According to reliable polls, a frightening number of Americans are firm in their belief that Earth is about 6,000 years old and that its various flora and fauna were created ex nihilo by a deity variously depicted in a collection of documents known as "The Bible."

More Americans believe that than believe climate change and global warming constitute actual threats, so say the polls.

And one wonders why the United States, supposedly the nation with more material resources than any 10 other nations put together, struggles to reach even mediocre test score levels in the sciences among both its public and private school student populations.

The evolution issue is always simmering somewhere in the culture wars but bubbles up to the surface from time to time, making America look exceedingly stupid. Such a bubble occurred earlier this month when the Associated Press took notice of the Creation Museum in Kentucky at which Bill Nye, NPR's science guy, debated the museum's director about the age of the planet.

Nye, of course, had to rely on the observations of such bush-leaguers as Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin to back up his contention that Earth is millions of years old and that its life forms evolved over that span of time and continue to do so. Nye also had the contents of the world's finest libraries to bolster his case. Not good enough, because Ken Ham, the museum guy, had truth on his side all in one single book: the Bible, which, he said with nary a nuance of irony, "is the Word of God."

It's unclear if Ham knows why "the Bible says" Earth is only 6,000 instead of millions of years old. It is possible to make a case for the 6,000 figure as long as you stipulate that Earth and its life forms were spoken into being (see Genesis 1:1-2:4 a) just after midnight on the morning of Sunday, October 23, 4004 BCE -- the day before being the Sabbath on which Yahweh was wont to rest his weary bones.

No less an authority than the magisterial 17th-century Irish archbishop James Ussher came to this conclusion. So, too, had Sir Isaac Newton, except he pegged the founding date at an even 4000 -- also saying that the whole business would end in 2060. Both based their determinations on events reported in the Bible, which book was then understood to be a reliable source of matters historical.

Ussher published his work on the subject under the snappy title: Annales Veteris Testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducte.

To make his point, Ussher used a convoluted manipulation of biblical passages crowned by the conviction that Earth could never be older than 6,000 years (4,000 or so before the birth of Christ and 2,000 after) because, as Psalm 90:4 says in effect, "A thousand years is as a day in the Lord's sight" and the Lord took six days to create Earth and all that is in it (see Genesis 1:31). Got it?

Given the state of both scientific knowledge and biblical scholarship in the 1600s CE, you'd have to give Ussher an A for effort. Eventually, though, came the Age of Reason when such stories were put to the test by experimentation and testing, and new truth emerged. Science replaced theology as the source of dependable information.

What since has happened to the Age of Reason and to the glories of the Enlightenment? What halted intellectual progress in its tracks for many in the English-speaking world? What was it that moved Mr. Ham to erect the Creation Museum? I blame Darwin.

In his classic Origin of Species, Darwin, based on almost five years' worth of observation made during the voyage of the Beagle, set forth incontrovertible conclusions about natural selection and resultant evolution over eons. He saw that adapters survived to reproduce and nonadapters died off. He also proposed convincingly that Homo sapiens had simian forebears.

On the contrary, Ussher's analysis is based on the Bible that for many Christians is "truth" in its purest form. The idea that the species that adapt are the species that survive runs contrary to the Bible's image of a loving heavenly Father who marks the fall of every sparrow. It is offensive to many believers and nonbelievers alike even to suggest that a very hirsute 47th cousin however many times removed could be one's genetic ancestor.

One cannot help infer from Darwin's work that a lot is left to chance in the biosphere and that human happiness and security do not seem to be parts of any bargain. There is no understandable "plan." The saying that "everything happens for a reason" is shown to be nonsense.

As a consequence, umbrage and fear drive such Barnum & Bailey-like successes as Ken Ham's Creation Museum. It all sets the stage for fundamentalist preachers and their followings to mount demands that public schools ditch real science and, instead, teach biblically warranted creationism. Public school systems could save a lot of money merely by teaching students how to beat a dead horse.

Meanwhile, there is a critical need to determine to what extent religious interests can be allowed to determine public policy in a nation founded in part on disestablishment* and the separation of church and state.**

*First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

**January 1, 1802 letter of President Thomas Jefferson to the Baptist Clergy of Danbury, Conn.