Monday, January 13, 2014

Less Than a Third of Americans Believe in Evolution Due to Natural Processes


According to the PEW Research Center 60% percent of Americans say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time", but only 32% believe that human evolution is due to natural processes.
"About half of those who express a belief in human evolution take the view that evolution is “due to natural processes such as natural selection” (32% of the American public overall). But many Americans believe that God or a supreme being played a role in the process of evolution. Indeed, roughly a quarter of adults (24%) say that 'a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today.'"
Assuming that the 24% who believe God played a role in directing evolution and the 33% who believe "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time" also believe God had a role in creation, you have 57% of Americans who believe in some form of intelligent design.

White mainline Protestants (36%/36%) and white Catholics (33%/33%) are split over whether God had a part in evolution or not.  Both Black Protestants (25%/17%) and White evangelicals (18%/8%) heavily favor divine intervention.  Hispanic Catholics believe natural processes prevailed (19%/27%).

3 comments:

MAX Redline said...

Too bad they didn't check in with the Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and others on this. Be interesting to see how they break out.

T. D. said...

Heh! I found the Hispanic Catholic break out strange but interesting. How about Hispanic Protestants? Maybe they're in with the Muslims, Hindus and Jews.

MAX Redline said...

Perhaps they assume that all Hispanics are Catholic....