Go Jerry!

Jerry Coyne, co-author of an excellent book on speciation (rather unimaginatively, alas, titled Speciation), takes on the appalling demonstration of the mix of American politics and scientific literacy in this preview.

Love the opening shot:

Suppose we asked a group of Presidential candidates if they believed in the existence of atoms, and a third of them said "no"? That would be a truly appalling show of scientific illiteracy, would it not? (...) Yet something like this happened a week ago during the Republican presidential debate.

Still, as one other commentator noted, that only three of the ten Republican candidates professed not to believe in evolution has an upside of sorts. That's about 20% less than the general American public.

Don't think the question has been asked of Democrats yet.