Oh, and this is interesting.
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It's all in how you phrase the question. For example, I wouldn't answer "yes" to that particular phrasing myself, even though I'm a scientist and (to a large extent) a believer in evolution.
The percentage of people who actually have some philosophical objection to the phrasing is probably very small.
This. Considering the charged political climate over this issue, any question about evolution is clear enough.
One of my favorite people is Jon Stewart and he said something similar to what I am about to write:
Humans are the only animal (at least that we know of) that knows that our life here on earth is limited. Religion brings much comfort to many peoples lives. Unfortunatly things that bring comfort can often cause some people to do bad things as well. For example I am sure that many of you nonbelievers think that weed is something that also brings comfort and is a positive thing to many people's lives however some people do bad things with it (either under its influence or not see Mexican drug cartel problems). Osama Bin Laden caused 3,000 deaths before he died, however Pol Pot caused 2 million.
And yes SiroMar I did take someone elses idea and post it. I am not naïve enough to think that I know everything so I look at what others say, reflect, ponder, and see if it makes sense. You should try it some time.
It would be naive to think someone of your capacity can ponder anything, I agree. And I love those loosely tied collection of cliches about comfort, weed, and Pol Pot. That is exactly what I've come to expect from you.
Good, I expect you to disagree with a rational mind like mine. An irrational mind cannot make sense of something rational. A pig will trample over a pearl.
Right right, the pig line again. Nice one.
The percentage of people who actually have some philosophical objection to the phrasing is probably very small.
Catholicism
The Catholic Church generally accepts evolutionary theory as the scientific explanation for the development of all life. However, this acceptance comes with the understanding that natural selection is a God-directed mechanism of biological development and that man's soul is the divine creation of God.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' first public statement on human origins was issued in 1909 and echoed in 1925, when the church's highest governing body stated, "Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes." However, several high-ranking officials have suggested that Darwin's theory does not directly contradict church teachings.
That's not a survey Colton. That's just something someone said.
Are there surveys that show substantially higher percentage of Mormons who believe evolution happened?
I'm not talking about philosophical objections. I'm just talking about how the question is phrased. For example, if you change it from "best explanation" to something like "Do you agree with the explanation that...", the reaction to people would be very different.
As an example, from the Pew Forum's own more in-depth analysis of this survey, the opinions of Catholic vs. Mormon respondents are nearly the same:
https://www.pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Religious-Groups-Views-on-Evolution.aspx
In other words, a substantial number of people in each church share my own personal belief, which is that God created human life but may well have used evolutionary processes to do so. And yet due to the way people interpreted the specific question, the Catholic response was 58% yes and the Mormon response was 22% yes. If two such similar beliefs show up so far apart in the spectrum, then a simple "yes/no" answer to this type of question is meaningless. Phrasing the question a slightly different way would undoubtedly have resulted in a very different set of percentages.
It wasnt very "in-depth"....
Are you sure? It looks to me like it was compiled as a direct result of the responses from the Pew Forum survey.
Are there any surveys that show that Mormons don't believe evolution happened? Are there even any surveys which have asked Mormons if they believe one way or the other whether or not evolution happened?
You went to BYU, right? You should know that evolution is taught in Bio 100, a required class for all students (unless a more advanced Bio class is taken). That's not to say that ALL of the students taking the class believe what they are learning is a valid scientific principle, but I'd wager that most of them do by the end of the semester.