Specifically, I do firmly believe that people who are devout followers of any religion that encourages eschewing science in favor of beliefs absolutely, consciously, choose not to believe in science, and as a result will be completely unaware of, and potentially un-impacted by, any given scientific fad.

The simple fact of the matter is that some people choose not to believe in things. Whether that is science, or rational beliefs as opposed to conspiracy theories, not everyone is going to be impacted by any given normatively-held belief. In part this is because some members of society opt not to embrace, explore, believe, give credence to, consider, or entertain these concepts in any way, at all.

So first, yes, these people are doing it consciously.

Secondly, no, things aren't going to just "trickle down" to them. I don't see a whole lot trickling down to the Mennonites for example. I don't see a lot trickling down to Westboro Baptist, but honestly, the Amish and Mennonites are a much better example simply by dint of being a lot less inflammatory.

You can make the argument that the Amish/Mennonite only avoid these theories by completely departing from society, if you want. However, somehow some of our high school students remain woefully ignorant of such ordinary things as how to effectively use birth control and how a girl becomes pregnant. If this knowledge isn't somehow trickled down through society and absorbed into every teenager's brains, I have little hope that scientific knowledge will.

That brings us to another point. People willfully keep knowledge from other people. Parents who don't educate their children about sex ed, for instance. Those who adhere to a certain set of beliefs that encourage scientific ignorance are not only going to prevent themselves from gaining that knowledge, but are likely to prevent those around them from gaining that knowledge as well - to "protect" them, perhaps, or because such knowledge is a "sin."

While I found your idea interesting at first, it did seem pretty apparent to me that you were speaking from one perspective which valued education and science, specifically, and also assumed that all other members of society did so. Maybe there was an assumption that the only people who are ignorant are people who simply haven't had the opportunity to learn a concept yet.

There are also people who will stare a fact in the eye and deny it til sundown. There are people who have no interest in science. There are people who do not give a shit how big the Earth is, how fast we are ruining it with our excesses and our carbon emissions, and who are simply not humbled by concepts such as the universe.

Basically, there are people who accidentally are ignorant, people who opt to be ignorant, and people who may not be ignorant at all but do not care, and I think your theory acts as if neither subset of the population exists. For instance, I'm pretty sure people who run the oil pipelines are aware of the pollution they cause, at least in part. If they aren't aware, they're willfully ignorant. If they are aware, they continue in their jobs anyway, and continue to try to downplay the negative impact of oil on our environment.

tl;dr : You are assuming all people give a shit about peace, unity, and greater connectedness. They don't.

For the record, I also don't think that nature is necessarily the be-all and end-all ideal to how we should live our lives or connect with others in the universe. It's great that Nature is interdependent and connected, but in general life in nature is also extremely brutal. You wanna be part of nature? Are you willing to be part of the herd that gets put down because there's an unsupportable population expansion that results in depletion of natural resources and herd starvation? Sure, it's all interconnected and balances out...but that doesn't mean it works out in your favor.

I'd really just appreciate it if we can acknowledge that even assuming the majority of the U.S. population is not only aware of, but acknowledges and even believes, current scientific fads is kind of a couple hundred years ahead of where we are right now. Do you really believe that religious extremists have absorbed scientific theory just de facto? How does that make sense?

Prayer heals, anyone?