Almost Half Of Malta Doesn’t Believe In Evolution And Nearly A Third Thinks Humans Might’ve Lived Alongside Dinosaurs
If you believe that human beings developed from earlier species of animals – you know, the well-known and accepted Darwinian Theory of Evolution – then you’re only part of just over half of Malta.
A number of findings from a new Eurobarometer survey revealed this and more, putting Malta at the tail end of EU countries when it comes to their belief in evolution. In fact, 54% of people in Malta said they believed that humans developed from earlier species of animals, with 38% stating it was false and a further 8% saying they did not know.
But this wasn’t the only question asked, with another question revealing that 12% believed the earliest humans “lived at the same time as the dinosaurs” (another 11% said they didn’t know). However, the 77% of people who said that statement was false marked “the most notable shifts” towards the correct answer from wrong to right across EU Member States (so hey, at least there’s that?).
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Meanwhile, the Special Eurobarometer survey which was focused on the continent’s “knowledge and attitudes towards science and technology” also focused on a number of other topics, including AI, conspiracy theories, and demographic trivia.
A third of people in Malta believed the world’s human population is currently more than 10 billion (a number the planet is not expected to hit for another 30 years or so), while another 15% said they didn’t know.
When it came to issues of health, 26% of Maltese respondents believe that “viruses have been produced in government laboratories to control our freedom”, while nearly half (41%) believe “the cure for cancer exists but is hidden from the public by commercial interests”.
On science and technology, 12% said its influence on society is negative (9% fairly negative, 3% very negative), while a whole 45% were quite torn or negative on scientific research and discoveries which are “created with the help of artificial intelligence, or AI (29% said they neither trust nor distrust it, 9% said they tend to distrust it, and 7% said they fully distrust it).
What do you make of these findings? Which ones surprised you the most?
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