Survey Finds Most Americans Want Balanced Teaching of Evolution
by Jim Brown
March 13, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A new nationwide poll commissioned by the Seattle, Washington-based Discovery Institute indicates that the overwhelming majority of Americans want to see both the strengths and weaknesses of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution taught in U.S. classrooms. The poll by Zogby International finds that 69 percent of Americans agreed that biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but should also teach students about the scientific evidence against it. Just 21 percent felt only scientific evidence supporting evolution should be taught.
Discovery Institute spokesman Casey Luskin says support for teaching both sides of the evolution debate spans the political spectrum. "The subgroups within the statistic of the 69 percent that favor teaching evidence for and against evolution included 60 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of African-American voters, and 74 percent of independent voters," he notes, "so we definitely are seeing clear bipartisan support for this type of policy among the public."
The definition of Darwinian evolution used for the poll consisted of three components that incorporate "the basic tenets ... that most people were probably taught when they were in school," Luskin explains.
"That would include common descent, obviously," the Discovery Institute spokesman explains, "and that would also include natural selection, and also just the basic notion of change over time -- that many of the organisms that are alive today were possibly not the same species that existed in the distant past."
Notably, Luskin points out, the Zogby poll revealed comparable trends among several demographic subgroups who responded to the survey questions on the teaching of Darwin's theories. For instance, three fourths of self-professed born-again Christians said they support teaching both sides of the evolution debate.
Young adults also tended to favor a balanced approach to this area of science education. Of 18- to 29-year-olds, 88 percent of those polled said they support schools teaching both the evidence for and the evidence against Darwinian evolution.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
