Dr. Amy Unsworth is a research fellow at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge University. Over several months last year, she conducted a survey with Yougov to dig deeper into the question of people’s attitudes to evolution in the U.K.
It was thought, based on surveys conducted in 2006, that more citizens of the U.K. were embracing creationism. Indeed, the BBC Horizon program found that 22 percent of U.K. citizens identified themselves as creationists.
Unsworth, who has a PhD in molecular biology from University College London, was skeptical, and her survey data suggest her skepticism was well founded.
“Many people simply haven’t thought much about evolution,” she said in a press release shortly after reporting her initial results at a Faraday conference in September.
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“Survey questions may force them into ticking either a ‘creationist’ or an ‘evolutionist’ box,” she said, “but whether these labels have much real-life significance is pretty questionable.”
After carrying out detailed face-to-face interviews with over a hundred Christians and Muslims, Unsworth designed her own survey. Of 2,116 people in Britain, she found that only 3 percent reject the idea that plants and animals have evolved from earlier life forms, whilst 6.8 percent reject the idea that humans have evolved from non-human life forms. Only 4 percent would qualify as young earth creationists.
Read full, original article: New Survey Finds Creationism In Britain Has Been Overstated
