Many Americans know little science and are thus easily confused by such positions of religious fundamentalists. Jagger begins with a scientific primer for the intelligent and curious nonscientist, with simple explanations of such highly successful theories as relativity and evolution. He then discusses religion, explaining why many scientists become freethinkers after the models of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who did not believe in a personal God. He shows that, while mainstream religion largely accepts modern science, the Religious Right holds anti-science and anti-intellectual ideas that have great social and political consequence-they want to replace teaching of evolution in our public schools with creationist ideas that are totally unsupported by science.

Science and the Religious Right shows why knowledge of some basic science, as well as of correct religious history, is essential for understanding false stances of the Religious Right that threaten American values and scientific truth.