Gallop poll says our work as educators remains cut out for us...

Over the past few days various people have noted, in the blogsphere and in my email inbox, the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll results pertaining to Americans' views on Evolution vs. Creationism. The main results, as summarized (below) by John Lynch, are causing much understandable despair among science bloggers and friends:

• "Evolution, that is, the idea that human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life" is probably or definitely false: 44%
• "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 probably or definitely true: 66%
• 15% said that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate that did not believe in evolution.

This made Lynch want to go lie down even as some of his commenters and Laelaps question the methodology of the poll. PZ Myers, on the other hand, accepts the validity of the results since they match his personal impressions, and noting the discrepancy between those first two numbers, concludes "that about half the country is ignorant or deluded about science, anyway." Greg Laden, meanwhile, was reminded of the Alexander Hamilton quote (alleged) that "The masses are asses", although his somewhat more careful reading of the poll results led him to think there has been a slight improvement (presumably since the last such poll) although the 15-30% respondents inclined to rejecting a presidential candidate professing belief in evolution suggests the continuing strength of the religious fundamentalist minority. While I share these concerns, a few thoughts are nagging me about this poll and the blogsphere reaction to it.

First, what to make of the 82% of those polled who claimed that they were familiar (41% very familiar) with evolution, or the 86% that said the same (50% very familiar) about creationism? I think these numbers reflect, in part, the average person's wish to not appear ignorant with a pollster, some (considerable?) hubris about how much they truly do understand, and, perhaps most importantly, our failure as educators in making people able to see the difference! This may be another sign of how ignorant/deluded much of the country is about science - and how much our work is cut out.

At the same time, however, I'm uncomfortable with calling the masses asses, because that is the kind of "framing" likely to make them turn away from rather than towards scientists for knowledge. I'm more inclined to wonder about the poll's sample size and methodology - but note the widespread acceptance of similar Gallup polls by a variety of people across the political spectrum; would they be able to continue publishing similar poll results if the methodology was as egregiously wrong as Laelaps suggests? Perhaps I am being naive on that point, but I do have to question the design of the poll questions which seek separate responses for evolution and creationism (of the Young Earth variety, i.e., YEC) given that 53% accept Evolution, while 66% accept YEC - why not make it a binary choice between the two notions? As it is, it seems clear that a lot of people are quite capable of simultaneously believing multiple contradictory ideas without their heads exploding! Sounds like some students I know...

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