Darwin Now, a new international evolution survey, suggests that many people no longer welcome the Darwinian monopoly in science education.
Joel Kontinen
To celebrate Charles Darwin’s double anniversary, British Council commissioned a global evolution survey. The researchers interviewed 11, 768 adults in ten countries (Argentina, China, Egypt, Great Britain, USA, Spain, South Africa, India, Mexico and Russia), asking them to state their views on the teaching of evolution in science classes.
Supporters of Darwinian evolution might find the results somewhat disappointing: 43 per cent of all respondents hoped that in addition to evolution, alternatives such as intelligent design (ID) and creationism would also be taught at school.
On Darwin’s home turf in Great Britain, where the researchers interviewed 973 people, 54 per cent wished for alternatives to evolution. It is probably surprising that the percentage is slightly higher than that in the USA, where 51 per cent hoped for “other possible perspectives”. In Russia (1600 interviewees) a mere 10 per cent opted for the evolution only approach and 53 per cent wanted it to be accompanied by either intelligent design or creationism.
Globally, 20 per cent of the respondents thought that only evolution should be taught at school.
The Darwin Now survey also suggests that the more people know about evolution, the more they want alternatives for it. In Egypt, only 19 per cent of the respondents wanted alternatives to the Darwin only approach. It is probably significant that of the 1277 Egyptians interviewed, 36 per cent said that they did not know about the issue.
The results of the study agree with other similar surveys (see, for instance here and here. )
Darwinists are busy searching for reasons for their lack of popularity, as they did in March in Great Britain when they were not exactly pleased with previous survey results.
Source:
British Council Global Education Darwin Survey .
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