The post on Creationism & potential Republican candidates is getting a lot of linkage. A quick note, the title was a bit hyperbolic. I am simply suggesting that from where we stand today the power of the Christian Right has waxed within the Republican party, not declined as some in the media were suggesting a few years ago. The reason is simple: the party has contracted over the past few years, while the Christian Right has remained loyal. There were comments below to the effect that policy considerations are much more important than abstract ideas. The issue with Creationism is that those who accept this view are often smart, they simply invest more authority in the evangelical Protestant intellectual counter-culture (though on average they are less intelligent). That worries me. Obviously a particular combination of policies and beliefs would lead to different assessments of a candidate’s viability to different individuals. Many of Ron Paul’s enthusiastic supporters backed him not because of 100% agreement with all his views, including his skepticism of evolution, but because of core substantive agreement with is policy prescriptions. On the other hand, some weird beliefs probably would serve as a way to filter out genuine loonies who rely on non-mainstream sources of knowledge. In regards to “weird,” your mileage may vary. I would, for example, support a pro-life politician who accepted evolution over a pro-choice one who rejected it despite my generally pro-choice stance on abortion (according to the GSS around 10% of the population rejects evolution and accepts abortion on demand, so the latter combination is not impossible).
Second, Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker is a gentleman indeed, he points to my observation that his characterization of German Social Democrats was a bit off, and admits that I was correct and that he was wrong. Refreshing. The best thing about blogging about science is that you are quite often wrong, or other people are quite often wrong, and wrongess isn’t a shameful state to be in. Nice to see that facts have some effect even in the subjective world of political blogging!
I would, for example, support a pro-life politician who accepted evolution over a pro-choice one who rejected it despite my generally pro-choice stance on abortion
It’s interesting how identity plays into this. I can’t find the study right now, but I believe that research shows how people start caring about issues much more when they are related to how one identifies oneself. I’m probably more of a Darwinian “fundamentalist” than either most atheists or most scientists, yet it’s not really part of my identity. So, a politician’s stance on evolution pretty much provokes zero emotional response in me. I certainly care in the abstract and would doubtless vote against someone who seemed like they would actively try to obstruct scientific research. But other than that I just can’t seem to get much worked up about these things.
There is too big a disconnect between what most people believe about evolution and what most people believe about human nature for a politician’s professed belief in evolution to say anything good about him. So I do not see why you assign weighting to a politician’s stance on that question.
What do you expect in terms of better policies from a politician who believes evolution happened? I’m not talking about an ideal HBD-aware politician. I’m talking about the kinds of people who sit in the US Congress.