The whole debate/discussion is sorely in need of some new definitions just for clarification.

I thought the Mike Huckabee response during the Republican debates was an interesting one. At the first debate he appeared to have answered that he doesn't believe in evolution.

In the second, he was able to clarify -- and I think his clarification defines more American's views than the discussion as seems to be framed here.

His response was that he realized in the first debate that what was really being asked was not, "do you believe in evolution?", but rather, "do you believe in God?". As he was not about to answer that he didn't believe in God, he chose to answer the implication of the question.

All hell broke loose.

He realized that he didn't answer accurately -- perhaps he was overly defensive. And so in the second debate he clarified that he didn't presume to know how creation had occurred, but that he did believe it was God-directed.

He also clearly stated that he thus didn't rule out evolution as the manner in which that creation unfolded.

Obviously there are those who believe in creation to the exclusion of evolution. But once Huckabee's clarification is given as a third alternative, suddenly those people become much smaller in number and thus, much less vocal.

And they wouldn't be vocal in the first place if there weren't a lot of zealots in the schools teaching that science -- and evolution -- disprove the existence of a god.