Public acceptance of evolution has increased. But why? This study — launched 30 years ago — tells us what's changed.

Hi, Jenn Bane here. I spoke with Jon Miller, the Director of the International Center for Advancements of Scientific Literacy, about his work in charting people's opinions.

Tell me how your studies work.

If you really want to know how humans change, you've got to follow the same people for a period of time. So I started back in 1987 with a sample of almost 6,000 students from across the country. I've been following them for 33 years. They are now aged 45 to 48. I've been looking at how people learn and how information is acquired.?

So you measure scientific literacy. What are your findings?

People don’t change their notions about evolution — they don't flip completely. College-educated parents are much more likely to accept evolution enthusiastically, and so their children are, too. And every year, a? greater proportion of Americans go to college.

The study said completing at least one college science class was the strongest predictor to accepting evolution.

The very close link between education and the acceptance of evolution is not surprising. And those first 20 years after high school are what I call the switchyards of life. Those are the critical decision-making years. You begin to choose your education, your job, your spouse, what city you'll live in. And one thing that we also see that comes out of that is geographic mobility and occupational mobility.

What’s that?

There’s a tendency of poor people to be fundamentalist, and they tend to pass that on to their children. One of the ways that people never change their view is if they stay in the same town and hang out with the same people they went to high school with. They're very likely to have the same view of evolution that their parents had.?

That tracks.

Now that we have begun to segregate our schools and our communities by education, the best single measure of social class is how much education you have.? An economist might not agree. But I think a sociologist would tell you that the way you decide who is upper class, middle class or working class is education. And that relates to job and income. Sometimes it relates to how you see the world. If you are in a business that deals routinely with, say, China, you may not think of the world the same way that someone who hasn’t left their state.

Reliable internet access must also be a huge factor in science education.

That’s changing everything. It’s probably a little out of date now, but a few years ago I learned that every day there's 20 million pages of new information posted on the internet.

Good gravy. No wonder I have no attention span.

And nobody can be a specialist in all areas. No one could possibly have a full time job and keep up with all of this information. So what you have to do is keep up with three or four issues, and the internet allows you to do that.?

But are people keeping up with three or four issues?

[We see] three [reasons] why someone might seek science information online. One is utilitarian — if you get a diagnosis of cancer, you probably want to read a lot about it. Another is public policy. If you are worried about the climate, you may want to know what the government or companies are doing about it. And the third one is curiosity. Like people who visit a museum. Or read your newsletter. It helps people satisfy their curiosity.

Oh, thank you. I hope so!

You can read the study here.

Just Curious is sponsored by Provable, the science communication force of M. Harris & Co. and MG Strategy + Design.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Header image by DALL-E Open Ai. If you liked what you read today, here's more.