We all know the story of President George. W. Bush implementing measures in 2001 which essentially ended U.S. Stem Cell research and put American medical science a decade behind the rest of the world for no other reason than his religion got in the way of the public good. Alone this is a standout example of why this thing called New Atheism (a vocal, rational rebuttal to unjustified religious interference in secular societies) exists, but there is a better, much lesser known Bush story which paints an even clearer picture, and to get there we must first go through this unlikely chap:

Meet Elwood P. Dowd; a softly spoken, gently mannered, entirely likeable man who had – he said – an invisible six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch tall rabbit friend named, Harvey. Granted, it’s an odd admission for a grown man but in forty-seven year old Elwood’s defence Harvey was in fact a Púca…