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FAWS comments on [Infographic] A reminder as to how far the rationality waterline can climb (at least, for the US). - Less Wrong
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I'd like to see the raw results of the survey, especially the questions asked. (But not so much so that I am actually going to look up their sources.) I have a hard time believing that 33% of US adults actually don't think that the earth goes around the sun once a year. What seems most likely to me is that these questions were part of a lengthy survey, and were cherry picked because of their responses. Alternatively, a lengthy survey may have led to false responses. Some of these are less surprising. But I'd estimate with only 0.2 probability that at least 33% of US adults actually disagree that the earth goes around the sun once a year. I might assign probability of 0.15 that at least 49% of US adults actually believe that tomatoes don't have genes.
It's probably more that they don't really understand the subject and thought that's what they were supposed to answer than any positive belief either way. Maybe some think the earth goes around the sun once a day.
I recall reading, a while back, a published poll that had results similar to what you describe. I can't find it now, but I did find a number of references that seem to lead back to this Gallup poll which stated (in 1999) that 79% of Americans knew which object (the Sun or the Earth) orbited the other. (Apparently, this compared favorably to the example it gave of Germany, where only 74% got that 'right'.)