Read this and see reasons why over the past 20 yrs Americans have become dazed and confused courtesy of the Republicans.
James Owen
National Geographic News
August 10, 2006
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...
People in the United States are much less likely to accept Darwin's idea that humans evolved from apes than adults in other Western nations, a number of surveys show.
A new study of those surveys suggests that the main reason for this lies in a unique confluence of religion, politics, and the public understanding of biological science in the United States.
Excerpts:
In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was "definitely true," while about a third firmly rejected the idea.
In European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, and France, more than 80 percent of adults surveyed said they accepted the concept of evolution.
"In the second half of the 20th century, the conservative wing of the Republican Party has adopted creationism as part of a platform designed to consolidate their support in Southern and Midwestern states," the study authors write.
Miller says that when Ronald Reagan was running for President of the U.S., for example, he gave speeches in these states where he would slip in the sentence, "I have no chimpanzees in my family," poking fun at the idea that apes could be the ancestors of humans.
When such a view comes from the U.S. President or other prominent political figures, Miller says, it "lends a degree of legitimacy to the dispute."