From Amanda L. Glaze at Researchgate:
Divided we fall: the evolution “controversy” as a driver for rethinking science education
The present study demonstrates that university students across the United States, including science and education majors, harbor similar misunderstandings of the nature and practice of science as a discipline and way of knowing, inadequate levels of acceptance, and similar misconceptions to those held by the general public when it comes to evolution (Glaze, Goldston, & Dantzler, 2015; Ingram & Nelson, 2006; Nehm, Kim, & Sheppard, 2009; Rissler, Duncan, & Caruso, 2014; Rutledge & Mitchell, 2002; Sinatra, Southerland, McConaughy, & Demastes, 2003). Representations of students from around the United States allows for a comparison across regions that has been a limiting factor of many previous studies of evolution acceptance and understandings. In light of current challenges facing our society, we must reevaluate our approach to teaching and learning of evolution in the United States, in both K-12 classrooms and university programs. More.
One does not want to get all political here but one reason some people’s fortunes have fallen so far short of their hopes is that they tend to make a simple assumption: They are right and obviously right and anyone who opposes them is denying obvious facts. Sure.
Sure. That’ll get you everywhere in a free society. Everywhere but success.
To get anywhere, Glaze would need to start by examining the true reasons so many people doubt her claims—and not just retaikl stuff that sounds good to her and her colleagues.
By the way, anyone who puts “controversy” in sneer quotes, as above, is not keeping up with current events in the field. The practice is usually (but perhaps not always) associated with believing that Darwinism is evolution.
See also: Science denial?: What planet are some people living on?
What the fossils told us in their own words
and
Are polls scientific? Well, what happens when human complexity foils electoral predictions?