| WASHINGTON
- March 10 - Nearly three-quarters
of a century after science teacher John Scopes was found guilty
of breaking Tennessee law for teaching evolution, most Americans
have a strong opinion about what should be taught in America's
science classes.
In a new nationwide poll on the subject, conducted by DYG
Inc., the polling firm headed by Daniel Yankelovich, and commissioned
by People For the American Way Foundation, 83 percent of Americans
say Darwin's theory of evolution belongs in the nation's science
classes.
While the public dispute is most often portrayed as an "either-or"
choice -- evolution vs. creation -- most Americans don't see it that
way, the poll shows. About 70 percent of Americans don't see
any conflict at all between the two explanations for how life
came to be. The majority of the public clearly does not buy
the notion put forward by the creationists that you must choose
between the Bible and evolution.
Most Americans see evolution as scientific theory and creation
as a matter of belief, and believe that the two are not mutually
exclusive. While they want schools to acknowledge that many people
have religious beliefs concerning the beginning of life, they do not
want evolution to be replaced by creationism, nor do they want the
two taught side-by-side as equal but competing scientific theories.
"To put it simply, this poll shows that most Americans believe
that God created evolution," said Ralph G. Neas, president of
People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF), which commissioned
the poll in the wake of public outcry over last year's decision
by the Kansas Board of Education to drop evolution from its
statewide science standards.
Unlike previous polls that touch on the dispute over evolution vs.
creationism, this one focused exclusively on this topic, producing
an
in-depth, nationwide look, for the first time, at how Americans see
both subjects and how they want schools to handle them. Many
Americans say schools should teach about creationism, but only a
small fraction (less than 3 in 10) want it to be taught about in
science class as science, either alongside evolution (13 percent)
or exclusively, in its place (16 percent).
"Earlier polls have really only scratched the surface of this very
complex and nuanced issue," said Daniel Yankelovich, president of the
polling firm DYG Inc. "Three or four survey items are not enough to
understand how the public really thinks about evolution and
creationism in the classroom. We developed an entire, comprehensive
survey to exploring the numerous and critically important facets
involved in public opinion on this issue."
Among the majority of Americans favoring evolution, 20 percent
say schools should teach only evolution, with no mention of
creationism; 17 percent say schools should teach only evolution
in science class, but would permit religious explanations for
the origins of humankind to be covered in another, non-science
class; and 29 percent would allow creationism to be discussed
along with evolution in science class, but it should be made
clear that evolution is scientific theory while creationism
is a belief, not science.
The public is clearly not supportive of attempts by a small,
extreme minority to force their religious beliefs into science
classrooms either as "Creation Science," (which almost half of
Americans have never heard of) or by stripping the teaching of
evolution from the curriculum. The poll shows that the majority of
Americans (60 percent) reject the Kansas Board of Education's
1999 decision to delete Evolution from its state science standards.
"One of the most remarkable things this poll shows us is
that, with this kind of broad public support, there shouldn't
be any controversy at all about teaching evolution," said Neas.
"The fact that there is a debate shows us how effective a very
small but very vocal group has been in imposing their views
on our schools."
"The poll should also be a warning to public officials and
schools," Neas continued. "If they cave in to pressure to eliminate
evolution or to force creationism into the science classroom, they
will be acting against the views and wishes of most Americans."
The polling was carried out by DYG Inc., the opinion research
firm founded and still headed by Daniel Yankelovich and Madelyn
Hochstein. PFAWF's purpose in commissioning the poll was to
inform the public debate over the issue by letting the American
people's views be known and understood.
"In all the media debate over the Kansas Board's decision to drop
evolution, the one missing ingredient was what the people thought,"
said Neas. "We conducted this poll to complete the picture."
Evolution vs. creation is a perennial hot topic, one that is sure
to heat up in Kansas again with state education board elections on
the horizon and half of the seats up for grabs. Recent disputes over
a textbook disclaimer in Oklahoma and a charter school that wanted
to
teach creationism in Rochester, N.Y., are just a few recent
examples of the perpetually simmering debate started when Charles
Darwin published his revolutionary theory a century and a half
ago.
When it comes to how schools should handle what has been portrayed
as a conflict between evolution and creation, the public agrees on
a
number of basic principles, although they haven't formulated a
detailed idea of precisely how schools can resolve the matter in
practice. There is broad agreement that schools should acknowledge
that some people have creationist beliefs and even teach about those
beliefs -- but not as science. There is also a strong consensus not
only that schools should teach evolution, but that how they handle
the subject along with creationist beliefs should be a matter of
national policy, not just a local matter to be decided by each state
or school district.
The poll results also suggest that, while the public is
overwhelmingly supportive of teaching evolution, their knowledge is
quite limited about the details of evolutionary theory, pointing to
a
need for greater efforts to inform and educate the public about
evolution. At today's news conference in Washington, PFAWF announced
that it has begun planning such a campaign to coincide with the 75th
Anniversary this year of the Scopes Trial.
The full 53-page report on the polling results released today can
be downloaded from the web at:
http://www.pfaw.org/issues/education/creationism-poll.pdf
PFAWF's special report on the evolution-creationism controversy,
"Sabotaging Science: Creationist Strategy in the '90s," is available
at: http://www.pfaw.org/issues/education/creationist-strategy.pdf
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