A day after ordained Baptist minister Mike Huckabee finished first in the opening round to choose a Republican candidate for the White House, scientists warned Americans against electing a leader who doubts evolution.
"The logic that convinces us that evolution is a fact is the same logic we use to say smoking is hazardous to your health or we have serious energy policy issues because of global warming," University of Michigan professor Gilbert Omenn told reporters at the launch of a book on evolution by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
"I would worry that a president who didn't believe in the evolution arguments wouldn't believe in those other arguments either. This is a way of leading our country to ruin," added Omenn, who was part of a panel of experts at the launch of "Science, Evolution and Creationism."
Former Arkansas governor Huckabee said in a debate in May that he did not believe in evolution.
A poll conducted last year showed that two-thirds of Americans believe in creationism, or the theory that God created humans at a single point in time, while 53 percent believe that humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life -- the theory of evolution.
Around a quarter of Americans said they believe in both.
The evolution versus creationism debate has crept into school classrooms and politics, where it is mainly conservative Republicans who espouse the non-scientific belief.
"If our country starts to behave irrationally whereas all the other countries coming up and chasing us (to take over as the world leaders in science and technology) behaving rationally, we are doomed," Omenn said.
The book targets teachers and the general public, and presents in simple terms the current scientific understanding of evolution and the importance of teaching it in the science classroom.
A day after his win in Iowa, Huckabee, toned down his anti-evolution stance, saying in a television interview that the question of whether to teach creationism in schools was "not an issue for our president."
Omenn and the other scientists and teachers on the panel at the book launch were more categorical, saying creationism has no place in science classrooms.
"Scientific inquiry is not about accepting on faith a statement or scriptural passage. It's about exploring nature, so there really is not any place in the science classroom for creationism or intelligent design creationism," said Omenn.
"We don't teach astrology as an alternative to astronomy, or witchcraft as an alternative to medicine," said Francisco Ayala, a professor of biological sciences at the University of California, Irvine.
"We must understand the difference between what is and is not science. We must not teach creationism as an alternative to evolution," he said.
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