Today, the Fact Tank—a new real-time platform from the Pew Research Center—published a concise summary of their past polls on the public’s acceptance of evolution. These Pew surveys, by the way, helped shape the basis and goal of this website. The piece is written by David Masci, a Senior Researcher at the Pew Research Center. Masci presents 5 facts about evolution gleaned from poll data collected by the non-profit organization within the last two years. I have posted the entire article below, but I suggest the reader check out the original version here, if only for the links to the engaging background information.
The banner graphic of the article, ironically, shows an illustration based on the artist Rudolph Zallinger’s March of Progress—the iconic but false representation of human evolution. Evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould (1941—2002) was well-known for his hobby of collecting versions of this cartoon and ridiculing the misguided notion that evolution proceeds in a linear fashion, suggesting progress. Gould’s view of life held that evolution is “not a ladder of predictable progress” but a complex branching bush shaped by the happenstance of extinction.
As Jerry Coyne says in his most recent piece in yesterday’s New Republic, there is no reason Pope Francis and his flock of sheep should not accept the idea of evolution. “It has been an accepted scientific fact since about 1870, roughly a decade after the theory was proposed by Darwin in 1859.” Just a few days ago on Monday, Pope Francis said the big bang theory was not in conflict with the role of a divine creator (translation: the big bang is consistent with theistic evolution, a form of creationism). He uttered other bizarre statements, including this incomprehensible inanity (with my emphasis in bold font): “God is not a demiurge [Creator of the universe] or a magician, but the Creator who gives being to all entities. Evolution in nature is not opposed to the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.” Yo, Pope-ster! Evolution dispelled all arguments for a divine creator when Charles Darwin showed that “entities” could arise from a purely naturalistic process. In his New Republic article, Dr. Coyne dissects Pope Francis’ words with the precision of a serious biologist. He notes that, “…the Vatican’s official stance on evolution is explicitly unscientific: a combination of modern evolutionary theory and Biblical special creationism. The Church hasn’t yet entered the world of modern science.” And, Coyne concludes that, “…creationism of some sort is still an essential part of Francis’s view of life.”
Since 1982, the public-opinion surveyors Gallup have been tracking American’s attitudes and beliefs about human evolution and the evolutionary process. They asked Americans questions related to, but slightly different from the 2013 Pew survey questions indicated above. The results are embarrassing (refer to the chart below). The 32-year trend is even more unsettling—virtually unchanged, with more than 40% of Americans believing that a divine being created humans, who have remained unchanged through the present day.
Factoid 5 is only cursory. A single legal group—The Freedom From Religion Foundation—has successfully challenged 75+ instances of religious proselytizing in U.S. schools since December 1, 2013. This statistic alone is mind-boggling. We can do better—we must do better.
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