NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM VISITORS' UNDERSTANDING OF EVOLUTION

Natural history museums are the principal repositories of the objective evidence for evolution, i.e., specimens and collections. With over 20 million visitors annually, U.S. natural history museums have the potential to make a significant impact on public understanding of, and education about, evolution. Little research has been conducted previously about what visitors to natural history museums know and understand about evolution. This paper presents the results of a NSF-funded study in which 366 interviews were conducted at six U. S. natural history museums located in California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, New York, and Washington D.C. This study investigated high-school-aged and adult visitors' (i.e., 15 years and older) knowledge of concepts key to understanding evolution. Almost all (95%) respondents understand the concept of superposition to interpret relative geological time. Most (78%) were able to arrange seven major past events in the correct sequence (“Origin of the Universe,” “Origin of the Earth,” “Life on Earth,” Fish,” “Land Plants,” “Dinosaurs,” and “Humans”), although far fewer understand the magnitude of geological time (e. g., when these events occurred). One-third of the participants could accurately explain natural selection. Ten percent of the participants explicitly rejected evolution; this is a smaller percentage than polls of the general U.S. population (35%). In general, museum visitors have an incomplete understanding about the key concepts of evolution (“VISTA,” acronym for variation, inheritance, selection, time, and adaptation). Whereas many participants have an understanding of fossils and relative geologic time, far fewer understand the mechanisms of natural selection. The communication of evolution within natural history museums should not be limited to specific halls of evolution, but can best be achieved through integration of this content throughout all relevant exhibits and public educational programs.