While Intelligent Design proponents spark angry letters to the editor and cocktail-party arguments nationwide, The New York Times’ Cornelia Dean finds that the more troubling — and far-less publicized — challenge to evolution curriculum is science teachers who are too intimidated to bring the subject up in rural areas with substantial fundamentalist populations. This avoidance (cited by some as the real legacy of the Scopes trial) is peculiar to America, with other industrialized countries accepting the teaching of evolution even alongside conservative religious beliefs. So why the scuffle here? Luis Lugo, of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, blames America’s religious “marketplace environment,” wherein issues like evolution are politicized by the intense competition among different religious groups for congregants, each hawking the most Big Bang-free worldview for your buck.