A long-term study of Australian biology students reveals how attitudes towards creationism and evolution have shifted.

The survey, published today in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach, was started 32 years ago by Mike Archer at the University of New South Wales.

"I wanted to know what percentage of our incoming university students held a [creationist] view, which in effect meant we were wasting our time trying to teach them about the science of evolution," Professor Archer said.

Students were asked to anonymously answer whether they thought:

God created humankind in the past 10,000 years (creationism), God guided the evolution of humankind over millions of years, God had nothing to do with human evolution, or They had no opinion on this topic.

"We had this interesting reaction to the survey in the first year," Professor Archer said.

"The creationists I knew said watch this space. They said this 10 per cent is going to steadily go up."

"So we decided to keep the survey going each year just to see if there was a change happening in the community," he said.

Share

What should I read next?

Want more charts?

This is part of a new daily series featuring charts which tell a story. If you know of some data that fits the bill, we'd love to hear about it.