About One in Five Canadians are Young Earth Creationists

By Scott Douglas Jacobsen

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) reported on the state of belief in evolution and creationism in Canada. The report comes from 2008. However, beliefs in a general population probably do not change that rapidly in even a decade.

According to the NCSE, about 3/5ths of the population accept evolution. The distinction between unguided and guided (theistic) evolution was unclear in the report. 1/5th believe God, presuming an Abrahamic God, created humans, or “Mankind,” 10,000 years ago or less.

Another 1/5th are unsure. 1,007 adults between July 29 and 30 in 2008 were interviewed. The margin of error becomes +/- 3.1%. Not bad, the report stated “virtually unchanged” results from a 2007 poll.

The suspicion over a decade may hold too. Some sub-demographics within Canada the same time, which may hold for the same time today as well. 69% of men believe in evolution.

48% of women believe in evolution. 67% of younger adults believe in evolution. 71% of university graduates believe in evolution. 40% of Alberta residents believe in evolution. 29% of Conservative Party supporters believe in evolution.

That is, if you are a Conservative Party member, resident of Alberta, non-university graduate, a woman, and an older adult, then you are most likely to reject evolution.

Reference

NCSE Staff. (2008, August 8). Polling creationism in Canada. Retrieved from https://ncse.com/news/2008/08/polling-creationism-canada-001375.

Original publication in Medium.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal.

2 thoughts on “About One in Five Canadians are Young Earth Creationists

  1. Tim Underwood

    “believe in evolution”

    This phrase has the connotation of making them a follower of some sort. Most responsible secularists just accept that the evolution of living things is a fact. I suppose you could add that the evolution of cultural developments, such as languages, are also facts.

    I’m on a kick of differentiating between philosophical knowing and poetic knowing so let me try this out.

    Older, conservative, Christian, Albertans have an Ernest T. Manning, ‘Back to The Bible Hour’ poetic declaration that “God Most High” dramatically spoke life into existence.

    With a more enlightened upbringing, our parents’ generation, could have enjoyed the archaic poetry from the early Iron Ages and they could have also experienced warm feeling towards those early human’s attempts at understanding existence.

    These later-day, conservative-minded, science-reactionaries are not honouring early human attempts of understanding. What they are doing is not praising these ancient, delightful creations of poetic expression.

    Reply
  2. Janice

    Not great, but not terrible. The 20% that are “not sure” suspect young Earth creationism is bullshit, but don’t want to say it out loud.

    Reply

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