Recently I caught an interesting episode of PBS'
Frontine, "
Country Boys", a multipart documentary following two boys from eastern Kentucky as they went through high school. The full program is available online, and I believe it is in the first part that we catch a glimpse inside the classroom. The teacher is teaching evolution, something to the effect that, "Now I personally don't hold with evolution because Jesus wasn't a monkey." I started to laugh, and then it struck me that for all the hillbilly, redneck, and farm circle-jerk jokes about places like eastern Kentucky, I had just viewed something very close to the origin of such bawdy and derogatory humor. No, I was not seeing a joke. This was "education", eastern Kentucky style.
To the other, if you would like a revealing look at the structure of "middle American" values, such as those vaunted in the 2004 general election, "Country Boys" will be an enlightening experience. Nonetheless, I sometimes think I will have a better chance of striking positive ground discussing peace in the Palestine with a conservative Iranian Muslim than winning decent consideration from "middle America".
And yet I also recently caught in the snowy parade of aerial-broadcast television a Christian ministry discussing evolution with two guests, and one of them reiterated the oft-abused notion that without "Intelligent Design", there is no basis for morality.
Consider the simplicity of such arguments. Without God, there is no basis for morality? Fine. Morality is a false assertion, then, a byproduct of theistic fantasy, much like
perfluorooctanoic acid to Teflon. Or that "Jesus was not a monkey." Hey, even by young-earth creationism standards, we had about four-thousand years (two-thirds of the planet's existence) to evolve. Under no circumstances would Jesus be a monkey. He would have been at least neandertal, if not erectus.
Just remember that antievolutionary religionists are, much like antimodernist religionists, nearly impossible to communicate progressively with. In the end, the only way to answer the question, at least, by the "middle American" standard, is to never ask.
You just can't talk to some people. Even when they're crying because they feel ignored. After all, such ideology and behavior has the hallmarks of self-justifying paranoia, which is itself a prerequisite to any number of neuroses and psychoses.