Surveys Say: Evolutionists Are in the Minority—Thomas Woodward (1950 – )

N.B. Tom was a classmate of mine at Dallas Theological Seminary. J.G.

In Doubts about Darwin, Professor Thomas Woodward charted the history of the Intelligent Design movement from Michael Denton to William Dembski.¹ He explained the arguments and influence of men willing to challenge the Darwinian worldview at the risk of becoming laughing-stocks in their respective fields.

The following quotation sheds some light on a sub-plot in the Intelligent Design movement: The academy—committed to a naturalistic and Darwinian worldview—has failed to persuade society that Darwin was right. It is extremely curious that after decades of evolution being taught in America’s schools and universities, the public remains unconvinced. Christians may feel beleaguered by the cultural elites who sing the praises of Darwinism and demean those who question it. Statistics show, however, that Darwinists are the ones on trial.

While the defenders of the Darwinian paradigm—especially those who have spent their entire career in the field of evolutionary biology—are predictably the hardest to influence, even in prying out limited concessions to Design, the educated public is another matter entirely. This is where the sociological percentages come into consideration. The percentage of the hard core of evolutionary sentiment in the United States—those who believe in macroevolution with no intelligence guidance at all—has been measured by Gallup polls as relatively small. Over the past fifteen years Gallup has repeatedly listed the percentage of those who hold to a “recent creation” view (vaguely described by Gallup) to be about 40 to 45 percent, while the “God-guided evolution” view garnered another 40 to 45 percent. The third category, holding to a strictly naturalistic evolution, in which there was no participation by a preexisting intelligence, has consistently hovered at or slightly under 10 percent.²

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