Since Gallup started polling Americans about the origins of man in 1982, creationists have stayed pretty faithful to their views. The numbers may fluctuate a bit from year to year, but for the past two decades, a little more than two-fifths of Americans have consistently said they believe that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.”
But among the ranks of evolution cheerleaders and intelligent design advocates, things are changing.
New survey data released last week revealed a record level of respondents who believe “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process”—a long way of saying “evolution.” This group wasn’t big—only 19 percent of people agreed. But that’s still an increase of six percentage points since 2004, marking a steady upward climb over the last decade.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, seems to be on a mild downward trend. Like creationism, the theory has seen slight fluctuations in popularity since 1982, the year of the first polling data Gallup provides.
Read the full, original story: Intelligent Design: Slowly Going Out of Style?
