11/3/86

 UPI

 Poll shows many students in college have `cult beliefs'
 United Press International

       NEW YORK - Many of today's college students seem to be followers of
  "cult beliefs" - a trend that does not speak well for the nation's
  science education, a survey showed.
       The poll released Sunday showed one-third of the college students
  surveyed in three states believe in extraterrestrials, Big Foot and the
  lost continent of Atlantis.
       "What really surprised us were the number of students who believed
  in what we call `cult beliefs' or unproven pseudoscientific theories,"
  said Francis Harrold, an archaeology professor at the University of Texas
  at Arlington. "We all agree that for a leading scientific nation, this is
  not a good sign of the effectiveness of our science education."
       Nearly 1,000 college students in Texas, Connecticut and California
  last fall filled out a detailed questionnaire on beliefs.
       Most of the respondents were white liberal-arts majors between the
  ages of 18 and 22, Harrold said.
       About one-third of all the students surveyed believed that Big Foot,
  a hairy manlike creature reputed to live in the mountains of the
  northwestern United States, actually exists. An equal number believed in
  the legendary Atlantis, an advanced civilization that supposedly sank
  into the ocean.
       Thirty percent of the students responding to the survey said aliens
  from outer space visited Earth in ancient times.
       Overall, 37 percent said they believed in ghosts, and 39 percent
  said it is possible to communicate with the dead.
       Harrold said the students also were asked how much they read, what
  television programs they watched and their political and religious
  beliefs.
       "There are practically no relationships or correlations among the
  `cult believers,' " he said. "They accept some theories and reject
  others. They don't have any patterns of reading or television or religion
  that we can tell."
       The poll also showed that one-half of the students believe in
  creationism. These students, the survey found, are less likely to read
  books, tend to be more politically conservative and have a lower grade
  point average than students who dispute that God created Earth in six
  days.
       "Overall, the higher you scored on the creationist segment of the
  survey, the lower your grade point average - this was a tendency," said
  Harrold.
       In Texas, 71 percent of students said they believe in the story of
  Adam and Eve, while 51 percent did so in Connecticut and 47 percent in
  California. An average of 44 percent of the students in the three states
  said the story of Noah's Ark is true.