Ex-federal prosecutor explains what MAGA and the scientifically illiterate have in common

A poll released prior to the third anniversary of the January 6 insurrection found that one in four Americans believe that the FBI "organized and encouraged" the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. However, a former federal prosecutor thinks the rest of America should be "grateful" that only 25% subscribe to that conspiracy theory.

In a recent column for Lawfare, former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg put that poll in perspective. He pointed out that, while it's true that one in four Americans believe the "nonsense" claim that the federal law enforcement was behind the U.S. Capitol siege that killed five police officers and injured hundreds more, the poll is less "depressing" when put in the context of other polls regarding information a large majority of Americans view as settled facts.

Rosenberg laid out how a March 2021 survey showed 15% of Americans believe that "the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation," which is a core element of the QAnon conspiracy theory that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has endorsed.

"Americans apparently relish conspiracy theories. That is neither good nor new. But even if we turn to the physical sciences — the stuff we ostensibly learned in school — we do not do all that much better as a nation," Rosenberg wrote.

He then pointed out numerous other survey results that show a not-insignificant number of Americans are effectively scientifically illiterate. Almost 30% of Americans, for example, didn't know that the Earth takes 365 days to orbit the sun, according to a 2021 query by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

A 2018 survey by the National Science Foundation found that 28% of Americans actually believe the sun orbits the Earth (a theory debunked by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in the 17th century).

Roughly that same percentage of the country also fails in basic civics knowledge. The Annenberg Public Policy Center found in 2022 that approximately one in four Americans could not name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment, and 25% of Americans were also unable to name any of the three branches of government, according to Annenberg.

And in 2018, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that a full two-thirds of Americans would fail the U.S. citizenship test, which asks basic questions about U.S. history and the nature of the U.S. government.

"When you step back and look at what we 'know' as Americans and what we do not know, this number — alarming as it may be — is not surprising. Indeed, it coincides with other data," Rosenberg wrote. "Perhaps we should be grateful that it is only 25 percent."