You're right Nam, they don't understand. But I think we're going about this wrong.
What we need to ask them to do is explain something they really, really think they do understand, and have them keep trying until they finally say something that actually matches reality. That will give us a place to start. But until we know exactly how stupid they are, we have nothing to work with.
The worst part about such ignorance is that the dumb value it. Here we have a whole subsection of our culture who brags about how hard they work for their money and they aren't willing in the least to learn stuff. They'll work for money, but not for reality.
One the news tonight is the republican from Indiana running for some office who thinks pregnancies from rape are a gift from god. That other guy (Akin) says that women can't get pregnant from rape. Is this like, you know, another rift in the christian world. Have two new churches just started up? The Fifth Day Holy Rapists vs. The Holy Church of Semenized Miracles.
I'd tell them I'm getting cynical but they'd just wonder if it was a Schwinn or a Huffy.