Vast numbers of Americans have also been, from childhood, groomed and indoctrinated into religious belief systems that are very averse to scientific expertise.

Vast numbers of Americans have also been, from childhood, groomed and indoctrinated into religious belief systems that are very averse to scientific expertise. I was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist church, and every time I watched a nature show that alluded to the earth being older than ~6,000 years, my mother got her hackles up and would launch into a lecture. To most religious fundamentalists, acceptance of scientific facts are a threat to their myth-based worldview, and that bleeds over into their acceptance of science-based medicine. The huge numbers of fundamentalists shift the Overton window for what constitutes moderate belief and drags society down into superstition-curious patterns of behavior.