America's Looking Pretty Banged Up

Ahh America, land of the free and home of the science illiterate. Hot on the heels of such smash hits as "Global warming is a giant hoax" and "Human beings sure as hell didn't come from chimpanzees" we now have a majority of Americans asking "What's all this Big Bang theory crap, anyway?"

In a new national poll on America's scientific acumen, more than half of respondents said they were "not too confident" or "not at all confident" that "the universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang."

The poll was conducted by GfK Public Affairs & Corporate Communications.

Scientists were apparently dismayed by this news, which arrives only a few weeks after astrophysicists located the first hard evidence of cosmic inflation.

Of course, this isn't too much of a new thing.

But when compared to results from other science knowledge surveys, 51 percent isn't too shameful -- or surprising.

Other polls on America's scientific beliefs have arrived at similar findings. The "Science and Engineering Indicators" survey -- which the National Science Foundation has conducted every year since the early 1980s -- has consistently found only about a third of Americans believe that "the universe began with a huge explosion."

 And we're not alone.

Every year, new reports come out suggesting America's grasp on geography, math, history or science is waning. But a wider lens suggests the reality isn't always so bleak. The 2014 NSF poll proved American's scientific knowledge was on par with most of Europe.

But there's some good news at least:

And given the recent press on the resurgence of childhood diseases -- mostly blamed on public skepticism surrounding vaccines -- it is important to note that this latest poll suggests 83 percent are at least "somewhat confident" that childhood vaccines are safe.

So there's that, right?