GOV. PAWLENTY: We’ve said in Minnesota, in my view, this is a local decision. Intelligent design is something that, in my view, is plausible and credible and something that I personally believe in but, more importantly, from an educational and scientific standpoint, it should be decided by local school boards at the local school district level.
The problem with local school boards is that when they go for this stuff, like in Dover, PA, they don’t generally slant toward anodyne Intelligent Design shorn of its sectarian connotations. This is why the Discovery Institute worked to disassociate themselves from the Dover School District.
In any case, I’m on the record as saying that predictions for 2012 are very premature. But, it looks like 3 of the front-runners for the G.O.P. nomination are rather frank Creationists (Palin, Huckabee and Pawlenty). I’m skeptical about any of these as likely candidates (i.e., if you had to make a bet you’re going to be surprised), but if you keep adding individuals to the list it seems likely that we’re looking at a serious probability that the G.O.P. nominee in 2012 will be a Creationist.
Creationism doesn’t really have the same valence as abortion as a “culture war” issue, but, it is useful in being a distinctive marker for social conservative candidates. Mitt Romney is now notionally as pro-life as the social conservatives, but it seems unlikely that he’ll flip his position on evolution since he expressed himself so explicitly in the 2008 debates.
I don’t think my use of the word “stupid” was politic. Simply borne out of frustration. I, and most Australians, have such admiration and hope for the US that these seemingly “crazy” discussions about creationism (I will not dignify the term ID by using it) v evolution make us think that your geopolitical dominance may end far sooner than it should. That is not a comforting thought. I still prefer liberal democracy to any other form of government. Just an enormous concern that your government will sooner or later end up in the hands of someone who seriously thinks the earth is only 6000 years old or that caveman Joe had a pet dinosaur and they both got on Noah’s Ark.
The thing is there are engineers and geologists actually working in oil companies and drilling for oil as we speak who are young earth creation believers. It is a cultural thing. @Slaughter
@sg
Which makes me wonder how they ever managed to get qualified a scientists in the first place?
Mitch Daniel ’12!!!
I suppose ID is not science but what about a secular work like Rare Earth (Ward/Brownlee) that in my view speak to the rareness of advanced life but still believe it was due to chance forces. Isn’t creation as likely as chance forces if not more so?
Besides, the public schools ought to be freed from the idea that evolution be taught as an established fact without discussion of its problems and limitations. It’s legal censorship.
JP, check out this interview of former US President Carter. Notice how the interviewer allows Carter not to answer the question. Notice how he doesn’t press him. The point is that our media forces the issue on Republican candidates so that hopefully they will lose support of some faction of their supporters. Democrat candidates don’t get boxed in so they get to have it both ways, maintaining support from groups that would obviously oppose each other on may issues. There is no pointed unavoidable question like, “So you are saying you don’t believe the literal six day creation, you don’t believe that right?”
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/02/lkl.01.html
CNN LARRY KING LIVE
Interview with Former President Jimmy Carter
Aired November 2, 2005 – 21:00
KING: By the way, as a Christian, do you believe in creationism?
CARTER: I believe there’s a supreme being, God, who created the entire universe, yes. And I am a scientist, as a matter of fact, as you may know, I studied nuclear physics. I helped to develop nuclear submarines. So, I believe in science. I believe we ought to explore the far outreaches of space. We ought to make sure we understand everything we can about the particles that make up the atoms.
I think we ought to discover everything we can about science. It ought to be accepted as proved unless it’s discounted. I believe still in a supreme being. But, I don’t believe that we ought to teach religious matters in a science classroom, because I think that the two ought not to be related.
They ought to be completely separate. And I don’t think anyone, Larry, interferes in full belief in the other. I believe completely in scientific proofs and values unless they’re discounted. I believe in a supreme being. But, I don’t believe you ought to teach creationism in the science classroom.”
@Sandy Sanders
ID is is not science. It is creationism marketed as pseudo-science. There is no scientifically credible alternative theory to evolution. Scientists who still believe in God and evolution, have abandoned literal belief in the bible for a compromise between their hearts and heads. Scientists (and in this case I use the term with great reluctance)who maintain literal belief in the Bible or creationism or young earthism etc are no better than lawyers – simply making a convincing argument (science)that they don’t really believe in just to pay the bills.
I always take America-bashing as a great compliment. It’s nice to know that people from all over the world are so jealous of our great nation that they feel the need to badmouth us.
Good point made in this thread regarding media treatment of different candidates. Who’s better, really, the candidate who actually believes in God on some level or the phony who goes to Church every week just to put on appearances? Who’s scarier, some bubbly Mormons or the fire-and-brimstone God-damn-America Jeremiah Wright? Who’s worse, the scientific illiterate who believes in Intelligent Design or the scientific illiterate who accepts evolution and climate change without a shred of skepticism or intellectual curiosity?
As an areligious citizen, I don’t feel like I have much to fear from the Christians. But I do fear the dissemblers, the black liberation theologists, and the Gaia cultists – because their viewpoint is culturally enforced by the media and academia. The media winks at Obama’s church and his insane pastor, but demands that Sarah Palin offer an intellectual defense Creationism. What have Christians done to anyone lately, other than preventing the government from subsidizing homosexual relationships?
@mike
Mike,
How condescending.
The rest of us are not jealous. I’d much rather live in Ausralia than the US. It’s just that you are the biggest bully on the block (for how much longer though?)and it is better to have you inside the tent pissing out as it were. Don’t mistake any of this as jealousy, it’s just we don’t like it when our main ally starts to look a bit punch drunk….