A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup telephone survey of 1,005 people on Sept. 8-11 produced some interesting results:
How much have you thought about the different explanations for how human beings came to exist on Earth (evolution guided by God, evolution without God's involvement or creation as described in the Bible)?
Great deal: 41%
Moderate amount: 35%
Not much: 17%
Not at all: 6%
How much does it matter to you which of these theories is correct?
Great deal: 40%
Moderate amount: 26%
Not much: 19%
Not at all: 14%
Which comes closer to your view about the relationship between science and religion?
Agree with each other: 24%
Conflict with each other: 35%
Not related: 36%
Which statement comes closest to your views?
God created human beings in their present form exactly as described in the Bible.
All: 53%
Men: 45%
Women: 60%
18-29: 54%
30-49: 50%
50-64: 50%
65 and older: 60%
By income level
$75K and up: 37%
$50K-$74.9K: 51%
$30K-$49.9K: 56%
Under 20K: 70%
By religion
Catholic: 38%
Protestant: 66%
Non-Christian: 15%
None: 16%
Human beings have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life, and God guided this process.
All: 31%
Men: 34%
Women: 29%
18-29: 27%
30-49: 38%
50-64: 32%
65 and older: 20%
By income level
$75K and up: 41%
$50K-$74.9K: 31%
$30K-$49.9K: 22%
Under 20K: 19%
By religion
Catholic: 50%
Protestant: 25%
Non-Christian: 31%
None: 29%
Human beings have evolved, but God had no part in the process.
All: 12%
Men: 17%
Women: 8%
18-29: 17%
30-49: 10%
50-64: 15%
65 and older: 11%
By income level
$75K and up: 29%
$50K-$74.9K: 12%
$30K-$49.9K: 11%
Under 20K: 4%
By religion
Catholic: 10%
Protestant: 6%
Non-Christian: 47%
None: 48%
The most interesting thing to us about this poll is the fact that only 12% of the people surveyed accepted some form of materialistic evolution. The vast majority were either creationists or theistic evolutionists. Seventy six percent of those polled have thought about the matter somewhat or a lot, and 66% say that it makes some difference to them which view is correct.
This does not, of course, have any bearing on which view is correct, but it does suggest how far out of the mainstream naturalistic views of life are in this country.
