The Real Reason 99% of PhDs Reject Creation

Creating a Consensus

In the summer of 2024, I was preparing a lecture for a group of Brazilian Christian educators. I don’t remember what prompted me in this direction, but I decided to run some numbers on university enrollment.

Specifically, in 2024, I wanted to know the enrollment numbers for creation-friendly universities versus the enrollment numbers in evolution-only universities. For the former, Answers in Genesis has a list of young-earth-creation-friendly universities. (It’s not a long list.) I took the Answers in Genesis list and then added a few more schools where students might hear something other than evolution in the science classroom. (It still wasn’t a long list.) Then I searched the National Center for Education Statistics for enrollment numbers for each of these schools.2

For enrollment numbers in evolution-only universities, I assumed all other universities fit this description. Hence, I took total university undergraduate enrollment numbers for fall 20213 from the National Center for Education Statistics. Then I subtracted the enrollment numbers for creation-friendly schools.

The result? The total number of undergraduates who are exposed to something other than evolution is only around 1%.4

Recall that the Pew Forum survey shows that only around 1% of PhDs do not hold to evolution. Enrollment (input) percentage and PhD profession (output) percentage were a near-exact match. Enrollment predicted PhD outcomes. Or to put it in starker terms, mathematically, if you want to change the percentage of PhDs who are evolutionists, you have to change the percentage of students enrolled in evolution-only universities.

In blunt terms, 99% of PhDs are evolutionists because this is all that they’re ever taught.

Support from a Hostile Witness

99% of PhDs are evolutionists because this is all that they’re ever taught.

Do you find yourself naturally protesting my conclusion? Maybe you want to agree with me, but a little voice in your head stops you? “That can’t be true . . . PhDs are independent thinkers. They come to conclusions on their own via reason and experimentation . . . They can’t be professing belief in evolution simply because that’s all they’ve been taught . . . They’re too smart for that.”

I share your concerns. But not everyone does. In fact, one of the groups that agrees with me is the last group that I’d ever suspect to agree with me.

Can you guess who? For a hint, go back to the landmark court decisions on creation/evolution from the 1980s. These decisions contain the answer.

In January of 1982, District Judge Overton ruled on McLean vs. Arkansas Board of Education. At stake was a 1981 act that

The Governor of Arkansas signed into law . . . entitled the “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act.” The Act is codified as Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-1663, et seq. (1981 Supp.). Its essential mandate is stated in its first sentence: “Public schools within this State shall give balanced treatment to creation-science and to evolution-science.”5

Overton overturned the law.

Now take a look at the 1987 Supreme Court decision. In June of that year, the court ruled on a Louisiana law in Edwards v. Aguillard. From the decision itself:

Louisiana’s “Creationism Act” forbids the teaching of the theory of evolution in public elementary and secondary schools unless accompanied by instruction in the theory of “creation science.” The Act does not require the teaching of either theory unless the other is taught.6

The Supreme Court overturned the law.

Did you notice what these two laws had in common? Neither removed the teaching of evolution from the public schools. They simply required the teaching of creation alongside it. In other words, evolutionists did not fight to put evolution back into public schools. Instead, evolutionists fought tooth and nail to keep creation science out.

Why? What was so threatening to evolution that any challengers must be kept out of the classroom? Why not let the laws stand? Surely, students would have seen the evidence for evolution, observed its scientific superiority to every other origins position, and walked away convinced that evolution was true and that creation science was false. Why work so hard to keep creation science out?

The answer is simple: Evolutionists must believe that scientists become evolutionists if that’s what they’re taught. I see no other explanation for the evolutionists’ behavior. Evolutionists must believe with all their heart that students adopt the position that they’re taught.

In short, there’s a simple explanation for why 99% of scientists reject my young-earth-creation position in favor of evolution. It’s because evolution is all they’re ever taught.