Relationships between the Religious Backgrounds and Evolution Acceptance of Black and Hispanic Biology Students.

The evolution education experiences of students of color represent an emerging area of research, because past inquiries indicate these students have differential outcomes, such as lower evolution acceptance and severe underrepresentation in evolutionary biology. Religion is often an important support for students of color who are navigating a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics culture that privileges White nonreligious students. For instance, religion helps mitigate the negative effects of racism, but religious students are also more likely to experience conflict when learning evolution. In this nationwide study, we examined the extent to which strong religiosity among students of color can explain their lower evolution acceptance. We surveyed students in 77 college biology courses across 17 states and found that Black/African American students tend to be more religious and less accepting of evolution than any other racial/ethnic identity group and that Hispanic students tend to be slightly more religious and slightly less accepting of evolution than White students. Importantly, we find that religious background is an important factor associated with Black and Hispanic students' lower levels of evolution acceptance. This study suggests that the biology community should become more inclusive of Christian religious students if it wishes to foster inclusive evolution education for Black and Hispanic students.

"Accepting Evolution Means You Can't Believe in God": Atheistic Perceptions of Evolution among College Biology Students.

Although many scientists agree that evolution does not make claims about God/god(s), students might assume that evolution is atheistic, and this may lead to lower evolution acceptance. In study 1, we surveyed 1081 college biology students at one university about their religiosity and evolution acceptance and asked what religious ideas someone would have to reject if that person were to accept evolution. Approximately half of students wrote that a person cannot believe in God/religion and accept evolution, indicating that these students may have atheistic perceptions of evolution. Religiosity was not related to whether a student wrote that evolution is atheistic, but writing that evolution is atheistic was associated with lower evolution acceptance among the more religious students. In study 2, we collected data from 1898 students in eight states in the United States using a closed-ended survey. We found that 56.5% of students perceived that evolution is atheistic even when they were given the option to choose an agnostic perception of evolution. Further, among the most religious students, those who thought evolution is atheistic were less accepting of evolution, less comfortable learning evolution, and perceived greater conflict between their personal religious beliefs and evolution than those who thought evolution is agnostic.