john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

A global evolution survey

Wed, 2009-07-01 12:30 -- John Hawks

From The Guardian, via a reader:

God or Darwin? The world in evolution beliefs

Find out where on earth only 8% of people believe in evolution

The listing includes 10 countries, polled by The British Council, who have released the study to publicize a website called "Darwin Now". I suppose the title of "evolution leader" depends on how you interpret the poll. China has the greatest percentage who "agree that the scientific evidence for evolution exists," at 55 percent. But they also have a surprising number (19 percent) who think that "evolution should NOT be taught, only other theories."

Only 9 percent of American respondents thought that evolution should not be taught, but only 33 percent agreed that evidence for evolution exists. That puts us behind Mexico and India, but way ahead of South Africa and Egypt -- those places on Earth where only 8 percent agree that evidence for evolution exists.

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.