A poll reveals that more Christians in Britain oppose teaching creationism in the science classroom than support it. Asked "To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The Genesis story that God created the world and all the life forms in it in 6 days should not be taught in UK state-funded school science lessons," 17% of respondents strongly agreed, 21% tended to agree, 24% neither agreed nor disagreed, 17% tended to disagree, and 14% strongly disagreed, while 5% said that they didn't know and 2% preferred not to say.
Commissioned by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science UK, the poll (PDF) was conducted by Ipsos MORI between April 1 and April 7, 2011, on a face-to-face basis with 2107 adult respondents in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The full version of the questionnaire, including the question about teaching creationism in the science classroom, was administered only to the 1136 (54%) of respondents who said that they were recorded, or would have recorded themselves, as Christians in the national census in 2011.
The poll asked a broad range of questions about the beliefs, attitudes, and practices of Christians in Britain. In a press release, Richard Dawkins summarized the results: "Britain is a secular society, with secular, humane values. There is overwhelming support for these values, even among those who think of themselves as Christian. Just as importantly, there is also deep opposition to the state promoting religion in our society. When even Christians overwhelmingly oppose the intermingling of religion and state policy, it is clearly time for the government to stop 'doing God'."