[DannyTN]

"You mean sales of Coulter's book has reached ~231,000,000? "

Ah, I see. I read that as "hundreds of thousands ...see evolution as a national menace", which of course greatly minimizes the number of American with a disdain for evolution. But I see that I read it wrong.

However, I suspect that the intent of the author's sentence, was to minimize the number of evolution supporters by inference, even though the phrase "who put Coulter at the top of the best seller lists" does make it technically correct.

[stands2reason]

But of course. It's always someone else's fault.

[b_sharp]

"However, I suspect that the intent of the author's sentence, was to minimize the number of evolution supporters by inference, even though the phrase "who put Coulter at the top of the best seller lists" does make it technically correct.

Why would he want to minimize the number of evolution supporters?

I don't think he was trying to mislead anyone with his numbers, inferentially or otherwise. In the next paragraph to the one you quoted he says:

"Well, that's hardly news. We've known for years that nearly half of all Americans believe in the Genesis account of creation, and only about 10 percent want evolution taught in public schools without mentioning ID or other forms of creationism."

According to the surveys I've read these numbers aren't out of line.