This is what Jerry Coyne (University of Chicago biologist) wrote about the idiots of Idiot America. There is a lot more than what I copied & pasted. I suggest click the link.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2012.01664.x/full

WHY DO AMERICANS HATE EVOLUTION?

The resistance of Americans to evolution, and our mediocre understanding of science in general (California Academy of Sciences 2009), are often laid partly at the door of scientists themselves: we are accused of cloistering ourselves in the laboratory rather than reaching out to the public (see, for example, Mooney and Kirshenbaum 2009). But there has been plenty of outreach. Now, more than at any time in my life, I see Americans awash in popular science—evolution in particular. Bookstores teem with volumes by Stephen Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson, and Jared Diamond; evolutionary psychology is all the rage; natural history museums have become user friendly; there are dozens of blogs about evolution; and entire television channels are devoted to science and nature. Science education for laypeople is not hard to come by, and we have more popular commentary on evolution than ever before. Yet our record of accepting evolution is still abysmal. Why?

The answer seems pretty clear: religion. (I define it as “those systems of belief that accept and worship the existence of supernatural beings whose actions affect the universe”.) Religion is an answer that many people do not want to hear, but there is much evidence that America's resistance to evolution is truly a byproduct of America's extreme religiosity.