Below I pointed to the rise in acceptance of evolution among the young, in particular the 18-30 cohort. There were some natural questions about other correlated demographic variables (I did point to data suggesting that this is not simply a byproduct of increased secularity of the young). Naturally one wonders about the impact of education. There's a problem with this: people who are 22 are far less likely to have graduate degrees than people who are 40, because most people are just finishing their undergraduate degree at this age! The comparison isn't fair (additionally, the reduction in the proportion of high school drop outs over the generations probably has changed the type of person who does not receive their diploma). But what about intelligence? The WORDSUM variable in the General Social Survey has a vocabulary test where people receive a score based on the number correct out of 10. I separated the scores into three classes, 0-4, 5-7 and 8-10. Roughly, dull, normal and bright. I then split them by age groups, 18-29, 30-44, 45-60 and 60+. I again looked at the four evolution related variables, EVOLVED, SCITEST4, SCITESTY and CREATION. The results below.
Not surprising that the dull are more Creationist than the smart. If one just looked at the first variable one might assert that the anti-Creationism of the youth is a function of the successful brainwashing of the dull in the public school system, but it doesn't seem to hold for some of the other variables. Overall no surprise, and it looks like a general trend is for the smart and the young to reject Creationism. Because of the sample sizes and contradictions in the magnitude of the trends I am not comfortable going any further than this.
WORDSUM
0-45-78-10
Human Beings Developed From Animals (True)
18-2959.16365.1
30-4453.252.157.4
45-5932.443.566.4
60-31.130.966.6
Humans Evolved From Animals (Definitely + Probably True)
18-2953.453.675.9
30-4438.942.363.9
45-5937.841.867
60-34.432.748.6
Humans Developed From Earlier Species of Animal (Definitely + Probably True)
18-2949.252.863.8
30-4442.63856.5
45-5940.438.563.6
60-27.332.251.5
Man Has Evolved, + Man Has Evolved, God Guided
18-2961.861.475.3
30-4447.843.665.7
45-5957.245.167
60-48.248.657.9
