Evolution Less
Accepted in U.S.
Than Other
Western Countries, Study Finds
James Owen
for National Geographic News
August 10, 2006
People
in the United States are much less likely to accept Darwin's idea that humans
and apes share a common ancestor than adults in other Western nations, a number
of surveys show. A new study of
those surveys suggests that the main reason for this lies in a unique
confluence of religion, politics, and the public understanding of biological
science in the United States.
"Human beings, as we know
them, developed from earlier species of animals." – Yes, no, maybe?
Researchers compared the results
of past surveys of attitudes toward evolution taken in the U.S. since 1985 and
similar surveys in Japan and 32 European countries.
In the U.S., only 14 percent of
adults thought that evolution was "definitely true," while about a
third firmly rejected the idea.
In European countries, including
Denmark, Sweden, and France, more than 80 percent of adults surveyed said they
accepted the concept of evolution.
The proportion of western
European adults who believed the theory "absolutely false" ranged
from 7 percent in Great Britain to 15 percent in the Netherlands.
The only country included in the
study where adults were more likely than Americans to reject evolution was
Turkey.
The investigation also showed
that the percentage of U.S. adults who are uncertain about evolution has risen
from 7 percent to 21 percent in the past 20 years.
Researchers from the U.S. and
Japan analyzed additional information from these surveys in an attempt to
identify factors that might help explain why Americans are more skeptical about
evolution.
Led by Jon D. Miller, a
political scientist at Michigan State University, the team reports its findings
in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.
American Culture and Evolution
The team ran a complex analysis
of the statistics, testing for a causal link between aspects of U.S. culture
and Americans' attitudes toward evolution.
The study
identified three key influences on Americans.
First, the researchers found
that the effect of fundamentalist religious belief on opinions of evolution was
almost twice as much in the U.S. as in Europe.
Miller says the U.S. has a
tradition of Protestant fundamentalism not found in Europe that takes the Bible
literally and sees the Book of Genesis as an accurate account of the creation
of human life.
After European Protestants broke
off from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century, they retained a
hierarchy that remained part of the university system, Miller says.
"In the United States,
partly because of our frontier history, most of the Protestant churches are
congregational—they don't belong to any hierarchy," he added.
"They're free to choose
their own ministers and espouse their own beliefs."
That freedom also included the
creation of their own Bible colleges for training ministers, Miller says.
"If you send them to a
Bible college that teaches only the Bible, they'll come back preaching only the
Bible," he added.
"There are very few
European counterparts to that."
(Optional: Read a National
Geographic magazine feature on the evolution of evolution theory in the
United States, "Was Darwin
Wrong?")
European Attitudes
Second, the researchers tested
whether an American's political views influenced his or her view of evolution
theory.
The team found that individuals
with anti-abortion, pro-life views associated with the conservative wing of the
Republican Party were significantly more likely to reject evolution than people
with pro-choice views.
The team adds that in Europe
having pro-life or right-wing political views had little correlation with a
person's attitude toward evolution.
The researchers say this
reflects the politicization of the evolution issue in the U.S. "in a
manner never seen in Europe or Japan."
"In the second half of the
20th century, the conservative wing of the Republican Party has adopted
creationism as part of a platform designed to consolidate their support in
Southern and Midwestern states," the study authors write.
Miller says that when Ronald
Reagan was running for President of the U.S., for example, he gave speeches in
these states where he would slip in the sentence, "I have no chimpanzees
in my family," poking fun at the idea that apes could be the ancestors of
humans.
When such a view comes from the
U.S. President or other prominent political figures, Miller says, it
"lends a degree of legitimacy to the dispute."
A Natural Selection?
Third, the study found that
adults with some understanding of genetics are more likely to have a positive
attitude toward evolution.
But, the authors say, studies in
the U.S. suggest substantial numbers of American adults are confused about some
core ideas related to 20th- and 21st-century biology.
The researchers cite a 2005
study finding that 78 percent of adults agreed that plants and animals had
evolved from other organisms. In the same study, 62 percent also believed that
God created humans without any evolutionary development.
Fewer than half of American
adults can provide a minimal definition of DNA, the authors add.