Happy 200th birthday Charles Darwin

February 12, 1:12 PMProgressive Politics ExaminerJay McDonough

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That was a big day in history - Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, February 12, 1809.  Darwin ranks at the upper echelon of esteemed scientists with Archimedes, Newton, Galilleo, and Einstein.  Charles Darwin's theories have propelled scientific advancement in anthropology, genetics, biochemistry and anatomy and has been essential to the developments in medical and drug research. 

It's a good thing all those scientists working in those disparate fields believe in the scientific method and the teachings of Mr. Darwin.  It would, indeed, be a very different world if scientists were to pick and choose which established scientific theories they believe based on whim or traditional thought.  Lots of folks are alive and heatlhy as a result of medical treatments and drugs developed via Darwin's theories.

Gallup has just done some polling on the acceptance of evolution in the U.S. and it's quite interesting.  While only 40% of those polled beiieve Darwin's theory (compared to 25% who don't and 36% undecided), the data is very dependent on educational level. age, and frequency of church attendance.  In general, the more educated, younger and those less frequent church goers are more inclined to believe in evolutionary theory.

The next logical question is whether the U.S. is different from other countries in it's views toward evolution.  The chart on the left is from Science magazine and measures acceptance of the theory of evolution in the Western World.  (The U.S. is only slightly higher than Turkey in terms of acceptance of evolutionary theory.

I was interested in the belief rates in other fundamentalist countries, such as Muslim states.  While I couldn't find any tabular data, social scientist Riaz Hassan found acceptance of evolution in Muslim countries was even lower than the U.S: 16 percent of Indonesians, 14 percent of Pakistanis, 8 percent of Egyptians, 11 percent of Malaysians and 22 percent of Turks.

So, depending on one's perspective, the U.S. is doing slightly better than Muslim nations in the belief in an established scientific theory, or the U.S. has some catching up to do with these Muslim states that wholeheartedly reject Darwin's teachings.

In any event, happy birthday Charles Darwin.