Lack of acceptance of biological evolution, despite the overwhelming evidence that supports it, can be very problematic in higher education courses that have a strong biological basis. We investigated acceptance of biological evolution in 344 first-year Life Sciences undergraduate students across five programmes at the University of Roehampton, UK. In line with previous findings in British universities, we found that 9% of the students did not accept evolution by natural selection, with an increase to 16% for human evolution. Both religiosity and programme of study were significantly related to acceptance levels in our students ( p < 0.001). In particular, lower acceptance was associated with Muslim or Christian beliefs, and with Biomedical Sciences and Nutrition and Health programmes (compared with Anthropology, Zoology and Biological Sciences). We suggest embedding an evolutionary perspective in the teaching of biomedical and health programmes and creating space for explicit discussion of perceived conflicts with religious beliefs.

中文翻译：

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生命科学大学一年级学生接受生物进化

尽管有压倒性的证据支持生物进化，但缺乏对生物进化的接受，在具有强大生物学基础的高等教育课程中可能会非常成问题。我们调查了英国罗汉普顿大学五个项目中 344 名生命科学一年级本科生对生物进化的接受程度。与之前在英国大学的调查结果一致，我们发现 9% 的学生不接受自然选择的进化，人类进化的比例增加到 16%。宗教信仰和学习计划都与我们学生的接受程度显着相关（p < 0.001）。特别是，较低的接受度与穆斯林或基督教信仰以及生物医学科学和营养与健康计划有关（与人类学、动物学和生物科学）。我们建议在生物医学和健康课程的教学中嵌入进化观点，并为明确讨论与宗教信仰的冲突创造空间。