A national poll finds that Americans believe in a fantastic future filled with technological, medical and space-age advances.
By Thomas Hargrove and Joseph Bernt / Scripps Howard News Service
Most Americans believe that the next 1,000 years will be filled with discoveries and glittering technology that would dumbfound Jules Verne.
We expect the future to be filled with friendly space aliens, unborn children nurtured inside mechanical wombs and medical cures for ancient scourges such as cancer and even the common cold.
Despite the promise of human advancements, we overwhelmingly believe that God will still be worshiped, that Christianity will remain the dominant religion and that professional athletics will still be cheered come the year 3000, according to a nationwide survey of 1,015 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.
“Americans are certainly more optimistic than pessimistic about the future,” concluded Jerome Glenn, coordinator of the Millennium Project on Global Futures Research in Washington, D.C. “We are a nation that genetically doesn’t want to be told ‘no.’ Ever since we came to the New World, we’ve had reasons to be optimistic.”
The millions of immigrants who came to the United States had one thing in common: a belief in a better personal future. That optimism continues even when Americans consider what life will be like in the next millennium.
Sixty-nine percent of poll participants said “yes” when asked: “Do you think the human race will still be around in the year 3000?” A majority of those who foresee an end to humanity said they believe that God may “bring the world as we know it to an end.”
Very few Americans believe the world will end because of human causes, such as nuclear war or catastrophic environmental pollution.
“People no longer think the human race will wipe itself off the face of the Earth,” said Michael Zey, professor of management at Montclair State University in New Jersey and author of the book “Seizing the Future.” “This fear certainly would have been higher 10 years ago, when people were more concerned about the atomic bomb and the acts of man.”
But the survey also found definite limits to America’s enthusiasm for the future. Just under 30 percent believe that the problems of worldwide poverty and the threat of starvation will be eliminated by 3000.
Only 40 percent believe it is possible that life expectancy can be doubled to 150 years, even though global longevity has been doubled in the past 1,000 years.
“People don’t seem to understand technology, science and the changes they have wrought,” Zey said. “In the 1950s, India was facing starvation. Now the so-called ‘green revolution’ of new agricultural technology is lifting countries out of the threat of starvation.”
The poll found considerable interest in the central theme of most science-fiction movies and television shows – the possibility that humanity will meet extraterrestrial intelligence in the next millennium. Fifty-six percent said they believe space aliens will be discovered, and most of these also believe the other-worldly creatures will be friendly and superior to humans.
“I’m not surprised by these findings, although I don’t believe they are caused by the popularity of science fiction,” Zey said. “People want to believe that there is superior life in the universe, and that these aliens will be able to upgrade our own lives. This is a form of wish fulfillment.”
Nearly two-thirds of adults in the poll said they believe that cancer, heart disease and the common cold will be cured by 3000 and 61 percent believe “we will be able to grow babies in mechanical wombs without human mothers.”
Americans are much less certain about the future of the United States, however. Only half believe that the nation will still be around 1,000 years from now.
The adults in the survey also were aware of the considerable changes occurring in America because of immigration. There was no clear consensus over which ethnic group will dominate North America at the end of the next millennium, although the largest number said they believe Latin Americans will be the primary population group.
Despite these vast changes, Americans think that some core values will be eternal.
Ninety percent said people will “still believe in God a thousand years from now” and 65 percent predict that Christianity will still be the dominant religion.
“We always thought that, as we became more scientifically proficient, our belief in God would diminish,” Zey said. “But what has happened is that even as we learn more about the universe, we are becoming more sensitive to the cosmic questions of who we are and why we exist. We come back to religion because science can only answer the whats of life, not the whys.”
But it may not be that old-time religion.
“It’s hard to believe that they won’t evolve some sort of a new religious synthesis in the future,” Glenn said.
More than three-quarters of those polled believe that professional athletics will still be popular by 3000, although most believe the most popular spectator sport then will be a game that hasn’t been invented yet.
“People want to believe in a continuity with the future,” Zey said. “And after all, we’ve had professional spectator sports going back to ancient Greek and Roman times.”
That sense of continuity may not bode well for everyone, however. Only 45 percent believe that the Chicago Cubs will win the World Series at least once in the next 1,000 years.
The survey was conducted Sept. 22 through Oct. 11 by Scripps Howard News Service and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. Households were selected at random and residents were interviewed by telephone under the supervision of professor emeritus Guido Stempel III at the Scripps Survey Research Center in Athens, Ohio.
The survey has a margin of error of four percentage points, plus or minus.