Half of all Americans say they don’t believe in evolution when asked in polls. This fact is often used as fodder to illustrate how ‘broken’ the U.S. science education system is. The number goes well beyond half when you ask about believe in ‘Darwinian’ evolution, according to Dan Kahan at the Yale Law School Cultural Cognition project.
But there are some big problems with using belief in creationism as a measure. First, and most importantly, measuring a believe has nothing to do with science literacy.
People can easily believe in things that they don’t understand, and understand things they don’t believe. Asking people whether or not they are creationists doesn’t test their knowledge of the fundamental principals of evolution: natural selection, random mutation, and genetic variance. And many of the people who respond that they do believe in evolution might not actually understand those principals they profess to know.
Want to get better, data? Ask a better question. Kahan explains his research data from based on an experiment from National Science Foundation:
Instead of asking for a true/false response to “human beings, as we know them today, developed earlier species of animals,” Kahan simply added the clause “According to the theory of evolution..” to the question:
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As the Figure at the top of the post shows, the proportion who selected “true” jumped from 55% on the NSF item to 81% on the GSS one!
Wow! Who would have thought it would be so easy to improve the “science literacy” of benighted Americans (who leaving aside the “evolution” and related “big bang” origin-of-the-universe items already tend to score better on the NSF battery than members of other industrialized nations).
Seriously: as a measure of what test takers know about science, there’s absolutely no less content in the GSS version than the NSF. Indeed, if anyone who was asked to give an explanation for why “true” is the correct response to the NSF version failed to connect the answer to “evidence consistent with the theory of evolution …” would be revealed to have no idea what he or she is talking about.
But, Kahan also argues that both these questions just touch on rote memorization of facts, and don’t really touch understanding of the scientific method, which is the most important factor in quantifying the public’s scientific literacy. Even if people chose not to believe in evolution, at least most of them know some basic principles about it.
Additional Resources:
- Who founded the Americas? Meet Naia—Ancient DNA adds new layers to the mystery, Tabitha Powledge, Genetic Literacy Project
- Q&A: Bill Nye the Science Guy on Creationism, Mars and Science TV, Miriam Kramer, Live Science
- Leading GOP Senate Candidate: Creationism Should Be Taught in Public Schools, Dana Liebelson, Mother Jones
