I can't speak to how bad things are elsewhere, but the average American only reads at a 6th grade level. That's also about where their understanding of science is. Their math skills are even worse. Americans today are not a good indicator of what humanity is capable of. We could always try to fix our educational system as opposed to sabotaging it. I have to believe we can do better.
It is a tendency to absorb whatever we read or hear - regardless of its information content.
IMO: Human languages evolved more for bonding than for conveying information. So, words exchanged were more to soothe the emotions of individuals involved rather than convey useful information about the state of their environment.
Hence we are fundamentally wired not to process the information content critically but to be soothed emotionally by whatever we read or hear