Polls : american's beliefs on creationism

Summary :

As far as creationism is concerned, scientists and American public have different conceptions. According to polls published in the US in 1982, 1991, 1993 and 1997, American people believe more in creationism than in evolutionism’s theories. Similar results are perceptible for Internet users. These analyses would confirm that Americans have a conservative point of view about creationism.

Résumé :   

En matière de créationnisme, les scientifiques et la population américaine ont des conceptions différentes. Selon les sondages publiés aux Etats-Unis en 1982, 1991, 1993 et 1997, les Américains croient plus au créationnisme qu’aux thèses évolutionnistes. Des résultats similaires sont perceptibles auprès des utilisateurs d’Internet. Ces analyses confirmeraient le fait que la population américaine ait, au sujet du créationnisme, un point de vue conservateur. 

Source :

This article is extracted from a website called Religious tolerance. It is maintained by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. It is a partial site about Christianism : that’s why it seem important to discuss their results even if they are taken from the American magazine Newsweek.

Beliefs of American adults:

According to Newsweek in 1987, "By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science..." That would make the support for creation science among those branches of science who deal with the earth and its life forms at about 0.14% 5 However, the American public thinks very differently.
The Gallup Organizations periodically asks the American public about their beliefs on evolution and creation. They have conducted a poll of U.S. adults in 1982, 1991, 1993 and 1997. By keeping their wording identical, each year's results are comparable to the others.
Results for the 1991-NOV-21 to 24 poll were:

1997-NOV data is little changed. Note the massive differences between the beliefs of the general population and of scientists:

The "scientist" group would presumably include biologists and geologists. But it would also include persons with professional degrees in fields unrelated to evolution, such as computer science, chemical engineering, physics, etc.
Political science professor George Bishop of the University of Cincinnati published a paper in 1998-AUG listing and interpreting 1997 poll data. "Bishop notes that these figures have remained remarkably stable over time. These questions were first asked about 15 years ago, and the percentages in each category are almost identical. Moreover, the profiles of each group has been constant. Just as when these questions were first asked 15 years ago, creationists continue to be older, less educated, Southern, politically conservative, and biblically literal (among other things). Women and African-Americans were more likely to be creationists than whites and men. Meanwhile, younger, better educated, mainline Protestants and Catholics were more likely to land in the middle as theistic evolutionists." 1
With the elderly representing a gradually increasing part of the U.S. population, one would expect that the creationist view would receive increasing support. In fact, there appears to be a gradual erosion of support for the creationist view.  It is barely statistically significant. The sample size is about 1,000 so the sampling error is within +/- 3.2%, 19 times out of 20. It will take a decade or two to determine if a significant shift has really happened.
By any measure, the United States remains a highly religious nation, compared to other developed countries. And its citizens tend to hold more conservative beliefs. For example, the percentage of adults who believe that "the Bible is the actual word of God and it is to be taken literally, word for word" is 5 times higher in the U.S. than in Britain. Church attendance is about 4 times higher in the U.S. than it is in Britain. 1 Similarly, according to one opinion poll, belief that "Human beings developed from earlier species of animals..." is much smaller in the United States (35%) than in other countries (as high as 82%).

Beliefs among Internet surfers:                  

The Christianity section of About.com conducted a poll of its readers during 2000-SEP. They listed two responses which more or less agree with the Creationist, and Theistic Evolution beliefs. Their third response, that Evolution is a fact, would probably have received the votes of most believers in Naturalistic Evolution. Their final option would probably have been selected by some creationists who believe that students should be exposed to all belief systems, and by others who are undecided. Results were:

These results are based on 2904 votes. The margin of error in this poll is 1.8%. Needless to say, Internet surfers are are not necessarily typical of the general public. 7