Wow. I'm 1/2 surprised. Not surprised because a certain kind of religion has a lot of grip on people here vs countries like France (my native one). But surprised to see it so low on the chart. May be we should send them to a multi-years trip on a 'beagle' to make up their mind ;-).

Interesting... When the belief in religion is strong, the belief in evolution is less... that's my hypothesis

"belief" in evolution ??? how about "belief" in gravity ? do you "believe" in a heliocentric model of the solar system ? do you believe in Boyle's law ?

There is no belief in science. There are scientific theories that are supported or refuted by experimental and/or observational evidence. "Belief" is a word reserved for churches, fairy tales and self-improvement courses.

The question is whether one subscribes to the principles of scientific inquiry or not. If not, then we don't need evidence for anything - everything is just a matter of an opinion and nothing labeled as "belief" can or should be criticized and disputed.

As for the evolutionary theory, I wish all of our scientific theories had such a substantial and solid body of evidence. Similarly to Galileo's and Copernicus', Darwin's discovery has proven to be revolutionary, through dethroning humans from their wrongly claimed position of supremacy over natural world and as such, its meaning extends far beyond the question of origin of species.

Well, I don't believe in evolution. I think we were created as human beings. But that's just my point of view.
Great blog!!

A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. A theory is valid as long as there is no evidence to dispute it. Therefore, theories can be disproven. Basically, if evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, then the hypothesis can become accepted as a good explanation of a phenomenon. One definition of a theory is to say it's an accepted hypothesis.

How has evolution been tested? When was it tested? To what was it compared? How can it be observed? What exactly qualifies evolution to be a theory?

Wow, that is a very interesting chart. I'm not that surprised about the results shown though.

I guess its because of the strong presence of the Church in the US that they believe so strongly against evolution. I think its also to do with education and having the ability to think for yourself. The US has a large percentage of the population living in poorer areas that have a community where the church plays a big part of their lives and beliefs.

50/50 sounds good to me because truth is always somewhere in the middle. Think about it - when you all mix it together doesn't it make sense that half we see is the result of evolution and the other half the result of creation? Mind you, I'm talking intelligent design here - which to me is crystal clear when one looks at the universe - and not some religious dogma. Let's also shun scientific dogma aka Darwin because it has holes as well (e.g. the Coelacanth fish still existing today). As I said, 50/50.

Its a lack of belief in the natural selection process. When you look at the process of evolution and how we are supposed to have evolved from apes to man or the evolution process of fish to amphibian and amphibian to reptile etc there are gaps in fossils found for each of the evolution processes and therefore taken for granted with no hard evidence. So its hardly surprising that so many people still don't believe in evolution.

In taking a Biology class in college, the professor always said evolution is the hardest to teach because most students dont believe in it and of course he was right. more than half the class got Cs and lower..

Well, I don't believe in evolution. I think we were created as human beings. But that's just my point of view.The US has a large percentage of the population living in poorer areas that have a community where the church plays a big part of their lives and beliefs.

If studied on a molecular level, one can see how much evidence there is to support evolution. Though we may not be able to study evolution thoroughly in larger species because of their long life spans, infrequency of reproducition, etc, we can see in organisms like bacteria, serious genetic mutations occurring. All of what occurs at this level, from independent assortment and crossing over, to the massive similarity between all animals DNA, is indisputable evidence that these processes have been occurring.