# Only 45% of American's believe in Evolution, 33% in the Big Bang **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 10, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662 "2010-04-10T19:44:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/1 "2010-04-10T19:44:02Z")
According to a [report](http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/04/evolution-big-bang-polls-omitted.html) by the National Science Foundation. > [@](#): > > The section, which was part of the unedited chapter on public attitudes toward science and technology, notes that 45% of Americans in 2008 answered true to the statement, “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” The figure is similar to previous years and much lower than in Japan (78%), Europe (70%), China (69%), and South Korea (64%). The same gap exists for the response to a second statement, “The universe began with a big explosion,” with which only 33% of Americans agreed. What is it about America that makes so many of us dumber than a shit sandwich? I could understand if I saw these numbers from people in backwards third world countries where most people haven’t had access to a K through 12 education, but what’s our excuse? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Phatlewt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a698b9/32.png) [@Phatlewt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phatlewt)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/2 "2010-04-10T19:46:21Z")
God, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/3 "2010-04-10T20:03:14Z")
As disappointing as this is, are we supposed to think this is something new (or that this is news)? We’ve got this weird concept of religion in this country. Well, not all of us, but a lot. It’s really no more complicated than that. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/4 "2010-04-10T20:09:18Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > What is it about America that makes so many of us dumber than a shit sandwich? I hope you lumped yourself into that sammy, given your atrocious apostrophe usage. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/5 "2010-04-10T20:09:42Z")
Let’s take a moment to thank America’s conservatives for pulling us in to their stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/6 "2010-04-10T20:14:02Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s really no more complicated than that. Well that, and how lacking in any practical effect on everyday life the answers to some of these questions are. I’ve been hitting the gym 4 times a week for the past year, and the big bang has come up in conversation with other weightlifters exactly zero times. People don’t _care_, so they don’t _know_. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/7 "2010-04-10T20:17:41Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > I hope you lumped yourself into that sammy, given your atrocious apostrophe usage. Hey, look who figured out where the shift key is! ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/8 "2010-04-10T20:19:56Z")
So if the theory that our Universe came about because of the interaction with two other Universes is true, will we call it the Big Ejaculation Theory? Or the Big Baby Theory? That whole ‘cosmic flow’ thing has me wondering. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/9 "2010-04-10T20:22:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Hey, look who figured out where the shift key is! ??? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/10 "2010-04-10T20:24:02Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Well that, and how lacking in any practical effect on everyday life the answers to some of these questions are. I’ve been hitting the gym 4 times a week for the past year, and the big bang has come up in conversation with other weightlifters exactly zero times. People don’t _care_, so they don’t _know_. Yeah. I’ve brought that up many times in other threads. Neither of those things has much practical use in everyday life, but it does sort of breed a culture of ignorance. OK, now cue the post where someone comes in and brings up antibiotics… ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/11 "2010-04-10T20:26:34Z")
Antibiotics were caused by the Big Bang? ??WTF?? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/12 "2010-04-10T20:27:15Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > I hope you lumped yourself into that sammy, given your atrocious apostrophe usage. I was so overcome with rage that I was rendered temporarily unable to punctuate correctly. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/13 "2010-04-10T20:28:21Z")
The evolution thing I can understand (grok, not necessarily condone). But the Big Bang would seem to be a perfect match for “God said, ‘Let there be Light, and there was Light.’” Seems more a matter of science classes not even touching on it in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/14 "2010-04-10T20:46:11Z")
Thankfully I attended school in Phoenix, AZ. We learned what I think was pretty straight stuff. The worst I had to endure was a self-hating white apologist and a photography teacher who’d occasionally remind us that “there aren’t any atheists in foxholes.” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/15 "2010-04-10T21:20:10Z")
> [@Phatlewt](#): > > God, apparently. Exactly; America is highly religious, and is therefore intellectually crippled since religion is incompatible with truth and rationality. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah. I’ve brought that up many times in other threads. Neither of those things has much practical use in everyday life, but it does sort of breed a culture of ignorance. > > OK, now cue the post where someone comes in and brings up antibiotics… > [@Gagundathar](#): > > Antibiotics were caused by the Big Bang? > > ??WTF?? That would be a reference to evolution, not the big Bang; and to the fact that bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics. Evolution is quite important. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/16 "2010-04-10T21:39:24Z")
I worked for a guy like this once. Pretty smart guy, family man, Senior VP in a large company. But he couldn’t give up the God concept. He didn’t show it much, but when it came out he really tooted that horn. During my first annual employee evaluation (which normally takes less than 30 minutes), we got on this tangent about the universe, and he started with a simple statement that he “didn’t believe” in dinosaurs, because they weren’t mentioned in the Bible. :dubious: Then we went on and he really showed his beliefs - Fossils were a hoax, The Universe really was created in seven days, the whole enchilada. Now, I like a good fight, and I am more than willing to give a fool enough rope to hang himself with in an argument, but this guy had biblical counter arguments for every (valid) scientific point I made. And he really believed himself. That review took over three hours. At the end, I basically stopped him by making him listen to the PA announcements, as the receptionist had been paging us both for about 20 minutes because neither one of us would answer the phone. ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/17 "2010-04-10T21:47:00Z")
Evolution makes sense. However, the Big Bang is totally counterintuitive. Once upon a time there was this teensy weensy infinitely dense speck in the middle of nothing (oh wait - there is no middle!) and one day for no apparent reason it exploded into everything in the universe that exists today and this universe is forever expanding into nothing and there was no space or time before any of this happened and there is nothing outside of it and all of your questions about it are meaningless. No wonder the response of the average laymanoid to this is “Yeah, right”. I concede that the cosmologists know more than I do, but this is damned hard to swallow. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/18 "2010-04-10T21:52:28Z")
You know, I would disagree with the second statement being true. It wasn’t an explosion, and it wasn’t big. Definitely a false statement. In fact, the portion of the sample who thought that statement was true were, in fact, the scientifically illiterate portion of the study. And, to be precise, human beings as we know them today did not develop from other animals. That isn’t how it works. The humans we know today might all be members of the sole surviving line of hominids from a larger pool of species, and that line might have originated from a series of mutation involving from “other animals” but that is not the same thing. Humans that we know of today were the offspring of other humans. Simplification of science into such silly single statements is not a good measure of the understanding of the reader. One of the disagreements might be a bit pedantic, sure, but the first one I mention is simply accurate reading of the question, and a reasonable understanding of cosmology. Boo, to the NSF. Tris ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/19 "2010-04-10T21:58:55Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > You know, I would disagree with the second statement being true. It wasn’t an explosion, and it wasn’t big. Definitely a false statement. In fact, the portion of the sample who thought that statement was true were, in fact, the scientifically illiterate portion of the study. > > And, to be precise, human beings as we know them today did not develop from other animals. That isn’t how it works. The humans we know today might all be members of the sole surviving line of hominids from a larger pool of species, and that line might have originated from a series of mutation involving from “other animals” but that is not the same thing. Humans that we know of today were the offspring of other humans. Simplification of science into such silly single statements is not a good measure of the understanding of the reader. One of the disagreements might be a bit pedantic, sure, but the first one I mention is simply accurate reading of the question, and a reasonable understanding of cosmology. > > Boo, to the NSF. > > Tris The “big explosion” question was a little sloppy, but not the question about evolution. Still, do you really think the numbers would have been different if you had written the questions? I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662/20 "2010-04-10T22:01:51Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Exactly; America is highly religious, and is therefore intellectually crippled since religion is incompatible with truth and rationality. Look, I know there’s no changing your opinion, but this says more about religion in American than in general. According to some other numbers, 16% of the US is nonreligious, for example, while it’s 5% of Ireland. Yet 40-45% of Americans believe in evolution while 70% of the Irish do. > [@](#): > > That would be a reference to evolution, not the big Bang; and to the fact that bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics. Evolution is quite important. Most creationists will say they believe in microevolution (non-camouflaged animals get eaten), but deny macroevolution (we are evolved from a primate ancestor). > [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](#): > > …he “didn’t believe” in dinosaurs, because they weren’t mentioned in the Bible. :dubious: Then we went on and he really showed his beliefs - Fossils were a hoax, The Universe really was created in seven days, the whole enchilada. They’re not dinosaurs, they’re Jesus horses! > [@Triskadecamus](#): > > You know, I would disagree with the second statement being true. It wasn’t an explosion, and it wasn’t big. Definitely a false statement. In fact, the portion of the sample who thought that statement was true were, in fact, the scientifically illiterate portion of the study. Good point. The statement presented comes across as incredibly specific and disingenuous. If they said “the universe was created by the Big Bang,” I wonder if the numbers wouldn’t be a bit higher. With these kinds of questions, you can seriously alter the results by changing the wording slightly, or even by changing to negative from positive. The best surveys ask different questions about the same thing. They shouldn’t ask “Do you believe in evolution? Yes/No” without asking about things like descent from a common ancestor or adaptations or selection. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-45-of-americans-believe-in-evolution-33-in-the-big-bang/535662.md?page=2)