America closes the book on intelligence: Our country is barely smarter than a 5th grader -- no wonder it's drowning in religious fundamentalism and political ideologues on both sides, argues Susan Jacoby

For an author of serious nonfiction, success can lead to some surprisingly disheartening encounters with the reading public. Susan Jacoby's 2004 history of American secularism, "Freethinkers," was among the first in the recent wave of welcome books protesting the growing influence of religion in civic life, and universities and other institutions soon began asking her to deliver lectures. Jacoby jumped at the chance, only to find that wherever she spoke, "my audiences were composed almost entirely of people who already agreed with me." Instead of participating in the great public debate that she envisions as central to American culture, she was preaching to the choir. What's more, she learned, "serious conservatives report exactly the same experience on the lecture circuit."

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