IMAGE: The chart illustrates public acceptance of evolution in 34 countries in 2005.  The chart is courtesy of Jon D. Miller, et al. in Science

For the study that produced the graph at right, “Adults were asked to respond to the statement: “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals, [and] the percentage of respondents who believed this to be true is marked in blue; those who believed it to be false, in red; and those who were not sure, in yellow.”

The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in countries such as Japan, France, or Poland.  In fact, the United States ranks just above Turkey, a secular Muslim-majority country.  Certainly, in the United States, the Republican war on science or the politicization of politics by certain  Christianists groups, pundits, and politicians seems to have left the public divided.

Personally, I don’t understand what the hullabaloo is all about, because evolution is certainly observable, and theories are used to explain observations. As a religious person (e.g., Christian, Muslim), why would you need manufactured creation science, or the slightly modified intelligent design, or any fabrication to make you feel comfortable about your existence, when there is objective science sans influence from religion to help explain the world?

Surely, species much adapt and evolve over time in order for life to survive, so if you’re a Christian who believes in evolution, then you can rationalize science or evolution, because it makes sense that a Creator God (or any creator deity) would use evolution as a mechanism to allow the continuation of life under a myriad of circumstances. From Jon D. Miller, et al./Science via RichardDawkins.net:

The concept of the evolution of humans from earlier forms of life is unacceptable to biblical literalists and causes concern even among some holders of less conservative religious views. Catholics and mainstream Protestants generally accept variations of a theological view known as theistic evolution, which views evolution as the means by which God brought about humans, as well as other organisms. Evolution is nonetheless problematic to some of these nonliteralist Christians, because it implies a more distant or less personal God (1—3). Efforts to insert “intelligent design” into school science curricula seek to retain the divine design of humans while remaining agnostic on earlier creationist beliefs in a young Earth and the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs (2, 4).

Beginning in 1985, national samples of U.S. adults have been asked whether the statement, “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals,” is true or false, or whether the respondent is not sure or does not know. We compared the results of these surveys with survey data from nine European countries in 2002, surveys in 32 European countries in 2005, and a national survey in Japan in 2001 (5). Over the past 20 years, the percentage of U.S. adults accepting the idea of evolution has declined from 45% to 40% and the percentage of adults overtly rejecting evolution declined from 48% to 39%. The percentage of adults who were not sure about evolution increased from 7% in 1985 to 21% in 2005. After 20 years of public debate, the public appears to be divided evenly in terms of accepting or rejecting evolution, with about one in five adults still undecided or unaware of the issue. This pattern is consistent with a number of sporadic national newspaper surveys reported in recent years (6—10).

A dichotomous true-false question format tends to exaggerate the strength of both positions. In 1993 and 2003, national samples of American adults were asked about the same statement but were offered the choice of saying that the statement was “definitely true, probably true, probably false, definitely false,” or that they did not know or were uncertain. About a third of American adults firmly rejected evolution, and only 14% of adults thought that evolution is “definitely true.” Treating the “probably” and “not sure” categories as varying degrees of uncertainty, ~55% of American adults have held a tentative view about evolution for the last decade.

IMAGE: The graph illustrates the acceptance of evolution in six Muslim countries. According to Salman Hameed, “The data were gathered from 1996 and 2003, as part of a study of religious patterns in Muslim countries,” and “the number of participants for each country is given in parentheses.”

Just like certain Christianists groups in the United States, Islamists reject evolution as well.  From Salman Hameed in Science (.pdf):

[A]lthough the last couple of decades have seen an increasing confrontation over the teaching of evolution in the United States, the next major battle over evolution is likely to take place in the Muslim world (i.e., predominantly Islamic countries, as well as in countries where there are large Muslim populations). Relatively poor education standards, in combination with frequent misinformation about evolutionary ideas, make the Muslim world a fertile ground for rejection of the theory. In addition, there already exists a growing and highly influential Islamic creationist movement (1).

Biological evolution is still a relatively new concept for a majority of Muslims, and a serious debate over its religious compatibility has not yet taken place. It is likely that public opinion on this issue will be shaped in the next decade or so because of rising education levels in the Muslim world and the increasing importance of biological sciences.

.       .       .

Opposition to evolution is often not centered on any particular verse from the Koran, but rather on the social and cultural threat that the theory poses for Muslims. Adnan Oktar borrows his “science” heavily from the Institute for Creation Research and, more recently, from the Intelligent Design movement in the United States (2). His organization, based in Turkey, has produced antievolution documentaries, hundreds of pamphlets, and books and has made them available for download, free of cost, from his Web site (harunyahya.com). Because the idea of an ancient Earth is not controversial among Muslims, he is comfortable presenting biological creationism in a universe billions of years old. Instead, the focus of his opposition is on the social and cultural threat posed by evolution in the form of materialism and atheism.

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