, since these figures and others (such as Gallup's data showing 75% of Americans believing in life after death) have been reported time and again in academic journals, professional publications, and in the mass media.

A far better survey with 3000 samples taken in US was undertaken John Miller of Michigan State University (2006), who conducted the survey along with colleagues. His survey included as well 32 European countries, Japan and the U.S. and reveals that only people in Turkey are less likely than Americans to accept the theory of evolution as a fact.

Religious fundamentalism, partisan politics and poor science education have contributed to Americans’ reluctance to accept evolution, according to John Miller

Miller found that the percentage of people in the U.S. who accept the idea of evolution has dropped from 45 in 1985 to 40 last year (2005).

At the other end of the scale, more than 80 percent of those surveyed in Iceland say they believe that evolution is fact.

The percentage of adults in the United States who reject evolution outright has dropped from 48 to 39 over that period, but the percentage of Americans who are unsure about evolution has soared from 7 in 1985 to 21 in 2006.

Answer 10

The fundie Christians have been stealthily taking over school boards and erasing it from high school science for 2+ decades, following Ralph Reed's doctine of "Stealth Candidates".

No surprise that nations like India and China are poised to pass us in science.