My post last week about Creationism by region set off a fair number of follow up questions. I’ve actually probed the GSS evolution related variables a lot in the past, but I thought I would put it together in one post in a simple fashion for new readers. I used the SCITEST4 variable since its sample size is the largest. The question asked was: ” Human beings developed from earlier species of animals.” It was asked between 1993 and 2000.

There are four answers, definitely true, probably true, probably not true, definitely not true. I put the frequencies in a table below, but I thought it would be useful to have one number to summarize the propensity toward creationism in a demographic. Therefore, I created a simple “index of creationism.” The formula to create it is pretty obvious:

Index of Creationism = (% “definitely not true”) X 3 + (% “probably not true”) X 2 + (% “probably true”) X 1

If the Index of Creationism for a demographic was zero, that means that everyone in the demographic accepted that evolution was definitely true. In contrast, if it was three, that means that everyone in the demographic believed that evolution was definitely not true. The bar chart below has the Indices of Creationism sorted. Below it is a table with the frequencies as well (unsorted, clustered by demographic kind).

HUMANS DEVELOPED FROM ANIMALS….

Update: I forgot to add the variables for the GSS query:

Row: sex race degree(r:0-2″Non-College”;3-4″College”) wordsum(r:0-4″stupid”;5-7″average”;8-10″smart”) sei(r:17-37″low”;38-67″middle”;68-97″high”) god(r:1-2″atheist & agnostic”;3″higher power”;4-5″Believe in god with doubts”;6″Know god exists”) relig bible age(r:18-40″18-40″;40-*”40+”) polviews(r:1-3″Liberal”;4″Moderate”;5-7″Conservative”)

Column: scitest4