A recent Gallup poll reveals that the less educated people are, the less likely they are to "believe" in evolution. Further, religiosity plays a roll.
Respondents were given three option:
- Believe in evolution
- Do not believe in evolution
- No opinion either way
The results are that 39% of Americans believe in evolution; 25% do not believe in evolution; 36% had no opinion. (1% didn't answer.)
There is a strong relationship between education level and belief in evolution. As can be seen, as education level increases, so does belief in evolution.
| Believe | No Belief | No Opinion | |
| High School or Less | 21 | 27 | 52 |
| Some College | 41 | 29 | 30 |
| College Graduate | 53 | 22 | 26 |
| Postgraduate | 74 | 11 | 16 |
It was also found that the more often people attend church, the less likely they are to believe in evolution.
| Believe | No Belief | No Opinion | |
| Weekly | 24 | 41 | 35 |
| Near Weekly/Monthly | 30 | 26 | 44 |
| Seldom/Never | 55 | 11 | 34 |
As was examined previously, there is an interesting correlation between the Most and least religious US states compared to illiteracy rate.
Again, it seems that these results may hold up that the less educated individuals are the more religious they are. Of course, this is just speculation on my part.
Perhaps certain religious people should spend a little less time in church and a little more time in school.
*According to Gallup, these "[r]esults are based on telephone interviews with 1,018 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Feb. 6-7, 2009, as part of Gallup Poll Daily tracking."*
Comments
It is no big surprise. Of course most people who go to church and say they believe what there church teaches them say they believe in completely literal interpretations of Genesis, even if there church teachings don't.
I do believe that "no opinion" crowd is just waiting for the POPE to figure it out.
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