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June 1st, 2012
03:46 PM ET
Survey: Nearly half of Americans subscribe to creationist view of human originsBy Dan Merica, CNN (CNN) - Forty-six percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form at one point within the past 10,000 years, according to a survey released by Gallup on Friday. That number has remained unchanged for the past 30 years, since 1982, when Gallup first asked the question on creationism versus evolution. Thirty years ago, 44% of the people who responded said they believed that God created humans as we know them today - only a 2-point difference from 2012. "Despite the many changes that have taken place in American society and culture over the past 30 years, including new discoveries in biological and social science, there has been virtually no sustained change in Americans' views of the origin of the human species since 1982," wrote Gallup's Frank Newport. "All in all, there is no evidence in this trend of a substantial movement toward a secular viewpoint on human origins." The second most common view is that humans evolved with God's guidance - a view held by 32% of respondents. The view that humans evolved with no guidance from God was held by 15% of respondents. Survey: U.S. Protestant pastors reject evolution, split on Earth's age Not surprisingly, more religious Americans are more likely to be creationists. Nearly 70% of respondents who attend church every week said that God created humans in their present form, compared with 25% of people who seldom or never attend church. Among the seldom church-goers, 38% believe that humans evolved with no guidance from God. The numbers also showed a tendency to follow party lines, with nearly 60% of Republicans identifying as creationists, while 41% of Democrats hold the same beliefs. Republicans also seem to be more black-and-white about their beliefs, with only 5% responding that humans evolved with some help from God. That number is much lower than the 19% of both independents and Democrats. According to Newport, a belief in creationism is bucking the majority opinion in the scientific community - that humans evolved over millions of years. "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," writes Newport. "Thus, almost half of Americans today hold a belief ... that is at odds with the preponderance of the scientific literature." The USA Today/Gallup telephone poll was conducted May 10-13 with a random sample of 1,012 American adults. The sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. |
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Blame public schools that are too scared to properly teach evolution. It is a simple process that DOES happen and change all living things. People too stupid and lazy to understand the simple science take the easy way out and just say, "God did it." People can be so stupid.
And even more foolish people say it is a result of long periods of time + random chance.
I agree that theological evolutionists are inconsistent. The bible plainly teaches 6 day creationism, and anyone who says otherwise is just trying to make their christian beliefs consistent with evolution. If you want to believe in evolution, fine, but don't blame it on God.
@cestlavie3
So why do we need a flu each year if organisms don't evolve?
cestlavie3, you really need to take a college level course in biology.
Don't let your minister make you look stupid
@WWJD. Didn't say humans don't evolve. My contention is that there is a God who is the creator of life irregardless of what mechanisms used.
Wait, this whole time I've worried about Scientolgists, while I should be worried that almost have the country is ignorant to modern Science...yeah, I am gonna sleep well tonight
This is what happens when religious interests win out to common sense...
"The numbers also showed a tendency to follow party lines, with nearly 60% of Republicans identifying as creationists, while 41% of Democrats hold the same beliefs."
I think this is statistical proof that republicans ARE in fact, dumber than democrats.
no, its proof democrats are more stupid. You have to be an idiot to believe we are related to monkeys. There's no evidence.
Yup. Bona-fide, box-o-rocks dumb. Reliable Rethuglican voters; the best argument ever for eugenics.
guyFromVA is proof that we are in fact related to monkeys. And not distantly
Not only monkeys; we're related to amoebas.
GuyfromVA makes me feel ashamed to be from VA. We are related to everything that lives through DNA. We and monkey has similar DNA sequences. Therefore, we are closely related to monkeys, specifically chimps.
Pretty sure we would have been able to guess he was from VA even if he hadn't told us...
just because we have similar body structure and characteristics with monkeys doesn't imply common ancestry. Common body plans means there is a common designer. In engineering, we call it "design re-use." If the creator made a good design for the hand, let's say, then we would likely re-use that same design for more than one animal.
@guyFromVA
Worse than that (from your point-of-view) – we're related to many more mammals and even fish.
@guyFromVA
The hand is reused in many mammals.
@guyFromVA
Because of common descent not common design.
guyFromVA cannot see the resemblance, refuses to accept the similarities in behavior, and doesn't believe in DNA (which for the record states that chimpanzees are our closest relative with a 97% match). I also doubt guyFromVA can distinguish a monkey from an ape.
10,000 years why everybody knows that after the 6 days of creating the earth and Adam & Eve. It was only like a generation or 2 before Jesus came to town. Shoot weren't Adam & Eve his grandparents? That would make humans only like 2,100 years old. The dinosaurs that's made up all those skeletons are fake.
Wow, evolution with God's guidance? The whole mechanism of evolution is producing a lot of failures and selecting the stuff that works. That's what you see in the world. Everything living is a product of past successes from an ocean of failures.
BINGO! Evolution is not about perfection, it's about adapting to your environment, whatever that might be at the time. Most who don't get evolution won't get that.
yes, you see lots of fish reproducing fish, dogs reproducing dogs, cats reproducing ..ummm.. cats. So, how does that demonstrate evolution?
guyFromVA,
You must be REALLY OLD if you have been observing every fish, cat and dog for the last 150,000 THOUSAND years (or more)...
At least guyfromVA can admit he doesn't get it
OMFG I am literally speechless.
good
At the risk of alienating the good guys (but what the heck, right?) the REAL problem with America is that even most of you who believe in evolution aren't all that smart and don't really understand it. You believe on blind faith because people like me tell you it's true. You're really no different from the creationists. You just put your faith (blindly) in science rather than religion. If you'd been raised by different parents, you'd be firmly on the other side. How do like that?
Gee, I wonder why people don't like scientists. We're so friendly!
I don't 'believe' in science. I read (including the Bible) and look at the world. Evolution makes sense and there is physical evidence in the fossil record to prove it.
An old girlfriend I had when I was 20 was a creationist, she used to tell me that man on the moon was a government conspiracy; that fossils in the ground was a gov't conspiracy and that dinosaurs were, yup, more gov't conspiracy. Don't know we broke up right after that
After all we all know that: Nothing + No one = Everything requires more faith than believing in God. And yet atheists are views as the "smart ones"
Someone wrote that people who believe that humans evolved are putting "blind faith in science."
News flash: I know that the scientific method works because I've seen it work tens of thousands of times during my lifetime, including many times today. "Believing" in science is not "blind faith." "Believing" in science is what reasonable people do.
Contrast that with "faith" in an ancient book that describes inumerable unique events without any evidence of their actually occurring, save for their description in the ancient book. If you can't tell the difference, then you are a deluded idiot, i.e.,, a creationist.
Um
Science cannot answer the questions resolved by the Bible and the Bible never did attempt to resolve any scientific issues. The Bible is as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. I cannot say the same for science. Science in the last 150 years alone claimed the earth and heavens were 6,000 years old then the age of the universe jumped to 25 billion and today we are back at about 13.8 billion. Tell me who has more faith in their claims !
@fred, Really fred? Really? It's just as true today as it was 2k years ago? Slavery is just as okay? Eating shellfish still deserves a stoning death? Women should not be allowed to speak and their hair should cover their ears?
@InTheKnow
I think you're confusing origin of life with origin of species.
By definition:
One-half the population is of below average intelligence.
And most all of them vote Rethuglican.
Co-inky-dink? We think NOT!
I think Santa Claus and the tooth fairy just read this story and breathed a big sigh of relief. The true believers are still out there in big numbers.
This is embarrassing. We as a nation are so behind the rest of the civilized world in critical thinking that it almost leaves me with zero hope for the future of America. People, put your Bibles, Torahs, Korans down and pick up a biology book to learn more about what you don't understand about evolution and science in general instead of accepting and rationalizing silly crap about Creationism.
What I find absolutely fascinating is that so many "intelligent" individuals can observe the complexity of life on so many levels and conclude that it is a result of long periods of time + chance.
cestlavie3 – get a damn education. PLEASE.
@cestlavie3
Because the evidence supports it – DNA, fossil record, newer forms are more complex, etc. etc.
You creationists reject the scientific evidence if it conflicts with your interpretation of a 6000 year old myth – you'll accept an atomic clock but reject carbon-dating but the underpinning science is the same.
One more statistic.
More than 50% of Americans believe in Ghost.
One amazing bunch of people we have here.
It seems as if an inordinate percentage doesn't know how to pluralize -st words either.
(hint – it's: ghosts, scientists, posts, atheists....)
90% of Humanity used to believe the Sun revolved around the Earth. The percentage of people that believe something is true has no actual bearing on its validity. Truth is not established by popularity or poll (unless we're talking college football.) A survey that proves 46% of Americans are dumber than a box of rocks is sad but hardly surprising.
Tell that to those that believe that since a large portion of America believes gay marriage is okay, we should change it. It is truthful that the lifestyle is unhealthy, as causes higher risk of anal cancer.
@GauisCaesar
So you're saying Lesbians have a higher rate of anal cancer. Why would that be exactly?
46% ? The thought of this is absolutely delicious. Delightful.
You evolutionists haven't been very convincing after all these years (decades, rather).
And as the intelligent design movement gains ground and educates the public on the latest discoveries in molecular biology and people see the complexity and obvious marks of design, that number, God willing, will go up.
"Was Life Created?"
Download~ http://download.jw.org/files/media_books/lc_E.pdf
You can't teach those who refuse to learn. Some people are quite content to wallow in the filth of their ignorance.
guyFromVA, Actually evolutionists don't have to prove anything, scientists provide evidence and the knowledge of the individual helps to decide whether to believe it or not. Obviously 46% are too ignorant to understand the evidence before them however you do realize that 46% is a significant drop from decades past and there is no reason to expect it to climb due to the evidence.
Or... you know it could be random chance. We are talking on time scales that most of us can barely understand. Most of us are use to thinking on time scales of maybe 10-20 years. When it comes to the evolution of complex organisms, such as humans, we aren't talking about a few hundred years, or even a few thousand years. We are talking about MILLIONS of years. When it comes to evolution, most mutations prove to be fatal or put a person at a disadvantage. However, every so often you get a mutation that's very beneficial. Over the course of the next 100,000 to millions of years, that mutation will gradually make it's way through a species.
Humans, in their modern day form, first appeared around 100,000 years ago in Africa.
Even though I say major changes happen over the course of millions of years, there are smaller changes that result over the course of a smaller span of time. For example, did you know that if you compared a human's jaw from before the advent of agriculture and domestication of animals, to a human today, you would see our jaws are much smaller. That's why we often need to get our wisdom teeth pulled, as our jaws have grown too small for those teeth. Since we don't really have a use for our wisdom teeth any more, they are gradually disappearing from humans. That'll take many thousands of years before wisdom teeth are actually gone.
None of this is my opinion either. All of this is data obtained by many scientists over the course of many years. Evolution is based on the scientific method, and observable data. To disregard evolution is to disregard science.
The prevalence of the creationist belief could also be the result of media influence. Every single media source, or politician attempts to frame evolution as a 'debate', with multiple sides. Rather than go read a textbook that has been peer reviewed by many experts who dedicate their lives to those specific studies, it's easier to just believe everything the media and politicians tell us.
I'm glad that more than half of society has a brain.
@Brian
You said, "I'm glad that more than half of society has a brain."
It looks like it's closer to 15%, unfortunately.
Source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx
LinCA
The other 85% were open minded and could see the perspective from a scientific point of view combined with a spritiual point of view. It is a shame that 15% elect to go through life with blinders on. Worse yet the explaination they have for origin of life is that they really do not know as science cannot answer that question. Worse yet if God did not have a hand in creation then our existence is random which means the purpose of existence is random and that is meaningless. Given that evolution exhibits order and direction 15% not only wear blinders thier conclusion is inconsistent their own reality.
@Fred
No. 46% were not open minded and could not see from a scientific point of view combined with a spiritual point of view – only from a Christian point of view.
Evolution does not imply order and direction.
If a god can just exist why can't a universe just exist?
@fred
You said, "The other 85% were open minded and could see the perspective from a scientific point of view combined with a spritiual point of view."
A scientific point requires a rational argument. That's where the god stories fail miserably. If you combine science with a spiritual point of view, it's no longer science.
You said, "It is a shame that 15% elect to go through life with blinders on."
You got it ass-backward. Take off your blinders and shed the delusion that there are gods. They are just as likely as the Tooth Fairy, and belief in them is infantile.
You said, "Worse yet the explaination they have for origin of life is that they really do not know as science cannot answer that question."
Just making shit up doesn't provide an answer either. All it does is hamper the search for rational ones.
You said, "Worse yet if God did not have a hand in creation then our existence is random which means the purpose of existence is random and that is meaningless."
This appears to be at the core of believers stubbornness to shed the nonsense fairy tales. That and sheer ignorance.
The completely unsupported notion that there is any purpose. The inability to accept that the life that we have on Earth, is likely the only one. The fear of the unknown. All lead to people making shit up and inventing gods.
Gods provide "answers" to questions that may have no answer. Gods provide closure for those that can't handle not knowing. They ease nagging feelings of inadequacy and insignificance in the minds of simpletons.
You said, "Given that evolution exhibits order and direction 15% not only wear blinders thier conclusion is inconsistent their own reality."
You are clearly completely clueless about evolution. Just because you want your moronic fable to be true, doesn't mean it is.
When I see such statistics, I'm always amazed how the United States can be such a great country. I think it's just a matter of population. With 300 million people, the United States has perhaps 100 million scientific, open-minded and progressive people – the kind of people who put men on the moon. The other 200 million are idiots.
Amen.
Exactly.
Religion offers the seductive simplicity of certainty.
And the terror of damnation if one refutes.
It does not surprise me, look at the US, it's moving backward vs. forwards. I'm surprised their knuckles don't drag on the ground for how primitive they are
Love to see what the average IQ of the US is. Gotta be pretty low and lowering by the day.
Er, it's 100. By definition. And next year? It'll be 100. By definition. And last year? It was 100. By definition. Are you seeing the pattern?
Might as well send them all here too.....
http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/
"Was Life Created?" http://download.jw.org/files/media_books/lc_E.pdf
You know who I feel really bad for? Scientist. You're out there everyday trying to make discoveries and improve life using pretty much the most trusted system humanity has ever come up with. A system that actually allows anything you believe is true to be proven false unlike...well, religion, politics, etc. And after a hard day working on things my low IQ brain can barely comprehend, you sit down at your computer and find out almost half of the people in the U.S. actually believe that humanity started on a planet that is millions of years old and that we never evolved. Despite all the fossils and carbon dating and everything else, this is what you read. I can't imagine how bad this makes them feel. They're probably wondering what is the point of their job when so may ignorant people are out there? Well all I can do is say please don't feel bad. The fact of the matter is many of us are stupid. That's why you're scientist and we're not. Please don't give up on us. Keep looking for your Higgs Boson or working on stem cells that will cure the most devastating injuries and brain diseases in existence. Eventually humanity WILL evolve. If anything else, this information age we live in will get your message across one way or another. Sooner or later, the evidence will out weigh a book that was written....and re-written countless times two thousand years ago when man didn't even understand the world was round and how a rainbow was made. (for you 46%, it's because of light refracting through water droplets).
Wow. It's almost like you can read my mind. Empathy is an attractive quality...