Science vs. religion in presidential politics

Over at Public Discourse, William Carroll has an interesting essay on the assumptions that the news media bring to questioning Rick Perry and other GOP presidential candidates about their views on evolution and global warming.  Here's an excerpt:

My point here is not to enter into complex issues about various evolutionary theories and the scientific support for them, but rather to note the fascination that reporters like [Chris] Matthews have with raising simplistic questions such as: "Do you believe in evolution?" It continues to be easy to conclude that there is some fundamental conflict between "belief in evolution" and traditional religious faith: This conclusion is often shared by all sides in the controversy. But once one recognizes that evolutionary biology has as its subject the world of changing things, and offers explanations for change among living things on a grand scale, and that God's creative act is the source of the existence of things, not of changes in and among things, then much of the controversy fades away. God, as transcendent cause of being, is the cause of all causes in nature, including those causes at work in evolutionary history. This analysis, however, involves important distinctions in science, philosophy, and theology; it does not fare well in political debates or popular journalism.

Carroll later suggests that "[t]he candidates are asked such questions because there is the lingering suspicion that they inhabit a world long since left behind."

I have a hard time seeing how a reporter's question, "Do you believe in evolution?," reveals any particular conclusion about the inherent relationship between science and religious faith.  The fact is that many voters in this country do not believe in (macro) evolution despite some pretty good evidence of the theory's validity, and some political candidates express similar skepticism.  Especially in light of the federal government's role in education, this should be fair game for reporters.  The fact that most political candidates both believe in God and believe in the theory of evolution -- and that this is apparently considered unremarkable by the news media -- seems to suggest that reporters don't cling too tightly to the notion of an inescapable religion-science conflict.  Sometimes religion and science do conflict.  If you're a "young Earth" creationist because you take Genesis 1 literally, you have to disregard science (or at least explain it creatively).   We need to take the President's views on science seriously, whether they pertain to fetal pain, stem cell research, vaccines, climate change, or genetically modified foods.  (This is not just the GOP's problem: when it comes to some of these issues,the left appears to be more skeptical of science than the right does.)  Posing the questions does not necessarily suggest anything about the questioner's underlying view of the relationship between science and religion.  And in those situations when the questioner implies skepticism about the compatibility of a particular candidate's religious views with the known scientific evidence, it might be because there is, in the end, a conflict.