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Rejecting Evolution: The Role of Religion, Education, and Social Networks
Author(s) -
Hill Jonathan P.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal for the scientific study of religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1468-5906
pISSN - 0021-8294
DOI - 10.1111/jssr.12127
Subject(s) - respondent , creationism , skepticism , educational attainment , context (archaeology) , social psychology , population , social evolution , human evolution , nature versus nurture , sociology , psychology , political science , epistemology , biology , demography , law , paleontology , philosophy , anthropology
Large segments of the American public are skeptical of human evolution. Surveys consistently find that sizable minorities of the population, frequently near half, deny that an evolutionary process describes how human life developed. Using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, I examine the role of religion and education in predicting who changes their beliefs about evolution between late adolescence and early emerging adulthood. I conclude that religion is far more important than educational attainment in predicting changing beliefs about evolution. Perhaps more importantly, I find that social networks play an important moderating role in this process. High personal religiousness is only associated with the maintenance of creationist beliefs over time when the respondent is embedded in a social network of co‐religionists. This finding suggests that researchers should pay far more attention to the social context of belief formation and change.