Newsweek released a poll this weekend showing that 9 out of 10 Americans believe in God. OK, that sounds plausible given this country’s long history of theistic tradition. But something caught my eye later in article.

Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact…Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.

These numbers are much higher than I would’ve thought and I come from a pretty conservative area. We frequently hear that faith is in danger in America, especially when looking at trends in people under 30 ,but these numbers suggest that religion is very much alive. So alive in fact, that extrapolating the results of this scientific poll of 1004 adults 18 years or older over the entire US population would mean that roughly 140 MILLION people reject the evolutionary theory. 140 Million. Well, not quite 140 million considering the age distribution of the country etc. but even allowing for that, it’s more people than you can shake a stick at.

Even more interestingly, the percentage of creationist college graduates is way higher than what you would expect given the image of higher education portrayed in the media as a bastion of liberal anti-thesism. Perhaps religion is not in full retreat as some would want us to believe.

The Michigan Daily recently did a story analyzing the religious beliefs of college professors and it may impact their teaching. Not surprisingly, it found that institutions of higher education have a higher percentage of Atheists than any other profession. In a more personal anecdote, I was in the DI newsroom Friday afternoon catching up some work when a friend reminded me that Daniel Dennett (one member of the “unholy trinity” of atheism advocates mentioned in the article) was giving a guest lecture entitled “The domestication of Wild Religions” in Gregory Hall. I decided to go but I got bogged down in a few things so I ended up arriving about 20 minutes into it. All the while I was thinking “Hey, it’s Friday afternoon and it’s a philosophy lecture. Surely, I’ll be able to get in even if I’m late.” How wrong I was.

When I arrived, 112 Greg was overflowing with what I would estimate to be between 300-350 people. I am 100% sure that had University police been around, the event would’ve been busted as a fire hazard with the scores of people sitting in the aisles. They were even lined up in the hall and crowded around the doorway to hear this man speak. I could barely hear him so I went on my way but as I walked I couldn’t help but think that I just witnessed a philosophy rockstar.

Assuming that we can rely on this Newsweek poll (which is another debate), these numbers indicate that a college degree is no longer the dividing factor between creationists and evolutionists we thought it was. While some would say that this is a failure of higher education to properly instill the spirit of scientific inquiry in graduates, it is more likely that this will be seen as the backlash against controversial decisions we hear about all time involving local school boards and biology teachers in which evolutionary theory is gaining ground.

So what do you think about these numbers?