Some Americans are more evolved than others

In surveys conducted in 2005, people in the United States and 32 European countries were asked whether to respond “true,” “false” or “not sure” to this statement: “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.” The same question was posed to Japanese adults in 2001.

The United States had the second-highest percentage of adults who said the statement was false and the second-lowest percentage who said the statement was true, researchers reported in the current issue of Science.

Only adults in Turkey expressed more doubts on evolution. In Iceland, 85 percent agreed with the statement.

Did Humans Evolve? Not Us, Say Americans (New York Times, 15 August 2006)

Related: Science: Public Acceptance of Evolution, where the abstract sums it up nicely:

The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States.