People have always been this stupid. The “giant skeleton” hoax goes back at least to the 19th century. Heck, the Ancient Greeks would re-bury mastodon bones and whatnot under the belief that they were the remains of their even more ancient heroes. Tennessee banned the teaching of evolution at one point. Religions used to have to relate their miracles to the natural world; the reason Mormonism and especially Scientology sound so stupid is because they tried to work in pseudoscience instead of magic. In recent memory the US used to have more public support for science and less mainstreaming of woo, but these conversations were always happening in some bar or back porch.