Curriculum Report Roundup

Poll: Most Americans Support Teaching Creationism Alongside Evolution

By Sean Cavanagh — August 31, 2005 1 min read
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As debates over how to teach life’s origins play out across the country, a new poll says that 64 percent of Americans favor teaching creationism alongside evolution in public school classrooms, while only 26 percent oppose that idea.

“Public Divided on Origins of Life” is posted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

That support for presenting both views is reflected broadly across Americans of various religious and political affiliations, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats, according to the poll, released Aug. 30 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a research organization in Washington.

The survey shows that 38 percent of respondents said that creationism—the biblical belief that God created the universe and all living things—should be taught instead of evolution. Forty-nine percent did not agree with that position.

The poll—which surveyed 2,000 adults on a number of issues—had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

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