The GOP clown car made headlines a few years when an assembled panel was asked during a debate if they accepted the organizing principle in evolutionary biology and several signaled "no." This cycle is not shaping up to be any prettier, even with a neurosurgeon and an ophthalmologist in the fray: But despite assorted elite educations and illustrious careers, none can apparently make up their minds about basics of modern science – that the Earth is about 4.5bn years old, that humans evolved from earlier primates over millions of years, and that people are making the world dangerously warm. “I think on issues like climate change and evolution it ends up being a proxy for identity politics,” said Michael Halpern, a program manager for the nonprofit and nonpartisan Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).