It doesn’t seem to me to be entirely coincidental that despite the vast wealth accruing to the Middle East from oil revenues, they are not hotbeds of technological innovation. Given the predominance of a religion that places adherence to the word of the Book over the world in front of us, it was never likely that the money was going to be invested in anything challenging to orthodoxy.
That’s why the US needs to be careful. The Christian fundamentalists are not just going after evolution, but astronomy and the other sciences. If they manage to expand their presence in the US education system, the ability of the US to maintain its position as a world leader in science will inevitably be prejudiced.
EDIT: see also this at Stumbling and Mumbling which sort of meshes with my point.
