Fig. 8

Percentage of New England faculty (Fac) versus college students from public secular (Pub), private secular (Priv), and religious (Rel) institutions who consider the following definitions of evolution to be either true (black bars) or false (white bars): A gradual process by which the universe changes, it includes the origin of life, its diversification and the synergistic phenomena resulting from the interaction between life and the environment; B directional process by which unicellular organisms, like bacteria, turn into multicellular organisms, like sponges, which later turn into fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and ultimately humans, the pinnacle of evolution; C gradual process by which monkeys such as chimpanzees, turn into humans; D random process by which life originates, changes, and ends accidentally in complex organisms such as humans; and E gradual process by which organisms acquire traits during their lifetimes, such as longer necks, larger brains, resistance to parasites, and then pass on these traits to their descendants. Comparisons within groups (asterisks indicate significance): A, Chi-square = 3.827; df = 3; P = 0.281. B, Chi-square = 48.511; df = 3; P ≤ 0.001. C, Chi-square = 23.455; df = 3; P ≤ 0.001. D, Chi-square = 0.291; df = 3; P = 0.962; E, Chi-square = 50.003; df = 3; P ≤ 0.001. Lowercase letters indicate sign test two-tail pair-wise comparisons within groups, P ≤ 0.05. Fac, n = 221; Pub, n = 161; Priv, n = 223; Rel, n = 185