Creationism in America

Yes it's ridiculous that when polled, a large plurality of Americans profess to not "believe in" evolution. In my view, I don't think most of these people have really thought about it (most of these folks probably don't spend time reflecting on much in their lives). These are not all biblical-literalist fundies; probably less than half of them are. These are people whose kids get a pretty standard (albeit probably evolution-poor) science education in public schools and are exposed via educational activities to plenty of either explicit or strongly implicit evolutionary content, e,g, dinosaurs and other aspects of the history of life on Earth in museums, on TV, and in school.

Students who go on to a college level education will get, at most colleges and universities, a modern evolution-based background in biology. Biological careers will require many courses that have a strong evolutionary component. And this component is getting stronger.

America will probably continue to be a mosaic of modern and unenlightened views on this issue, as it is for many social issues. But as long as we keep the unenlightened views out of our public education (many states need to do a better job of this) and away from influencing science policy at the state and federal levels, the supposed widespread hold of creationist views is not a threat to this country, only to the career prospects of those who hold them, if they care. Hopefully the next presidential administration will purge US science policy of much of the unscientific right wing contamination of the current administration.