|TOP|More than 30 percent of students in the UK say they believe in creationism and intelligent design, according to the latest studies.

In a survey last month, more than 12 percent questioned preferred creationism - the idea God created us within the past 10,000 years - to any other explanation of how we got here. Another 19 percent favoured the theory of intelligent design - that some features of living things are due to a supernatural being such as God.

Opinionpanel Research's survey of more than 1,000 students found a third of those who said they were Muslims and more than a quarter of those who said they were Christians supported creationism. Nearly a third of Christians and 10 percent of those with no particular religion favoured intelligent design. Women were more likely to choose spiritual explanations: less than half chose evolution, with 14 percent preferring creationism and 22 percent intelligent design.

In the US, a US$25 million Creation Museum is rising fast in rural Kentucky. Its inspiration is the Bible — the literal interpretation that contends God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them just a few thousand years ago.

|AD|In addition, President Bush waded into the debate over evolution and “intelligent design” Monday, saying schools should teach both theories on the creation and complexity of life.

Meanwhile, scientists have recently expressed growing concern about creationism being taught alongside evolution in schools, particularly at the new academies run by the Christian Vardy Foundation. In April, a Royal Society statement opposed the misrepresentation of evolution in schools to promote particular religious beliefs.

Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London, who gave a public lecture on "Why evolution is right and creationism is wrong" at the time, has been talking about evolutionary biology in schools for 20 years. For the first 10 of those he was lucky to find one student in 1,000 expressing creationist beliefs.

"Now in any school I go to I meet a student who says they are a creationist or delude themselves that they are,” he said.

In the Opinionpanel survey, nearly 20 percent said they had been taught creationism as fact by their main school. Most thought it would be best to teach a range of theories, but nearly 30 percent of those who supported creationism felt that pupils should learn about creationism alone.

According to Linda Woodhead, professor in the sociology of religion at Lancaster University, religious studies is now the biggest growth subject in schools. She suggests that this reflects pupils' interest in philosophical and moral questions - questions that are likely to persist into their undergraduate years. "I don't think there is anywhere in the curriculum where most university students get these sorts of questions addressed," she says.

Jeremy Rayner, professor of zoology at Leeds University, which is to incorporate lectures on creationism and intelligent design into its second-year course for zoology and genetics next year, says the idea is to teach students about the creationism hypothesis "so they are in a position to make their own rational judgment and counter it".

While he has seen no evidence that students are more inclined to believe in creationism, he perceives a growing willingness within the creation movement to be prepared to cause disruption by promoting its views. "The best thing we can do," he says, "is what universities should be doing anyway - producing bright, intelligent young minds with the confidence to be advocates for science."