Do the majority of Americans take the Noah's ark story from the Bible literally? From Most Americans take Bible stories literally: > An ABC News poll released Sunday found that... ...Sixty percent believe in the story of Noah’s ark and a global flood This claim is often repeated, including in a number of lists such as The 10 Most Ridiculous Things People Believe, and I recall this or similar statistics being noted in Bill Maher's Religulous. Is it possible, in spite of the current scientific knowledge, that 60% of the 307 million Americans – some 184.2 million people – actually believe the Biblical account of Noah's ark to be literally true?

While it is possible that the ABC poll mentioned may have had flaws, ABC is an experienced polling organization. It is unlikely that it has made an error of tens of percents in the estimates. The given percentage is 61, with a margin of error of about 3%.

This is in line with other polls. This one gives 54% as the number who believe in a six-day creation. This one gives 55%. This one says 40%. This one says 66%.

So while the precise figure is hard to determine, and probably depends on the question, is is clearly true that something in the region of half of Americans believe in the literal truth of Genesis. And by implication Noah's Ark.