The proportion of level 4 students overall who rejected evolution was only 2.1%, clearly less than level 1 students in the same time period.
However, given our large sample sizes and the fairly stable proportion of level 1 rejecters, the levels 1 4 trend should be meaningful.
The level of evidence of research presented at the ESSKA congress has demonstrated significant improvement over the past decade, with a high proportion of level I studies being presented (Kay et al. 2016a).
Aside from the foot and ankle literature, which used methodology similar to ours, the other sub-specialty reviews excluded level V studies, which gave a falsely elevated proportion of level I and II papers.
However, the proportion of level 4 students who had received only a low exposure to evolution teaching through their degree and who rejected evolution (4.4%) was not much less than level 1 students (7.6% in 2008 2009 and 5.6% in 2009 2010).
The proportion of level 1 students claiming to have a religion was clearly lower (43% and 44% in the two years) than in the report of Downie and Barron (2000) where it never fell below 54%.
The proportion of level 1 biology students claiming to hold a religious belief is lower (43% in 2008 2009 and 44% in 2009 2010) than the 59% reported by Downie and Barron (2000).
As expected, these two propositions are more problematic for evolution rejecters, but it is surprising to find that a proportion of level 1 rejecters actually accept all three propositions: it is unclear from this what they think they are rejecting, and this question remains to be explored.
The proportion of level D evidence increases with the number of recommendations made.
The proportion of level D evidence used in each guideline and a statistical analysis.
