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From Most Americans take Bible stories literally:

An ABC News poll released Sunday found that... ...Sixty percent believe in the story of Noah’s ark and a global flood

This claim is often repeated, including in a number of lists such as The 10 Most Ridiculous Things People Believe, and I recall this or similar statistics being noted in Bill Maher's Religulous.

Is it possible, in spite of the current scientific knowledge, that 60% of the 307 million Americans – some 184.2 million people – actually believe the Biblical account of Noah's ark to be literally true?

Christian
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Brian M. Hunt
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    Take a look at [Christianity.SE](http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/flood-of-noah) for a very subjective impression, there are quite some people there that believe in a literal flood. – Mad Scientist Sep 19 '11 at 14:25
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    I'd just like to post this from the article: "The poll, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points, was conducted Feb. 6 to 10 among 1,011 adults" 1011 people does not a representative sample make. – Darwy Sep 19 '11 at 15:14
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    @Darwy: It's a good point to be sure; I think 'Hasty Generalization' is one of the more poignant criticisms. I note that Religulous cites similar statistics, and was made in 2008. Here's another Gallup poll, showing 30% take the Bible literally: http://www.gallup.com/poll/148427/Say-Bible-Literally.aspx ; how does one reconcile the Gallup and ABC polls? – Brian M. Hunt Sep 19 '11 at 15:30
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    @Darwy well it says it has a margin of error of 3%. So the adult creationists are between 58% and 64%; those figures would make absolutely no difference to the question. 1011 people would be a large enough sample to generate that level of error. – DJClayworth Sep 19 '11 at 20:36
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    "Taking the Bible literally" is not the same as Genesis being "literally true". You'd probably need to know a little more about Biblical interpretation for me to give a good explanation in a comment. – DJClayworth Sep 19 '11 at 20:38
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    @DjClayworth It's a sample size large enough to generate a given error of level, however that doesn't make it a representative sample, nor does it account for any sampling bias (ie: how the poll was conducted, etc). – Darwy Sep 19 '11 at 21:11
  • @BrianM.Hunt - Please see my meta post in regards to my edit http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1162/can-we-fix-the-noahs-ark-question – going Sep 20 '11 at 00:37
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    @Darwy: 1011 people may or may not be a representative sample, depending on how they are drawn from the population, but if it is... If a coin is 60% fair and you toss it 1000 times, the number of heads is a binomial distribution with mean = 600, sigma = sqrt(.6*.4*1000) = sqrt(240) = 15, which is 1.5% of 1000. If you want a 95% confidence, you would take +/- 2 sigma, or +/- 3%. So that's roughly what a sample of 1000 can tell you. If you go to 100 000, you can shrink the uncertainty by a factor of 10. – Mike Dunlavey Sep 20 '11 at 01:40
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    The [Pew Report on Religion](http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf) has 33% of Americans saying their holy book is the "Word of God, taken literally word for word" (see p170). If they were consistent, that would presumably require them to believe that the Noah's Ark story was true. – Oddthinking Sep 20 '11 at 02:01
  • do keep in mind that the vast majority of people, when thinking about the Bible, think exclusively about the 4 gospels. Most people never consider the rest (let alone the old testament). – jwenting Sep 20 '11 at 06:21
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    @MikeDunlavey I'm not arguing the math of the claim, I'm arguing the validity of the sampling method - of which we know nothing. As an anecdote, I've seen people 'polling' about religious beliefs by standing outside a church asking people whether or not they believe in God. So questioning the methodology of a poll which claims to represent the religious views of 300 million people is definitely in order. – Darwy Sep 20 '11 at 06:27
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    @Dawry: 1000 people is perfectly enough to be a significant sample -- that is, if the constituents are chosen carefully. – Sklivvz Sep 20 '11 at 08:30
  • @jwenting: I assume you mean the vast majority of Americans. Maybe it's a majority, maybe not, but (sadly) I take your point. – Mike Dunlavey Sep 20 '11 at 12:28
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    @Darwy You have a misconception about random polling. The sample size is plenty. Furthermore, the margin of error is already given at 3%, as others have noted. Making the sample size larger would make this margin smaller, but not by very much. The only bias we need to worry about is *non-sampling* bias – but once again, that would be scarcely affected by a larger sample. – Konrad Rudolph Sep 20 '11 at 14:20
  • **I've cleaned up the comments.** Please keep it on topic and constructive. – Sklivvz Sep 21 '11 at 08:36
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    @KonradRudolph I'm more interested in how they selected their sample population - was it a voluntary questionnaire mailed to random people? Random phone calls to ~20 people in each state? Standing outside churches and asking people their thoughts? How they selected their sample population is definitely a concern. – Darwy Sep 21 '11 at 08:45
  • @Darwy Do you have actual evidence that ABC (who have been doing polls for a very long time now) failed to use proper polling techniques, or are you just speculating? – DJClayworth Sep 21 '11 at 15:18
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    @DJClayworth The Poll in question was put out in 2004 - and ABC News has since changed their policy regarding polling data (specifically opt-in online data) See: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/03/study-raises-new-questions-for-opt-in-online-data/ and they have changed other parameters (weighting, sampling etc) since 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/US/PollVault/abc-news-polling-methodology-standards/story?id=145373 So yes - how they conducted the poll (landline only vs cell) could indeed influence their results based on the age demographics and lifestyle of each group. – Darwy Sep 21 '11 at 16:25
  • "Is it possible, in spite of the current scientific knowledge". I wouldn't say that the general public has a high scientific knowledge. People read horoscopes, buy pills that will make you look like a supermodel whilst been able to continue eating at McDonald's, don't have a clue about what DNA or clonation is and so on and so on – nico Sep 21 '11 at 17:22
  • @Darwy What you haven't shown is by how much you the change in methodology might have altered the results. By 1%? 10%? I'll freely admit that the technical articles you linked to were too hard for me to follow, but the onus is on you to indicate how much additional error might have been caused. Especially as there have been other surveys that show results with similar values. – DJClayworth Sep 21 '11 at 20:49
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    @DJClayworth It isn't possible for me to calculate additional error without having their polling protocol to check for confounding. For an example of the confounding I'm talking about, see the religious portion of the following Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States Telephone surveys - it doesn't mention whether or not it's a cell phone line or a 'land line' - nor does it mention age. Both are potentially confounding for polling results; most of the younger generation lacks a land line - and if the poll doesn't include cell numbers (as the ABC polls didn't) – Darwy Sep 21 '11 at 21:40
  • @jwenting: Having grown up as a preacher's kid it never occurred to me that "Bible" could be limited to the four canonized gospels. Where does this come from? – oosterwal Sep 21 '11 at 21:41
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    Then the sample population is missing a significant demographic subset which could alter the results. – Darwy Sep 21 '11 at 21:43
  • @sklivvs - Constructive went out the door with "Is it possible, in spite of the current scientific knowledge, that 60% of the 307 million Americans – some 184.2 million people – actually believe the Biblical account of Noah's ark to be literally true?" - You can not challenge the right of people to believe in miracles with science and expect constructive comments. – Chad Sep 22 '11 at 17:04
  • Does anyone have any real scientific evidence that the story of Noaks Ark is untrue? I am not asking for logical evidence we all have our own logic. But since the question is despite science, is there any evidence that says it is untrue? – Chad Sep 22 '11 at 17:08
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    @Chad: Aside from the crucial onus being on the Ark-story proponents, I recall some responses: Engineering: The dimensions of the Ark are impossible from an engineering standpoint; Logistics: millions of species cannot survive in a boat – what do they eat?; Biology: evidence would show a common `ark-age` ancestor for every species but it does not; Geology: No geological evidence shows a global flood but it should. As such, the words of the Ark story, a story propagated by humans, contradict the demonstrable principles of nature in our universe. – Brian M. Hunt Sep 22 '11 at 19:19
  • Now we're far off-topic. – DJClayworth Sep 23 '11 at 14:31

1 Answers1

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While it is possible that the ABC poll mentioned may have had flaws, ABC is an experienced polling organization. It is unlikely that it has made an error of tens of percents in the estimates. The given percentage is 61, with a margin of error of about 3%.

This is in line with other polls. This one gives 54% as the number who believe in a six-day creation. This one gives 55%. This one says 40%. This one says 66%.

So while the precise figure is hard to determine, and probably depends on the question, is is clearly true that something in the region of half of Americans believe in the literal truth of Genesis. And by implication Noah's Ark.

DJClayworth
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    Good answer; I'd watch the "by implication" part. :) – Brian M. Hunt Sep 21 '11 at 19:54
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    @BrianM.Hunt I think the implication is not too bad -- after all, Noah's ark is not more unbelievable than the rest of the Genesis. – Sklivvz Sep 25 '11 at 15:19
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    I don't think many people take six-day creation as literal, but Noah as figurative. And I know people who would take Noah as a true story (but with the flood covering a wide area, but not the whole world) who wouldn't take Genesis 1 literally. – DJClayworth Sep 25 '11 at 23:00
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    I like your answer, but I would like to say that the "believe in the literal truth of Genesis. And by implication Noah's Ark." I would guess that a decent percent of people who believe that Genesis is literal and true, would not be able to correctly answer what book of the bible is the Noah's Ark story from? – Garrett Fogerlie Jun 07 '12 at 19:05
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    @GarrettFogerlie I'm pretty sure your guess would be wrong there. – DJClayworth Jun 18 '12 at 16:09
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    Just want to emphasize the 60% said they believed "word-for-word...The story of Noah and the ark in which it rained for 40 days and nights, the entire world was flooded, and only Noah, his family and the animals on their ark survived" and only 33% said they didn't believe all that word-for-word. 7% had no opinion. http://abcnews.go.com/images/pdf/947a1ViewsoftheBible.pdf – DavePhD Jun 05 '15 at 14:38