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Public Opinion Quarterly Advance Access originally published online on August 18, 2008
Public Opinion Quarterly 2008 72(3):540-553; doi:10.1093/poq/nfn034
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Trends

Evolution, Creationism, and the Teaching of Human Origins in Schools

Eric Plutzer and Michael Berkman

Address correspondence to Michael Berkman; e-mail: mbb1{at}psu.edu, mberkman{at}la.psu.edu

This article traces public opinion polls concerning the theory of evolution spanning the period 1981 through 2007. We report on polling trends concerning US citizens’ beliefs about the origins of mankind and other species, individuals’ certainty and knowledge of the debate, and their understanding of the scientific evidence bearing on evolutionary theory. We conclude by examining preferences for public school policy: What is the appropriate treatment of human origins in science curricula? We show that US public opinion is at odds with the curricula mandated by the nation's state governments.

ERIC PLUTZER AND MICHAEL BERKMAN the Department of Political Science, Pond Laboratory 219, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. This research was supported, in part, by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES # 0350541). We thank Paul Rutledge for his research assistance at the early stages of this project.


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