The University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government regularly conducts polls from around the state. This week’s poll is on evolution and is not as scary as I first thought.
Georgians generally are opposed to teaching evolution as the sole explanation for the origins of our species. Less than one in five Georgians (17 percent) believe that public schools should teach evolution to the exclusion of other theories not broadly adopted by the scientific community. A slim majority (54 percent) feels that religious theories should be included in the classroom, and almost one in four (23 percent) believes that the schools should not teach evolution at all.
The poll also found that older people, those without college degrees, those outside the metro-Atlanta area, and Republicans most opposed the teaching of evolution. This is not what bothered me. I was bother by the fact that so few Georgians (17%) think that non-scientific ideas should not be taught in science education. However looking at the full report, I found that the press release was misleading. The phrase “to the exclusion of other theories not broadly adopted by the scientific community” was not contained in the question asked by the Institute. The actual question was
Do you think Georgia public schools should teach only evolution as the explanation of the origin of humans, should teach evolution as well as religious explanations of the origin of humans, or not teach evolution at all?
It seems that the Institute in their press release assumed information not contained in the question. The full report also contains the following note:
The Winter 2005 Peach State Poll had only a single item on the topic of teaching evolution; thus, we lack sufficient data to explore public attitudes on the issue at the time of this report. The survey item used was intended to measure the degree to which the public thought that evolution should be the sole theory explaining the origin of humankind taught in Georgia public schools. It should neither be taken as a measure of belief in evolution as the true explanation of man’s origin nor as support for the teaching of any other specific theory or belief such as intelligent design.
However, I doubt such omissions will stop the wedge pundits.
