According to national surveys covering thirty years, more Americans are accepting Charles Darwin's "dangerous notion" of evolution.
After twenty years of relative stagnancy, researchers have discovered that the public accepts biological evolution has increased significantly in the past decade.
About 40% of adults surveyed in the US believed that human beings as we know them today were created from older species of animals between 1985 and 2010. This suggests that the theory was widely accepted by the majority of Americans, despite the fact that there are only a few fence-sitters.
This percentage was finally at 54 percent in 2016.
Education has been a key factor in this shift, as it turns out. Researchers began to examine the demographics of respondents over the past 30 years and found that the highest predictor of acceptance of evolution was completion of at least one college science course.
Mark Ackerman, a University of Michigan researcher on collective intelligence, says that in 2018, nearly twice as many Americans had a college degree than in 1988.
"It is difficult to get a college degree without having at least some respect for science."
According to the current analysis, American adults are now scientifically literate at 31% compared to 11% in 1988 and 31% in 2019.
This knowledge can easily be passed on to others. Research suggests that fewer students are exposed in science classes to creationism due to the replacement of less qualified teachers.
Even a healthy amount of education will only take you so far. For example, some researchers believe that religious beliefs are more predictive of acceptance of evolution than education. This area of research is still controversial. For example, it could be that education is only effective for those who don't understand the Bible.
Evolution has become highly politicized in the US, particularly among Republican Party supporters, who tend to align their policies with evangelical Christian values.
This means that the US is currently among the countries with the lowest acceptance rates of evolution, behind only Turkey.
Even though the majority of Americans don't reject evolution, acceptance rates are still very low in comparison to other countries and lower than scientific consensus.
While religious adherence in America has declined over the past few years, the political divide surrounding evolution remains.
Researchers found that 83 percent of liberal Democrats believed in evolution, while only 34% of conservative Republicans agreed.
Experts say that the driving force behind this vast difference is not ideological partisanship. It is fundamental religious beliefs which Republicans tend to hold more.
For example, around 30 percent of Americans hold fundamental religious beliefs which directly contradict evolutionary theory. This is nearly the same percentage as conservative Republicans who reject evolution in the current analysis.
Researchers in the current study don't rule out religion being an influencer. The authors' analysis shows that Americans can accept evolution if they hold fundamental religious beliefs. Their analysis suggests that education is more important than any other factor.
Their analysis shows that Americans are more accepting of evolution than ever before. Only those who rejected evolution were able to change their minds over time.
The authors state that scientific literacy has increased and science continues having a pervasive influence on American society, but there is still tension between evolution and religious fundamentalism.
Although religion is still a major barrier to public acceptance of evolution, it's slowly changing. The current analysis shows that only 8 percent of religious fundamentalists believed in evolution in 1988. In 2019, however, nearly a third of them did.
A decline in fundamental religious beliefs and increased exposure to scientific courses will undoubtedly see the American minority that reject evolution shrink.
Pew's global survey last year showed that Americans were accepting evolution at around 64%.
This number is still far lower than nations like Canada (77%), Germany (81%) and Japan (88%), indicating that the US has much to catch up.
Public Understanding of Science published the study.
