The latest Gallup poll on evolution

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Creationism continues to be a minority position, attracting only four in ten adults in the United States, according to the latest poll from Gallup (July 26, 2019), which adds, "more Americans continue to think that humans evolved over millions of years — either with God's guidance ... or, increasingly, without God's involvement at all." Creationism became a minority position in Gallup's polling first in 2017.

Asked "[w]hich of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings," 33% of the respondents accepted "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process," 22% accepted "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process," and 40% accepted "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Acceptance of the creationist option was associated with lower education levels, Protestantism, and weekly church attendance.

According to Gallup, the poll results are "based on telephone interviews conducted June 13-16, 2019, with a random sample of 1,015 adults, aged 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia"; the samples were weighted to match demographics. The maximum range of sampling error for the total sample was +/- 4%. Conveniently, Gallup provides a graph showing the results from its polls using the same question since 1982.

Glenn Branch
Short Bio

Glenn Branch is Deputy Director of NCSE.

branch@ncse.ngo