It’s no secret that faith is a deeply held sentiment in the United States and one that many Americans stand behind. A new survey, however, shows that the vast majority of Americans—61 percent—believe that God created humans without the process of evolution playing any part in the equation.
This poll, conducted by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, surveyed 4,009 U.S. adults. Of the 61 percent who believe that God created humans without any evolutionary input, 33 percent believe it happened in a single day 6,000 years ago, and 28 percent of respondents believed it happened over an extended period of time.
When it came to education, college graduates were more likely to embrace the idea that evolution played a role in the creation of humanity while respondents who had some college education or a high school diploma were more likely to believe that God created humans without evolution. In addition, Hispanic respondents were more likely to believe that God intervened in the creation of humans as opposed to white and black respondents.
The survey also showed that white evangelical Christians were far and away the group most likely to believe that humans were created without any evolutionary process, with 70 percent of them standing firmly behind the sentiment, while only 48 percent of Catholics believed the same.
While this survey shows that more Americans believe in the direct intervention of God in the creation of humans than they do in the idea of human evolution, the amount of Americans who believe that humans evolved over a long period of time has steadily increased since 2004. The poll points to a society that is becoming more accepting of the idea of evolution, and perhaps even allowing it to merge with their deeply held religious beliefs.
Most experts believe that this new survey is evidence of a growing acknowledgement that religious belief and modern scientific advances are not mutually exclusive. As we continue to learn more about science and its interaction with our spiritual beliefs, it is reasonable to assume that the number of Americans who accept the idea of human evolution is only going to continue to rise.
