The topic was not religion vs fundamentalism. But anyhow, I'd say Fox responded better than I could.

I'd add a couple comments re the morphed topic. First, I think it's great that Europe et. al. is growing in absolute and relative # of patents, etc. It's a good thing for human society. Secondly, I do not see any serious direct link like the author implies between a vocal minority of US fundies and a recent decline in scientific activity. To those concerned about the facts of the tradition of Christian religious fundamentalism in the US, remember that the most fundamentalist religious colony in the USA was Massachusetts. Look at MA today. The US has always had and probably still has a bad (in my view) cultural tradition of anti-intellectualism. Back in the 1860s the "Know Nothing" party thrived here. In the 1960s while the successfull space race was being waged and won by the US, kids interested in science were unabashedly referred to as "egg heads". Somehow, we survived this lousy aspect of US culture.