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  • My Evolving Blondness

    Posted Tuesday, November 20, 2007 10:57 AM | By Melinda Henneberger

    But, Rachael, that's exactly how my blond hair evolved! OK, I was 37 at the time, but still ... Given the appalling lack of basic scientific knowledge in this country, I guess it's hardly surprising to see even science writers and researchers wandering off into the woods in search of ovulating lap dancers and speculation about whether the guys in the Geico commercials would prefer Marilyn Monroe to Jane Russell. Only 14 percent of Americans even believe the theory of evolution is "definitely true''—which could easily explain some pretty desperate adaptive measures to sex up the science, literally. I doubt if these stories are the hoped-for antidote to Mike Huckabee's apparently widely shared feeling that one can either believe in evolution or God; on the contrary, they could well have just the opposite effect, and make scientific inquiry in general seem frivolous, over-packaged and completely expendable.
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