Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe in human evolution and one-third reject the idea, according to a Pew Research Center study highlighting a battle of worldviews with implications for multiple facets of life.
Sixty percent of those surveyed said
"humans and other living things have evolved over time," while 33
percent said "humans and other living things have existed in their present
form since the beginning of time," Pew reported Dec. 30.
About half of those who reported a
belief in human evolution said it's "due to natural processes such as
natural selection" while 24 percent said "a supreme being guided the
evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in
the form it exists today."
Pew's study contrasts with a Gallup
poll from 2012 that found 46 percent of Americans believe that God created
humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. In that
poll, about a third of Americans said they believe humans evolved but with
God's guidance, while 15 percent said God had no part in the process.
Casey Luskin of the Discovery
Institute's Center for Science and Culture told Baptist Press the Pew data
could be analyzed to mean 57 percent of Americans hold a view compatible with
Intelligent Design, that the universe is the product of intelligence rather
than blind chance.
"If you define evolution as
mere 'change over time,' then sure, most Americans (about 60 percent) believe
humans have 'evolved,'" Luskin said. "But if you further define
evolution as 'unguided natural selection,' then apparently only about a third
of Americans agree with that type of evolution.
"If we interpret the poll
correctly, well over half of Americans -- at least 57 percent -- take a view
that fits within Intelligent Design and don't support Darwinism," Luskin
said.
Ken Ham, president and founder of
Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, which are grounded in the belief
that God created the world in seven literal days and that the earth and
universe are thousands –- not billions –- of years old, told Baptist Press the
way Pew phrased the questions determined how people answered and even he would
have said living things have not existed in their present form since the beginning
of time.
"I believe there have been a
lot of changes in animals because there has been a lot of speciation within a
kind," Ham said. But overall, he is encouraged that the study indicates
that a strong number of people have not been persuaded by the human evolution
theories.
"In a culture where generations
of kids are being taken through a public education system where there's been
legislation to protect them from even hearing about creation and to teach them
evolution as fact -- that we still have a third of the population who would
stand basically very similar to where we stand, I think that shows there's been
a significant influence in this culture to teach people about [God as
creator]," Ham said
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