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Different demographic groups think differently about scientific issues. For example, those more likely to think genetically modified food is unsafe include women, African-Americans and Hispanics, and those without college degrees. Those more likely to say parents should be able to decide whether to vaccinate their children include younger adults, Republicans and independents.
Despite broadly similar views about the overall place of science in America, there are striking differences between the public and scientists’ views on a host of science-related issues.
Are faith and belief in evolution necessarily at odds?
While 60% of Americans believe in human evolution, a third reject the idea. Beliefs about evolution differ strongly by religious group and also vary by party affiliation, gender, age and education.
Six-in-ten Americans say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” while a third reject the idea of evolution, saying that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”
Updated February 3, 2014 1809 Charles Darwin is born to a wealthy family in Shropshire, England. 1831 Darwin begins a five-year voyage as a ship’s naturalist on the HMS Beagle. His observations of scientific phenomena, particularly the wildlife on the Galapagos Islands, lead Darwin to form his theory on the origin and development of life. […]
Updated February 3, 2014 Buddhism Many Buddhists see no inherent conflict between their religious teachings and evolutionary theory. Indeed, according to some Buddhist thinkers, certain aspects of Darwin’s theory are consistent with some of the religion’s core teachings, such as the notion that all life is impermanent. Religion East and West, “Buddhism and Science: Probing […]
At first glance, Charles Darwin seems an unlikely revolutionary. Growing up a shy and unassuming member of a wealthy British family, he appeared, at least to his father, to be idle and directionless. But even as a child, Darwin expressed an interest in nature. Later, while studying botany at Cambridge University, he was offered a […]
Updated February 3, 2014 Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Americans are still fighting over evolution. If anything, the controversy has grown in both size and intensity. In the last decade, debates over how evolution should be taught in schools have […]
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