Americans Divided on Origin of Humans

The results of a new Gallup poll on evolution has recently been released, but there was no horsing or monkeying around in this one.

The creationism vs evolution debate has recently been brought back into the media's spotlight as "Intelligent Design" proponents are insisting their hypothesis for humanity's origins be taught alongside others in public schools.

The recent Gallup Poll points to a deep line in the sand between the camps.

Here were the questions asked...

Here are the paired results for A and B.

                                Creationism? (%)
                                Definitely    Probably    Probably    Definitely
                                  True           True          False        False
Evolution?  Definitely       3               1               2              11
     (%)       True        
                Probably         5            14              12              3
                  True
                Probably        6               8              1                1
                 False
                Definitely       24            3             <0.5              1
                 False



Thirteen percent more Americans polled believe humanity was created by God, instead of evolution.  When asked why, 63% of them answered "Religious reasons, God created the world, I am a Christian, or they believe what they read in the Bible".  These religious undertones are not surprising.  

Now, what blew my mind was that 19% answered with, "I believe in Jesus Christ".  Since the question was an open ended one, it appears these creationists are associating themselves more so with their savior, than with "God made the world".  No where in the New Testament is it mentioned that Jesus was responsible for creating humans.

Two percent answered with, "No reason in particular".  I have a feeling these could be the few Republican  politicians who took the poll, and as such I feel I can change this answer to, "Because I wanted to get elected".



What is surprising is that only 3% responded, "I don't believe humans come from beasts/monkey".  From my personal experience, most people I have talked to used this as their reason for doubting evolution.  It appears then that the concept of organisms evolving is not being attacked, but rather the implications of the hypothesis itself.  

Does this suggest the Scientific Method is under attack by religious teachings? Arguably, if one were concerned with the present data alone, they could find so called "missing links" and holes in the theory for a grand unifying hypothesis linking all organisms to a common ancestor.  However, since most Americans solely claimed religious reasons for their disbelief in evolution, in my opinion this suggests a deep-rooted distrust of the Scientific method (and likely, of scientists who practice it).  

How might this influence the general public's demeanor concerning most scientific discoveries, as well as the policies on different scientific issues?  Global warming has long been attacked by Republicans (by the way, 60% of which do not believe in evolution of humans, compared to 40% of Democrats).  Might this be partly due to their distrust of information gained through scientific discovery?

If not a distrust, there certainly appears to be confusion among believers in either camp.  About a quarter of Americans polled believed either some form of evolution AND creationism was true. Why might this be, since, according to the questions, they are mutually exclusive hypotheses?  Although it is entirely possible that the poll itself was not effective in teasing out the correct information (i.e. they believe in evolution, but not for humans, or some sort of variation on this), a large group of Americans are not sure what they believe.

Please discuss Now Public readers!