Page 184 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Chapter 6 Adapting to Your Audience 151

Iceland (n 500) Exhibit 6.2
Denmark (1013) Public Acceptance
Sweden (1023) of Evolution in
France (1021) 34 Countries, 2005
Japan (2146)
United Kingdom (1308)
Norway (976)
Belgium (1024)
Spain (1035)
Germany (1507)
Italy (1006)
Netherlands (1005)
Hungary (1000)
Luxembourg (518)
Ireland (1008)
Slovenia (1061)
Finland (1006)
Czech Republic (1037)
Estonia (1000)
Portugal (1009)
Malta (500)
Switzerland (999)
Slovak Republic (1241)
Poland (999)
Austria (1034)
Croatia (1000)
Romania (1005)
Greece (1000)
Bulgaria (1008)
Lithuania (1003)
Latvia (1034)
Cyprus (505)
United States (1484)
Turkey (1005)

0 20 40 60 80 100
Response
True Not Sure False
Source: From Jon D. Miller, Eugenie C. Scott, and Shinji Okamoto, “Public Acceptance of
Evolution,” Science 313 (11 August 2006): 765. Reprinted with permission from AAAS.

driving. Politicians and pollsters are always asking the American public what
it believes about a variety of issues. Every year the Cooperative Institutional
Research Program at UCLA sponsors a national study of thousands of incoming
fi rst-year college students. You may learn from such sources, in a general way at
least, what audience members are likely to believe. For example, among enter-
ing freshmen in 2006, the national survey showed that 33.8 percent discussed
politics frequently in high school (up from 25.5 percent in 2004), 61.2 percent
supported legal marital status for same-sex couples, and 66.7 percent believe it is
essential or very important to help others who are in diffi culty. You might use
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this information in one of your own speeches, knowing that the survey is repre-
sentative of most students at colleges throughout the United States.