AS New Scientist went to press, one of the front-runners for the Republican US presidential nomination was a politician who does not believe in evolution.

Mike Huckabee, who surprised pundits with his rapid rise from obscurity by winning the Iowa caucus last week, believes God played a role in creation and that the human race could not have come about by “accident”. None of the other remaining candidates has denied evolution.

None of the other candidates in the nomination race has denied evolution

Huckabee’s rise may reignite the debate over intelligent design, which has been relatively quiet in the …