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Gallup Poll on Evolution
The following figure, derived from Gallup, is in an article from this week's Nature. There are certainly nuances lacking, but it seems pretty reasonable in the way it breaks up the groups.
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Thursday, April 28, 2005
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2 comments:
I think these statistics show why so many older people are getting upset about evolution being taught in school. Most old people are in the Highschool or less category, or close to it. They overwhelmingly disagree with evolution. But the numbers you posted show that the young kids are growing up disagreeing with the older generation to a rather large extent.
Thomas Kuhn suggests that paradigm shifts often require a generation displacement. A young generation grows up learning about a theory and learning the problems it solves. This generation eventually displaces the elder generation as it dies out or retires, and the theory becomes mainstream.
The theory of evolution has been around for a while, but its active teaching to the common public has not. Perhaps the tension between evolution and creation will disappear as the new generation rises. Then again, the creationists seem to be retrenching for a fight.
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