Fig. 9

Percentage of New England faculty (Fac) versus college students from public secular (Pub), and private secular (Priv) institutions who consider the following statements about evolution to be either true (black bars) or false (white bars): A all current living organisms are descendants of common ancestors, which have evolved for thousands, millions, or billions of years; B humans are apes, relatives of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans; C the hominid (human lineage) fossil record is so poor that scientists cannot tell with confidence that modern humans evolved from ancestral forms; D the origin of the human mind and consciousness cannot be explained by evolution; and E the universe, our solar system, and planet Earth are finely tuned to embrace human life. Comparisons within groups (asterisks indicate significance): A, Chi-square = 4.097; df = 2; P = 0.129. B, Chi-square = 2.623; df = 2; P = 0.269. C, Chi-square = 13.411; df = 2; P = 0.001. D, Chi-square = 14.533; df = 2; P ≤ 0.001. E, Chi-square = 15.191; df = 2; P ≤ 0.001. Lowercase letters indicate sign test two-tail pair-wise comparisons within groups, P ≤ 0.05. Fac, n = 221; Pub, n = 124; and Priv, n = 295