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Americans' Evolution Knowledge Isn't That Bad, If You Ask About Elephants (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: In 2014, a poll showed that just 49% of Americans agreed with the statement: "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." But it's difficult to tell whether those numbers measure ignorance about science, because belief in human evolution is closely tied to religious belief, especially in the United States. Yesterday, researchers at the annual meeting of AAAS, previewed data from a recent poll showing that when the word "human" is replaced with "elephant" in the evolution question, 75% of Americans agree — about 25 percentage points higher than before. Plus, the new elephant question does a better job of predicting general science knowledge than the human question, especially among those who say they don't believe in evolution. So it seems that America's dismal performance on past evolution polls can be blamed at least partially on this disbelief, rather than a lack of knowledge.
Evolution has some holes in it so big it barely merits teaching. I'd compare it to teaching someone that all matter on the planet is made of fire, water, air, and earth based on the current known logic and evidence that scientists could come up with. So a male of a species develops a new sexual trait. A female just pops up in the same generation that's compatible with that trait when by definition one mutation would have to occur in the Y chromosome while the other occurs outside of it. This is why evolution cannot be taken seriously by a rational person. It can't even explain mosquitoes. Oh so now the female uses other creatures' blood to reproduce. I'm sure a male will magically mutate to match that new process in the same generation, find that one female that mutated, and have offspring with it. It's utterly ridiculous.