I was just refereeing a paper that among other things, found a slight gender imbalance among Turkish (Muslim) college students surveyed about their acceptance of evolution. About a quarter overall accepted evolution, with female students being a few more percentage points in favor than the males. The paper also had a reference to an American study from the 1980’s that found a similar result for US students.

If there is a slight gender gap here (two studies is hardly enough), well, good for the women. It is, however, also slightly surprising. Pretty much universally, women are (statistically speaking) more religious than men. But maybe the more doctrinal, text-oriented (rather than “spiritual”) nature of creationism brings more male stereotypes into play.

I don’t have much of an idea what might be happening, if anything, but I thought it was interesting.