I bet writing anti-christian literature pays better producing
research papers.
Judging from friends and family, people who claim to have interest in Science , never really seem to have much of an interest in science outside of finding reasons to argue with religious people. It seems to more of a liberal arts thing, disguising itself in the guise of higher learning.
I have a few doctors and engineers in the family and they could care less about the origins of the species. It always seems to be the political science major that figures they have all the mysteries of the planet figured out.
Just my personal experience.