Map of Teachings of Evolution in the US

This is a map showing the status of teaching of evolution in the US on a state-basis. On the map, the colour red indicates the more anti-evolution states, where the teaching of evolution is seen as “unsatisfactory, useless or absent”. Yellow means “satisfactory or good”, and green indicates “very good or excellent”.

This post, featured as Blog of the Minute on the WordPress home page, provides a commentary on the map – and as you ca see from the 250-plus comments made by the readers, it is no kidding that the evolution vs. creationism debate is still raging well and alive.

After spent quite some time reading through the comments (much of it at work…), it is just more and more obvious to me that many people who are anti-evolution are still very ill-informed. Amateurish arguments against evolution such as evolution is a theory of chance (“airplane in the junkyard” argument), that we descended from monkeys, that the word “theory” means speculation… etc are seen quite commonly in the readers’ comments on the post.

Is this evolution vs. creationism debate a truly US of A phenomenon? I was just thinking the other day, after reading through more ignorant, bigotry arguments from creationists, that we should not waste any more time in debating with these people. However, on the second thought, I was alarmed that we must do something to combat these people – their impact is real. Just look at the map mentioned, and the several court cases concerning the teaching of evolution at schools that have taken place in the US recently.

Anyway, here is a thumbnail copy of the map here, click on it to enlarge: