Why Republicans Don’t Believe In Evolution Anymore

[cbayer]

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/12/31/3108741/republicans-evolution-demographics/#

BY ZACK BEAUCHAMP ON DECEMBER 31, 2013 AT 1:06 PM


CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

The theory of evolution is right up there with the theory of gravity in terms of its universal acceptance among scientists. But, as we’ve learned from the climate change debate, politics has the power to trump science — and, according to a new Pew poll, it seems like political partisanship may be starting to take its toll on evolution. While a comfortable majority of Republicans accepted human evolution as fact in 2009, Pew finds a plurality now reject it — an astonishing 19 point reversal in four years.

It’s a finding that tells us a lot, both principally about the (ahem) evolution of the Republican Party in the past fours. In short, the kind of person who doesn’t believe in evolution is much more likely be a typical Republican today than four years ago — for reasons that have only a bit to do with the debate over evolution itself.

There are two keys to understanding what the Pew poll teaches us about Republicans. First, the drop in belief in evolution is among Republicans and, more or less, Republicans only. Acceptance of human evolution was basically the same among Democrats and independents in 2013 as it was in 2009. Second, the share of the total population that believes in evolution hasn’t changed at all. The drop in Republican belief doesn’t appear to be people changing their minds about evolution so much as people who already didn’t believe in evolution becoming Republicans.

Why might that be? The obvious explanation is the changing character of the Republican base. When Republicans win in recent years, those victories are won on the backs of old voters, white voters, and religious voters. While race isn’t super-important in predicting views on evolution, age and religion are. Each generation of Americans, Pew found, is increasingly more likely to accept natural human evolution; Americans 18-29 do so by a 68-27 margin, while the number for seniors (65+) is 49-36. Likewise, white evangelical protestants are the group most likely to reject evolution, while the religiously unaffiliated are by far the most likely to accept it.

more at link

[lostincalifornia]

1. There is no way I evolved from a republican. The Republican species is just too low in the animal k

to be related

[cbayer]

2. That's funny.

I think they branched off at some point.

[lostincalifornia]

11. Perhaps extra terrestrial. Not every science fiction depicts ETs as superior

[longship]

3. "Politics, it seems, really does ruin everything — including science."

His tag line is profoundly wrong.

It is not politics which has caused this shift -- although I'll admit that it is part of it. But politics is just the tail of the dog. The dog is fundamentalist religion, mostly Protestant sects, which have taken over one of the two major parties in this country. It's that dog wagging the tail.

As recent political demographic shifts come into play, it is only inevitable that these results happen. In other words, I am not at all surprised at this. It is exactly what one would expect in an ideological takeover of a party. We've seen it happen many times in history when a faction achieves power based on ideology. The result is never pretty.

In this case it is a political party, not the country. But those who ignore this and claim that the GOP is marginalized because of their ideology ignore the many cases when a marginalized ideological minority have done extraordinarily bad things.

We see glimmerings of this in the US Congress.

This poll shows exactly what one could have predicted. The Republican Party is becoming more extreme, more religion based, and much more ideological, where arguments mean nothing.

[cbayer]

4. The point he makes about efforts being shifted to state and local levels

is the most worrisome to me.

I think that the extremism of the Republican party is turning a lot of people off when it comes to national level, but they may stay vote for Joe Smith because he goes to their church and your kids all go to the same school.

His explanation of the results of this poll make sense to me. First, those that never accepted evolution to begin with are increasingly identifying as republican. And second, it's a brand loyalty thing where republicans support the party platform across the board, even if it contains parts that are scientifically unsound.

And the fact that it is primarily old, white folks leaves room for a little hope. The old will eventually move along and demographics show whites losing their long held majority status.

[longship]

7. Indeed, that is happening as well.

And if anything it is more worrisome than their taking the US House of Representatives in 2010. There's a huge amount of damage happening in the state legislatures which the Republicans have been targeting for years. Again, this is the bottom up strategy which gained them control of the party beginning in the late 70's.

This is also a strategy which nearly everybody else is totally ignoring -- sadly especially here on DU where people won't stop flapping their gums about 2016 Dem presidential candidate possibilities.

We see these past five years how little power a president has when the opposition party is totally and ideologically against him.

Then there's the very dangerous prospect of 2/3 of the state legislatures voting for a Constitutional convention. What!? These state legislatures are going to rewrite the US Constitution? There has been glimmerings of that for a few years, too -- always from the most extreme sources.

Say goodbye to separation of church and state, always high on their agenda.

That latter scenario worries me.

[cbayer]

8. And school boards, they are becoming more and more of a problem.

Agree that despite the warnings going on, there seems to be little on the ground action to combat it.

But I disagree about separation issues. I think that enough people are alarmed on the national level and are now paying more attention and there seems to be a growth in both numbers and activity among secularists. SCOTUS, on the other hand, remains a wild card in this scenario.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. You raise a point that he seems to have ignored

"the extremism of the Republican party is turning a lot of people off"

What the polls don't tell us is if the parts of the whole population calling themselves Republican, Independent or Democratic are still the same size now as 4 years ago. Because the Republicans have been conspicuously stupid over the past few years (presidential debates where most candidates take a creationist line, climate change denial, saying things about women that are ridiculous as well as offensive, trying to shut down government, etc.), some relatively sane people who use to call themselves Republican have given up saying "I'm with stupid", and now call themselves Independent (even if their views on, say, government spending haven't changed). That leaves the concentration of evolution deniers in the Republican camp higher.

[cbayer]

10. This next election cycle ought to answer that question...

at least, I hope it does.

At the very least, I think they have lost a lot of women.

I agree, the party as a whole appears to be more and more homogenous and offering a much narrower appeal.

This at a time when they should be doing the opposite if they have any wish to survive.

Happy New Year to you and yours Muriel. We may be coming your way this year. Will let you know.

[JI7]

5. clinging to their faiths and not accepting a black man was elected President

[cbayer]

6. How do you see that relating to the rise in evolution rejection within the party?