According to a 2014 poll by the company Gallup, more than 40 percent of Americans believe in creationism. That is, they believe that humans were created in their current form by God. They do not believe that humans, or other forms of life, evolved from a common ancestor over billions of years. Despite an insurmountable amount of evidence, these people still choose to ignore science and rely on faith.

Now, I am in no way bashing religion. Neither my, nor anyone’s, religious views are pertinent to this topic. This is a simple case of willful ignorance. I am not saying there is or is not a god (God being an omnipotent, all knowing, immortal being). That is a different discussion.

There seems to be a stereotype going on that I entirely disagree with. This stereotype is that religious people are ignorant and only follow blind faith. It is possible, and even common, for religious people to be intelligent and logical. Science does not have to be contradictory to religion.

Geneticist Francis Collins was an atheist who converted to Christianity after his participation on The Human Genome Project. Now he preaches a new existential philosophy called BioLogos which states that the universe was created approximately 14 billions years ago by God, God set all the conditions for life on Earth. Once life began, though, God played no role in the evolution of life.

Another similar belief is that evolution occurred with the active assistance of God.

Now, rational religious believers aside, there is no logical reason as to why 40 percent of the population of the third largest nation in the world choose to ignore scientific evidence and instead rely on faith. This is not evidence of an overly religious society, this is evidence of an ignorant society.

There is so much evidence for evolution. Artificial selection is one of the biggest pieces of evidence. Humans have been selecting certain animals and plants to breed for thousands of years. Dog breeds are a great example. Dogs are descendants of wolves that were domesticated by humans thousands of years ago and now there is an incredible amount of variation within that species because humans selected certain looks and characteristics to breed.

Comparing the anatomies of various animals is another indicator of evolution. How can you explain similar arm bones in humans, whales and bats if not by evolution? Those three animals have a common ancestor and therefore share structures (even if those structures have different functions now).

Similar anatomies of extant organisms aren’t the only indicators of common ancestors. It takes a truly obstinately ignorant person to ignore the extensive fossil record that has been uncovered throughout the years. Fossils show shared characteristics of extant and extinct species, showing that species that are present today may not have existed in their current form millions of years ago. Fossils allow scientists to paint a picture of a family tree of evolution.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence, however, is more of a recent invention — Biochemistry comparisons. By comparing the DNA and proteins of various organisms, scientists can create an even more accurate phylogenetic tree of life.

One argument against the theory of evolution is that there is lots of way to lose genetic information, but no way to gain it. That claim, of course, is entirely fallacious. First of all, viruses inject genetic information (DNA or RNA) into cells, that is their key operating concept. However, with a certain kind of virus called a retrovirus, that genetic information is incorporated into the host DNA.

Bacteria add new genetic information to their genome often through the processes of transduction, transformation and conjugation. (If you don’t believe me, there’s a lovely website called Google that you can use to find more information).

The random beginning of life also has compelling scientific evidence. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that the conditions of earth several billion years ago were conducive to creating combinations of nucleic acids (the stuff DNA and RNA are made out of) and amino acids (the building blocks of proteins).

The Miller-Urey experiment showed that a spark in several different gasses that were present on earth about 3.5 billion years ago created organic compounds including over 20 amino acids. That’s more than the 20 naturally occurring amino acids. Other experiments similar to the Miller-Urey experiment have produced an even greater array of organic molecules.

The chance that nucleic acids came together in such a way as to program their own replication is incredibly small, but when you have trillions of molecules coming together in combination with each other, it is possible that that combination was made.

After all, it only had to happen once.

All life comes from a common ancestor and that one ancestor was that one random combination of molecules that self replicated.

There is no excuse to turn a blind eye to such evidence. Even if the random beginning of life is a stretch, once life got started, there is no way to deny evolution.

It is absurd that people hide behind religion and use it as their excuse to be ignorant. We need to bring people away from ignorance. This is where we need education to step in and remove the stains of superstition.