Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-5lx2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-31T08:55:40.805Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Biology Battle: Public Opinion and the Origins of Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2009

Patricia K. Freeman  and
David J. Houston
Patricia K. Freeman
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee
David J. Houston*
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: David J. Houston, Department of Political Science, 1001 McClung Tower, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0410. E-mail: dhouston@utk.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is the origins of life debate occurring in the United States an illustration of the culture wars? To address this question we examine attitudes toward evolution using data from the 2006 General Social Survey. Multinomial logistic regression models indicate that attitudes about whether humans today evolved from earlier species of life are more fully explained by orthodox Christian doctrine, not religious tradition, as the culture wars thesis suggests. However, an isomorphism between orthodox Christine doctrine and conservative political ideology has not occurred. While a liberal political ideology is strongly related to acceptance of evolution, these data suggest that only a certain group of political conservatives, those who accept orthodox Christian doctrine, reject evolution as sound scientific theory. Additionally, respondents who “don't know” if evolution is “true” or “false” differ from both the believers and skeptics in that they appear to lack the exposure to either science or orthodox Christian doctrine that would give them clear guidance about what to think in regards to evolution.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 54 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Altemeyer, Bob, and Hunsberger, Bruce. 1992. “Authoritarianism, Religious Fundamentalism, Quest, and Prejudice.” International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 2:113–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bak, Hee-Je. 2001. “Education and Public Attitudes toward Science: Implications for the “Deficit Model” of Education and Support for Science and Technology.” Social Science Quarterly 82:779–795.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, George F. 1998. “The Religious Worldview and American Beliefs about Human Origin.” Public Perspective 9:39–44.Google Scholar
Bishop, George F. 2006. “Polls Apart on Human Origins.” Public Opinion Pros http://www.publicopinionpros.com/past_issues/2006/oct/august.asp (Accessed May 4, 2008).Google Scholar
Bishop, George F. 2007. “Evolution, Religion, and the “Culture Wars” in American Politics.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science AssociationChicago, Illinois.Google Scholar
Davis, James Allan, and Smith, Tom W.. 2007. General Social Surveys, 1972–2006. [machine-readable data file]. Principal Investigator, James A. Davis; Director and Co-Principal Investigator, Tom W. Smith; Co-Principal Investigator, Peter V. Marsden, NORC ed. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, producer; Storrs, CT: The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, distributor. 1 data file (51,020 logical records) and 1 codebook (2,552 pp).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deckman, Barbara. 2002. “Holy ABCs! The Impact of Religion on Attitudes About Education Policies.” Social Science Quarterly 83:472–487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul, Evans, John, and Bryson, Bethany. 1996. “Have Americans' Social Attitudes Become More Polarized?” American Journal of Sociology 102:690–755.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duckitt, John, and Fisher, Kirstin. 2003. “The Impact of Social Threat on Worldview and Ideological Attitudes.” Political Psychology 24:199–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P, Adams, Samuel J., and Pope, Jeremy C.. 2006. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, Second Edition. New York, NY: Pearson/Longman.Google Scholar
Fowler, Robert Booth, Hertzke, Allen D., Olson, Laura R., and Dulk, Devin R. Den. 2004. Religion and Politics in America, Third Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Mary Frank, and Firebaugh, Glenn. 1992. “Confidence in Science: The Gender Gap”. Social Science Quarterly 73:101–113.Google Scholar
Hunter, James Davison. 1991. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hunter, James Davison. 1994. Before the Shooting Begins: Searching for Democracy in America's Culture War. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hunter, James Davison. 2006. “The Enduring Culture War.” In Is There a Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life, ed. Hunter, James Davison and Wolfe, Alan. Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center and Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Jelen, Ted G. 2000. To Serve God and Mammon: Church-State Relations in American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Jelen, Ted G., and Lockett, Linda A.. 2008. “The Clergy and Evolution: Exploring Denominational Differences.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science AssociationSan Diego, California.Google Scholar
Kelledst, Lyman A. 1996. “Religious Voting Blocs in the 1992 Election: The Year of the Evangelical?” In Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches from the Front, ed. John Green, James Guth, Smidt, Corwin, and Kellstedt, Lyman, 267–90. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Keeter, Scott, Masci, David, and Smith, Gregory. 2007. “Science in America: Religious Beliefs an Public Attitudes.” http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=275 (Accessed August 7, 2008).Google Scholar
Kohut, John, Green, John C., Keeter, Scott, and Toth, Robert. 2000. The Diminishing Divide: Religion's Changing Role in American Politics. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.Google Scholar
Lambert, W. Henry. 2008. “Government and Science: A Troubled, Critical Relationship and What Can Be Done about It.” Public Administration Review 68:5–18.Google Scholar
Larson, Edward J. 2004. Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory. New York, NY: Random House.Google Scholar
Larson, Edward J. 2007. “The Classroom Controversy: A History of the Dispute over Teaching Evolution.” In The Panda's Black Box: Opening Up the Intelligent Design Controversy, ed., Comfort, Nathaniel C.. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Layman, Geoffrey C., and Green, John C.. 2005. “Wars and Rumours of Wars: The Contexts of Cultural Conflict in American Political Behavior.” British Journal of Political Science 36:61–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masci, David. 2005. “From Darwin to Dover: An Overview of Important Cases in the Evolution Debate.” The Pew Forum. http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=222.Google Scholar
Masci, David. 2007a. (An Evolving Debate About Evolution.” The Pew Forum http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=215.Google Scholar
Masci, David. 2007b. “Twenty Years After a Landmark Supreme Court Decision, Americans are Still Fighting About Evolution.) The Pew Forum http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=116.Google Scholar
Matus, Ron, and Winchester, Donna. 2008. “The Evolution of a Sensitive Lesson.” St. Petersburg Times http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/03/State/The_evolution_of_a_se.shtml.Google Scholar
Mazur, Alan. 2005. “Believers and Disbelievers in Evolution.” Politics and Life Sciences 23:55–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Jon D., Scott, Eugenie C., and Shinji Okamoto, S. 2006. “Public Acceptance of Evolution.” Science 313:765–766.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mooney, Chris. 2005. The Republican War on Science. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Paterson, Frances R. A., and Rossow, Lawrence R.. 1999. “Chained to the Devil's Throne”: Evolution & Creation Science as a Religio-Political Issue. The American Biology Teacher 61:358–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2008a. “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey.” http://religions.pewforum.org.Google Scholar
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2008b. “More Americans Question Religion's Role in Politics.” http://pewforum.org/religion08/.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 2005. “Beyond Red vs. Blue.” http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=948.Google Scholar
Ruse, Michael. 2000. The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debates. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Mark, and Heldman, Caroline. 2001. “Gender Gap or Gender Gaps? New Perspectives on Support for Government Action and Politics.” Journal of Politics 63:59–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrom, Glenn W. 2006. Getting Past the Culture Wars: Regarding Intelligent Design. Centennial, CO: Lifevest Publishing.Google Scholar
Slevin, Peter. 2005. “Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens.” Washington Post. March 14:A01.Google Scholar
Weissmann, Gerald. 2006. “Teach Evolution, Learn Science; We're Ahead of Turkey, but Behind Iran.” Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology 20:2183–2185.Google ScholarPubMed
Wald, Kenneth D., and Calhoun-Brown, Allison. 2007. Religion and Politics in the United States Fifth Edition. New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
White, Kenneth. 2003. The Values Divide. New York, NY: Chatham House.Google Scholar
Wilcox, Clyde, and Larson, Carin. 2006 Onward Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in American Politics, Third Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Bryan R. 1982. Religion in Sociological Perspective. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Alan. 2006. “The Culture War that Never Came.” In Is There a Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life, ed. Hunter, James Davison and Wolfe, Alan. Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center and Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Wuthnow, Robert. 1988. The Restructuring of American Religion Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wuthnow, Robert. 1989. The Struggle for American's Soul: Evangelicals, Liberals, and Secularism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.Google Scholar