Half of Americans believe God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years

The resurgent debate over evolution and intelligent design has come as a shock to American intellectuals. Their surprise is a measure of how out of touch they are with mainstream Americans.

Pollingreport.com is a wonderful compendium of poll results of all kinds. They report on a CBS News Poll in October which found that 48% of adults sampled agreed with the statement that "God created human beings in their present form within the last ten thousand years". (Note that the sample size was quite small, and the margin of error is +- 4%.)

Here's how the answers were distributed:

• 15% -- "Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process"
• 29% -- "Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, but God guided this process"
• 48% -- "God created human beings in their present form within the last ten thousand years "
• 8% -- Unsure

In a variation of the question, 15% stated that God did not guide the evolution process, 81% believed that God either guided the process or created humans in their present form, and 4% were unsure.