Biologist Michael Rose, interviewed by the NYT's Claudia Dreifus.

NYT: "You are an evolutionary biologist by profession. As a researcher trained mostly in Canada and England, are you astonished by the American battles over Darwinism?"

Rose: "Not since coming to California. In 1987, the first day I ever gave a class at Irvine, there was a riot in my classroom. I was introducing the basic principles of evolution, and pandemonium broke out - yelling, students pounding the tables. That was the day I learned about evolution in America.

"Recently, I was watching President Bush speak on the potential bird flu epidemic...a question of evolutionary biology. Of course, Bush couldn't use the word evolution...that's a dangerous word.

"People in the United States probably don't realize they risk their lives by rejecting evolutionary biology. In the case of avian flu, this could kill people very directly. With aging, the essential tools for solving it are located in evolutionary biology."