Abstract
BackgroundThere is a negative relationship between education and religiosity and a positive relationship between education and acceptance of evolution, but how this manifests in college students who differ in degree of religiosity and prior educational experiences is unclear. We focused our study on the relative importance of education and religion on evolution understanding for college students at a large, public university in the Deep South.MethodsWe used a structural equation model incorporating both acceptance and knowledge of evolution to evaluate the relative influence of religion and education on evolution understanding of 2,999 surveyed students. We further focused on acceptance of evolution and academic level, college major, high school experience, religion, and religiosity. We conducted pre and post course evaluations in three biology classes, and finally we tested the relationships between the quality of K-12 state science standards and states’ religiosity and educational attainment.ResultsWe found that the degree of religiosity mattered significantly more than education when predicting students’ understanding of evolution. When we focused on acceptance of evolution only, students taught evolution or neither evolution nor creationism in high school had significantly higher acceptance than those taught both evolution and creationism or just creationism. Science majors always outscored non-science majors, and not religious students significantly outperformed religious students. Highly religious students were more likely to reject evolution even though they understood that the scientific community accepted the theory of evolution. Overall, students in two of three biology classes increased their acceptance of evolution, but only those students that seldom/never attended religious services improved. K-12 state science standard grades were significantly and negatively correlated with measures of state religiosity and significantly and positively correlated with measures of state educational attainment.ConclusionsReligiosity, rather than education, best explains views on evolution. In areas of the country where the vast majority of residents believe in God and the literal truth of the Bible, students may be hampered as they enter and progress through college. These same states tend to have lower state science standards and lower levels of educational attainment.
Highlights
There is a negative relationship between education and religiosity and a positive relationship between education and acceptance of evolution, but how this manifests in college students who differ in degree of religiosity and prior educational experiences is unclear
We examine the relative importance of religion and education on evolution understanding of college students at a large, public university
We investigated whether acceptance of evolution improves with greater tenure at university, and if science majors have higher acceptance than non-science majors
Summary
There is a negative relationship between education and religiosity and a positive relationship between education and acceptance of evolution, but how this manifests in college students who differ in degree of religiosity and prior educational experiences is unclear. The oft-cited article by Miller et al (2006) summarized 33 European countries and Japan on people’s understanding of evolution, and America ranked lower than every country but one This poor performance is not reflective of America’s general scientific literacy; the United States is about average in science literacy, though below average in mathematics, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests 15-year old students across 65 countries in math, science, and other disciplines (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD 2014). A recent Gallup Poll (2014a) found that almost equal percentages of Americans believed in a young-earth creationist view of human origins (i.e., humans were created in their present form within last 10,000 years) (42%) vs one where humans evolved from earlier organisms over millions of years (50%) Of the latter, approximately a third think that evolution happened without a god, while two-thirds believe God must have started the process.
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