If you have a pulse and follow "science news" you are aware that Marco Rubiogave a very equivocal answer to a very simple question about the age of the earth. As many have noted this is basically a way to call out Republican politicians for the fact that they have to satisfy the cultural signals of a segment of the American population which has a deep hostility to science which undercuts their naive reading of the Bible. To Mitt Romney's credit he did not evade on this question, but gave a mainstream answer among the well educated. This sort of political pandering isn't too surprising. Remember Hillary Clinton dismissing 'elite economists' when it came to her silly gas tax suspension idea? It's a democracy, and that means you can get very far appealing to the populist sentiment. More concretely, I want to address something Rod Dreher asserted at The American Conservative:
I wish one of these liberal journalists would go into a black or Latino church supper and ask people their thoughts about how the universe began. I’d bet that 99 percent of the people there would agree with Marco Rubio, even if most of them would vote for his opponent. People just don’t care about this stuff at the national political level. You’d better believe I’d fight over this issue if it came down to a matter of what was going to be taught in my local school. But I couldn’t possibly care less what the guy who lives in the White House thinks, unless he tries to impose it on the country.
When I hear the word "bet" I start thinking of laying down odds and stealing someone's cash! But in this case I'll assume Rod was being rhetorical. But let's review the numbers, shall we? The General Social Survey has a variable, EVOLVED, which records the response to the question "Human beings developed from animals," with a true vs. false outcome. It was asked between 2006 and 2010. You can see the results for numerous demographics below.
DemographicAgree that human beings developed from animals
Democrat59
Independent53
Republican42
White Non-Hispanic Democrat66
White Non-Hispanic Independent55
White Non-Hispanic Republican41
No College Democrat50
No College Independent50
No College Republican37
College Educated Democrat78
College Educated Independent67
College Educated Republican52
Liberal69
Moderate52
Conservative39
White non-Hispanic Liberal77
White non-Hispanic Moderate55
White non-Hispanic Conservative38
No College Liberal58
No College Moderate49
No College Conservative36
College Educated Liberal86
College Educated Moderate66
College Educated Conservative47
White Non-Hispanic53
Black Non-Hispanic35
Hispanic52
Protestant35
Catholic65
Jewish79
No Religion79
Bible is Word of God28
Bible is Inspired Word of God58
Bible is Book of Fables87
Southern Baptist27
United Method51
Presbyterian64
Episcopalian91
Scandinavian59
German51
British50
Irish54
Italian66
