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Can you tell me which states (not individual teachers or schools, but states, as a matter of state policy) taught that the Earth was 6000 years old and dinosaurs are fake, and which ones taught that vaccines are evil?
Tennessee's Butler Act, which was the instigation for the Scopes Monkey Trial, made it illegal to teach evolution or to contradict the Biblical origin story, but even among creationists, Young Earth Creationism is a minority view (maybe not in 1925; I don't know) and I don't think even 1925 creationists claimed that dinosaurs were fake.
Also, can you point to evidence that creationists are, on average, less intelligent than atheists?
Here's the thing: I see your point and somewhat agree with it (national standards for education are probably a good thing), but when you phrase it with this kind of sneering millenium-era atheism, you don't seem to be making an argument, just looking for a chance to demonstrate iamverysmart.
And relevant to our discussion elsewhere, if I really wanted to I could mod this comment as "inflammatory claim without evidence" or "boo outgroup." Which I'm not going to do, despite all the reports and downvotes it got, because I don't think it really is, it's just making your argument in an unpleasant and sneering way. But do you perhaps begin to perceive why we have to make judgment calls about modding posts? You want to make people upset and express your contempt for your outgroup, but you'd undoubtedly find it very unfair and mean if I modded you for this comment.
I am an atheist and I think creationism is stupid, btw. So none of this is coming from a place of personal bias.
This depends on what you count as creationism. YEC is definitely more common in the US than true old earth creationism but intelligent design is probably more common than either and the median 'God created the world and we know this because the bible says so' type couldn't tell you which of the three he believes.
Is it? I guess you're right, it does depend on how broadly you define creationism. (Some Christians say they believe evolution happened but God guided it, which is close to intelligent design but not quite, IMO.) But my impression at least from more intellectual and scientifically-educated creationists is that most of them don't necessarily believe the world is literally 6000 years old.
I can't speak to the rest of the country, but in Texas the use of scientific and intellectual arguments generally points to more commitment to the Usher Chronology(what people usually mean by 6000 years old), not less, because the Usher Chronology needs more epicycles than old earth creationism.
I mean it is true that if you count intelligent design(which in its heyday was popular enough to receive official endorsement from the Catholic church in addition to the usual protestant churches) as old earth creationism it's more popular than young earth creationism- and probably evolution as well. But I think it's probably best to see intelligent design as a middle ground between creationism and evolution; it quite explicitly allows for non-theistic mechanisms the way true creationism doesn't.
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