The Word of God!?

As to what I found fascinating and puzzling about the poll, which has been conducted yearly since 1976, with pretty much the same results, are the following:

• 34% of those polled (and, thereby, of the U.S. population) belive that “the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.”
• 25% of those polled (and, thereby, of the U.S. population) is considered to be biblical literalists and believe that humans were created in present form 10,000 years ago.

These two percentages are simply incredible to me. The presence of such significant percentages of the U.S. population that hold such an alternate and un-factually based understanding of the natural and modern world creates conditions that ripe for exploitation.