Acceptance of evolution
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Acceptance of evolution, of course, refers to the number of people, or the type of people who accept that the diversity of life can be explained by evolution by natural selection. Some people sometimes say that they "believe" in evolution, but generally this isn't the right word; belief implies faith, which implies a lack of evidence. And despite what creationists claim, there is plenty of evidence for evolution. Thus, it would be better to say that one "accepts evolution as fact."
[edit] Damn lies and statistics
While trying to get a handle on the demographics of religious belief can be difficult (people who declare themselves "spiritual but not religious", because they think it's more open minded than "atheist", confuse the matter seriously) it's easier to get an idea on how many people accept the science of evolution. Acceptance of evolution is notably interesting because such "controversies" don't exist with other theories and observations made by science, such as relativity or gravity. Although it should be noted that there are some people out there who are so detached from reality as to deny the location of the Sun, and recent and and not-so-recent recent historical events.
Some random facts about the acceptance of evolution:
- "[A]dults with some understanding of genetics are more likely to have a positive attitude toward evolution."[1]
- 97.3% of Biological Sciences department heads accept there is no scientific controversy over evolution.[2]
- Only 700 out of 480,000 earth and life scientists (0.14%) subscribe to literal biblical creationism.[3]
- Acceptance of evolution tends to increase with level of education.[4][5]
- It's not limited to the non-religious, see Theistic evolution. Over 12,000 U.S. Christian clergy accept evolution.[6]
- The first known case of science-based evolution acceptance dates back to Charles Darwin's explication of natural selection in 1837.[7]
Basically, anyone who has really looked at the evidence for evolution, including the fossil record and DNA, is likely to disbelieve any religious tradition regarding the origin of species and life.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ National geographic news
- ↑ "Turn out the lights, the 'Teach the controversy' party's over", by Robert Camp, CSI, February 25, 2006
- ↑ "Keeping God Out of the Classroom", Newsweek, June 29, 1987, pp. 23.
- ↑ Creation/evolution controversy
- ↑ "Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media" section 5 "Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media", Pew Research Center, July 9, 2009
- ↑ The Clergy Letter Project
- ↑ Herbert, S. ed. 1980. The red notebook of Charles Darwin. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Historical Series 7 (24 April): 1-164.