by Greg Mayer

Over at Gene Expression, Razib, following up on one of Jerry’s posts on Mooney & Kirshenbaum, looks more closely at survey data on public acceptance of evolution, and finds cause for optimism:

So I thought I would repeat a data finding which might cheer us up: the youngest adult age cohorts are the least Creationist. (emphasis in original)

Bottom line, there is a roughly linear increase in the percent responding “True” to the statement “Human beings developed from animals”, from 43% in the 60 years old + cohort, to 59% in the 18-30 cohort. There are some interesting differences depending on the phrasing of the question, notably substituting “evolved” for “developed” gets a lower score, 56%, among 18-30 year olds, rather than 59% (I don’t know enough details of the General Social Survey to evaluate the statistical or practical significance of this difference). Also, among believers, there are big differences between Protestants and Catholics: 78% of young Catholics respond “True”, but only 33% of young Protestants (which is the same as elderly Protestants).

So, the most recent attempts at improving scientific literacy (90s and 00s) may be having more effect than earlier efforts.

UPDATE: In comments here below and at Razib’s original post, several people have asked questions or posed hypotheses about the further interrelations of variables. The GSS data are available here.  Razib has done some further analyses, comparing acceptance of evolution to age and a vocabulary knowledge item that he regards as a proxy for intelligence.  Money quote:

Overall no surprise, and it looks like a general trend is for the smart and the young to reject Creationism.