A multifactorial analysis of acceptance of evolution

Background: Despite decades of education reform efforts, the percent of the general US population accepting biological evolution as the explanation for the diversity of life has remained relatively unchanged over the past 35 years. Previous work has shown the importance of both educational and non-educational (sociodemographic and psychological) factors on acceptance of evolution, but has often looked at such factors in isolation. Our study is among the first attempts to model quantitatively how the unique influences of evolutionary content knowledge, religiosity, epistemological sophistication, and an understanding of the nature of science collectively predict an individual’s acceptance or rejection of evolution. Results: Our study population had a high acceptance of evolution, with an average score of 77.17 (95% C.I. ± 1.483) on the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument. Our combined general linear model showed that, of the variables in our model, an understanding of the nature of science explained the greatest amount of variation in acceptance of evolution. This was followed in amount of variance explained by a measure of religiosity, openness to experience, religious denomination, number of biology courses previously taken, and knowledge of evolutionary biology terms. Conclusions: Understanding of the nature of science was the single most important factor associated with acceptance of evolution in our study and explained at least four times more variation than measures of evolutionary knowledge. This suggests that educational efforts to impact evolutionary acceptance should focus on increasing an understanding of the nature of science (which may be expected to have additional benefits towards generalized science denial). Additionally, our measure of epistemological sophistication had a unique, significant impact on acceptance of evolution. Both epistemological sophistication and an understanding of the nature of science are factors that might change throughout a liberal arts education, independent of the effect of direct evolutionary instruction

Evolution Acceptance, Religiosity, and Nature of Science in an Undergraduate Population

Decades of research into the acceptance of evolutionary biology have revealed a number of factors that are related to an individual’s choice to accept or reject evolutionary biology. This work seeks to extend that work in the following key ways: (1) Use a longitudinal time frame, along with multifactorial linear modeling, to investigate the changes in evolution acceptance and its associated factors across a year of introductory biology education. (2) Expand the study population to a general undergraduate population, and study the change in acceptance of evolution in this general student population across the first semester of university education. (3) Use qualitative methods to interview students from the general undergraduate population to gain a more nuanced understanding into the specific reasons individuals choose to accept or reject evolutionary biology. Results from this work show that students enrolled in introductory biology and a more general student population have very similar associations between their acceptance of evolution and related variables. Specifically, changes in students’ acceptance of evolution is positively and significantly related to changes in their knowledge of evolution and understanding of the nature of science, while increasing acceptance of evolution is significantly related to a decrease in religiosity. Upon interview, students were able to articulate well how their religious views influenced their acceptance of evolution, but did not discuss as much about how their understanding of science influenced their acceptance of evolution. Together, these results help us to understand the reasons behind an individual’s acceptance or rejection of evolutionary biology, while showing areas that are ripe for future study