766 nology (S&T), belief in S&T, reservations about S&T, and political ideology—were used to predict attitude toward evolution. The total effect of fundamentalist religious beliefs on attitude toward evolution (using a standardized metric) was nearly twice as much in the United States as in the nine European countries (path coefficients of–0.42 and–0.24, respectively), which indicates that individuals who hold a strong belief in a personal God and who pray frequently were significantly less likely to view evolution as probably or definitely true than adults with less conservative religious views. Second, the evolution issue has been politicized and incorporated into the current partisan division in the United States in a manner never seen in Europe or Japan. In the second half of the 20th century, the conservative wing of the Republican Party has adopted creationism as a part of a platform designed to consolidate their support in southern and Midwestern states—the “red” states. In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in seven states included explicit demands for the teaching of “creation science”(1). There is no major political party in Europe or Japan that uses opposition to evolution as a part of its political platform.

The same SEM model discussed above offers empirical support for this conclusion. In the United States, the abortion issue has been politicized and has become a key wedge issue that differentiates conservatives and liberals. In the SEM, individuals who held strong pro-life beliefs were significantly more likely to reject evolution than individuals with pro-choice views. The total effect of pro-life attitudes on the acceptance of evolution was much greater in the United States than in the nine European countries (–0.31 and–0.09, respectively)[see Statistical Analyses section of Supporting Online Material].