The role of science popularization remains relatively under-explored in research on contemporary public acceptance of evolution. In this study, we analyse national survey data to interrogate the role Britain’s best-known celebrity scientists David Attenborough, Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking may have played in changing public views of evolution, as well as the role of two creationists: Ken Ham and Harun Yahya. We investigate how well known these public figures are, what their views of religion are perceived to be and, drawing on social identity theory, whether they exert different effects on attitudinal change to evolution among different religious and non-religious publics. Binary logistic regression analysis shows that among Muslim and Pentecostal Christian publics, those familiar with Dawkins as both a scientist and as someone who holds negative views of religion are more likely to have become less accepting of evolution. Conversely, among non-religious publics, Dawkins was the only celebrity scientist associated with higher odds of becoming more accepting of evolution. We suggest that engaging certain religious audiences with the science of evolutionary biology may be more effective when their religious identities are not threatened.

在当代公众接受进化的研究中，科普的作用仍然相对不足。在这项研究中，我们分析了全国调查数据，以询问英国最著名的名人科学家大卫·阿滕伯勒、布莱恩·考克斯、理查德·道金斯和斯蒂芬·霍金在改变公众对进化的看法方面可能发挥的作用，以及两位创造论者的作用：肯火腿和哈伦·叶海亚。我们调查了这些公众人物的知名度，他们对宗教的看法，以及利用社会认同理论，他们是否对不同宗教和非宗教公众的态度转变产生不同的影响。二元逻辑回归分析表明，在穆斯林和五旬节派基督徒公众中，不太接受进化论。相反，在非宗教公众中，道金斯是唯一一位与更容易接受进化论相关的名人科学家。我们建议，当他们的宗教身份没有受到威胁时，让某些宗教受众参与进化生物学科学可能会更有效。