A majority of Americans believe that God played a role in the creation of human beings, while the general belief in evolution has increased, a new poll finds.
Sixty-two percent of 1,000 adults polled in a
YouGov survey taken July 8-9 believe that God was involved in the creation of humans.
Thirty-seven percent say they believe God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years, while 25 percent say that God guided the process of evolution through which humans developed. Twenty-one percent say that God did not guide the process of human evolution,
CBS News reports.
According to YouGov, the general belief in evolution as the process through which human life developed without God's help has increased by eight percentage points since the same question was asked in
a CBS poll in 2004, when 13 percent said that they believe humans developed through evolution without God's guidance.
Those who believe that God guided the evolution process through which humans were created is down by two percentage points since 2004 when 27 percent of those polled said that God was involved in evolution. The general belief in human evolution is up six percent.
When it comes to whether or not creationism or intelligent design should be taught in schools, 40 percent say that it should be taught, while 32 percent oppose it.
July 21 marked the 88th anniversary of the Scopes trial decision in which Tennessee high school teacher John Scopes was charged with teaching evolution, which was against the law at the time. The Scopes trial is considered a paradigm shift as more Americans began to believe in evolution and it became the establishment viewpoint in the science community, in spite of the fact that Scopes lost the trial.
Since then, the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 in the Edwards v. Aguillard decision that teaching Creationism supported a specific religion, and violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The same was decided in 2005 in federal court regarding the teaching of intelligent design.