Host: Chris Mooney

In recent months, political attacks on science have been back in the news.

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman even famously tweeted, "To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

So it's very timely that Shawn Lawrence Otto, co-founder of a nonpartisan organization called Science Debate, has got a new book out about this very problem.

It's called Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America, and it covers the grand role of science in our country's history, as well as the leading battles of the present. It also tells the story of Science Debate, and how it is trying to inject some reality into the 2012 election.

In addition to being an author and a co-founder of Science Debate, Otto is also a screenwriter, who wrote and co-produced The House of Sand and Fog.