This recent poll data is striking, offering scant comfort to Democrats (whose ranks are also swelled by the hordes of the ignorant) and sheer horror to friends of the Enlightenment:

55% of Americans believe, falsely, that God created humans in their present form.  While 67% of Bush voters believe that, so do 47% of Kerry voters.

Only 13% of Americans believe that human beings evolved without a guiding hand from God.  A mere 21% of Kerry voters subscribe to that belief, while a piddling 6% of Bush voters share that belief.

65% of Americans want creationism taught along with evolution in the public schools (and so do 56% of Kerry voters!).  But cheer up, only 37% of Americans want evolution replaced outright with creationism.  Now that’s a real tribute to the American spirit of even-handedness.

There are plainly many more ignorant and intellectually backwards countries in the world than the United States; but the list of those that outpace America on this score (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) is hardly reassuring.  What seems clear is that there is nowhere in the world that combines the same level of excellence at the highest levels of the sciences and humanities with such astonishing backwardness in the popular culture at large.