Are Americans losing the ability to distinguish junk science and junk thought from real science and logical thought?

We have large elements of American society today that seem unable to distinguish between coincidence and causality. Take the vaccination debate, for instance. Before we developed vaccines for childhood diseases, thousands of children per year suffered severe reactions such as deafness, blindness, mental retardation and death due to diseases that are virtually unheard of now that we routinely vaccinate. Ignoring the benefit of vaccinations, there are a plethora of junk science websites today that trot out two facts, vaccinations are up and autism diagnosis is up; and make the great leap that obviously those two facts are directly, causally related. Pay for professional athletes is also drastically up over the same period. Perhaps paying athletes lots of money causes autism.

The fact is that a whole host of behavioral and learning disorders that were once diagnosed as laziness, rebelliousness or simple stupidity are now diagnosed as part of the spectrum of autism. It is also a fact that every scientific study using double-blind methods to look for a link between vaccinating and autism has shown that there is absolutely no relationship. But facts are not relevant to junk thinkers and junk scientists. They often accuse science of a conspiracy to cover up the facts that only their gurus are able to reveal.

How is the US to continue to lead the world in math and science when our schools are falling so far behind in each, and when so many of our people have no earthly concept of what the scientific method even is—and are led astray by every new snake-oil salesman who takes to the national stage?