People keep saying Americans stink at math, americans don't understand science, americans are ignorant, etc.

And yet at the same time we have these sorts of track records:

http://www.popsci.com/us-dominates-at-sending-stuff-to-mars

It's not just Mars or the moon, or decades ago, the US also is where most operating systems and software and CPUS are conceived of and designed. As well as countless other things that people who are so ignorant would not reasonably be expected to be able to do.