Q: Why is the US so screwed up?

A: Ignorance. Given the results of this survey, a sizeable portion of Americans are in the grip of a white-hot madness that occludes reason.

Only 28% of Americans can correctly identify the origin of human beings as evolution by natural selection.

42% insist on believing that; 'Life has existed in it's present form since the beginning of time'.

In other words, they are in the throes of a theological stranglehold that prevents reason or logic from inhabiting them. Indeed, given the recent advancements ID theorists have made in imposing their views on the US school system, I think we can expect this ignorance to continue to flourish as it metastisizes into an institutional intellectual cancer.

This also may well explain the Red States voting pattern. Cripple a generation or more with religious dogma and poor education, then sell them a potent brew of fear that 'liberal' and 'atheist' science and evolution are the cause of their problems, and you can coast to office on a tidal wave of discontent - discontent that is conveniently disconnected to any reality that the now disastrously backward population can percieve.

'God Bless America' indeed.