In his famous 1959 Rede lecture at Cambridge University, the scientifically-trained novelist C.P. Snow described science and the humanities as "two cultures," separated by a "gulf of mutual incomprehension." And the humanists had all the cultural power - the low prestige of science, Snow argued, left Western leaders too little educated in scientific subjects that were increasingly central to world problems: the elementary physics behind nuclear weapons, for instance, or the basics of plant science needed to feed the world"s growing population. Now, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, a journalist-scientist team, offer an updated "two cultures" polemic for America in the 21st century. Just as in Snow"s time, some of our gravest challenges - climate change, the energy crisis, national economic competitiveness - and gravest threats-global pandemics, nuclear proliferation - have fundamentally scientific underpinnings. Yet we still live in a culture that rarely takes science...