The result “blows the lid off of this idea” that such beliefs are held by only a fringe population of individuals who are uninformed or ideologically driven, says David Bersoff, head of research at the Edelman Trust Institute. “This is not like a small problematic group.”
Carl Sagan’s warning seems relevant:
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…”
Highly recommend Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”