news
What’s God got
to do with it?
Belief in theistic evolution declining among students.
F
irst-year biology students are “rapidly abandoning” beliefs in
theistic involvement in human origins.
That’s according to annual polling of university students on
their views about evolution and creationism.
Researchers asked UNSW Sydney biology students to circle one
of the following:
Option 1 – God created people (Homo sapiens) pretty much in
their present form at sometime within the last 10,000 years.
Option 2 – People developed over millions of years from
less advanced forms of life, but God guided the whole process,
including our development.
Option 3 – People developed over millions of years from less
advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process.
Option 4 – I honestly have no opinion about this matter.
Students struggling
Many students regularly forced to go without food
and other necessities due to financial hardship.
“I now often eat meals at university, [and] rely on friends to bring
food over or pay for the ingredients so I can cook for them. I don’t
eat much anymore…”
T
he statement above, given to Universities Australia by an
Indigenous full-time undergraduate student, is testament
to the experiences of many of the nation’s students,
according to a new survey by the peak body.
About one in seven students regularly go without food and other
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campusreview.com.au
Since the polling began in 1986, the researchers have seen
a steep decline in the belief among students that a god is the
ultimate or contributing cause of human origins.
Conviction that humans evolved without divine involvement of
any kind has taken over as the dominant view among students – a
quarter selected that option in 1986 but this rose to just under two
thirds by 2017.
While the percentage of respondents endorsing the creationist
option (Option 1) has been consistently small – averaging around 10
per cent in earlier years and slowly declining to less than 5 – in the
poll’s first year, 60 per cent of students endorsed either the creationist
option or the god-guided evolution option (Option 2) but this has
fallen to just under 29 per cent in the latest study.
Lead author Professor Michael Archer said the survey’s original
intent was to assess the level of commitment among incoming
students to supernatural explanations for human origin.
“Given that the creationist view (that humans were created by
God within the last 10,000 years, rather than evolved naturally
over millions of years without the involvement of God) is common
among American students, we wanted to know how much of
a challenge introducing the evidence for evolution to first-year
students would be for us in Australia,” Archer said.
“We also wanted to know if Australian student views about this
key issue were changing over time.”
Publishing the findings in Evolution: Education and Outreach,
the report’s authors thanked the secondary school teachers in
Australia who “clearly have been doing an increasingly effective
job in communicating the scientific facts to high school students
about the origin of the natural world”. ■
necessities because they can’t afford them. This figure was slightly
higher for low SES and regional students but jumped to one in four
when it came to Indigenous students.
Overall, the 2017 UA Student Finances Survey revealed a slight
improvement in university students’ financial circumstances since
2012, but UA chief executive Catriona Jackson said financial
hardship is still hurting their education.
Jackson said many students are deferring studies or reducing
their course load for financial reasons.
“Education is meant to come first when you are studying, but
we know that for some groups of students who live life on the
financial edge, that’s just not their reality,” she said. “Our students
should have the basic financial security and stability to perform at
their best. Yet that’s simply not the case for many students from
disadvantaged groups.”
The majority of students were supporting themselves through
paid work. Most full-time domestic undergrads were doing this
with just $18,300 a year. A third regularly missed university lectures
or classes because of work.
“For some, this is a chance to gain valuable work experience
and skills that will help fast-track them into a full-time job after they
graduate,” Jackson said. “But for many, the amount of work they
need to do to support themselves ... comes at a cost to their studies.”
National Union of Students president Mark Pace said allowing
students to be priced out of university is against the spirit of
Australia’s open higher education system.
“The government must prioritise increasing income support
to allow students access to higher education and the enormous
opportunities it provides for millions of Australians,” Pace said. ■