In 1993, 75 percent of the seniors agreed that smoking causes serious health problems--a relatively low proportion, given the extensive media and societal focus on this issue. In fact, a full quarter of the students surveyed had some doubts about the health hazards of smoking.

Responses to three other statements reveal a high degree of student misunderstanding or uncertainty regarding generally accepted scientific constructs.

• Only a third of 1993 high school seniors accepted the concept of evolution; almost a quarter did not.

• Only 44 percent agreed that life could have developed on other planets.

• Only 37 percent rejected the idea of lucky numbers.

Students exhibited much uncertainty in their responses. About a third of the 1993 respondents answered "don't know" to six of the seven statements.

On the other hand, the results indicate that slightly more than 60 percent of high school seniors in 1990 and 1993 recognized that a scientific theory reflects scientists' best understanding of how something works; and about the same proportion of 1990 and 1993 seniors understood that scientific theories will change from time to time. These results suggest that a larger proportion of recent high school graduates than of comparable samples of U.S. adults understand the scientific process.

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