08 June 2007

USA TODAY/Gallup Poll results - USATODAY.com

The following rather scary news came fromUSA TODAY/Gallup Poll results today. Sixty-six percent (66%) of Americans, according to the poll, think that "Creationism, that is, the idea that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" is either "Definitely true" (38%) or "Probably true" (27%).

The weird, though perhaps not surprising, thing is that 53% of Americans also think that evolution is either definitely or probably true. And just to make it simple for them, the poll defined evolution as "the idea that human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life". That a certain percentage of the respondents were unable to see a contradiction between the two responses is what is weird. Millions of years on the one hand, under ten thousand on the other... anyone see a problem here?

The poll also checked on whether or not the people responding considered that they were familiar with the ideas of evolution and creationism. Here, 82% thought they were either very familiar or some-what familiar with evolution, while 86% thought they were very or some-what familiar with the ideas of creationism. What can we say? No one thinks they're stupid.

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