Thursday, October 18, 2007

Brownback out, Tancredo and Huckabee to go

Apparently Sam Brownback is planning to withdraw from the presidential race Friday. That leaves only Tom Tancredo and Mike Huckabee among the embarrassing evolution-denying presidential candidates. Let's hope, for the sake of all educated Americans, that they fall soon as well.

3 comments:

LiveIt said...

Huckabee did not deny evolution. He just said that he did not believe that evolution alone without the creative input of God was responsible for life today.

kkcoolj said...

Huckabee is clear that he's not writing curriculm, but his answer is very eloquent, thoughtout and supported by the other candidates around him. See video + transcript:

CLICK TO READ TRANSCRIPT / WATCH VIDEO of CNN Debate Question on Evolution/Creation

ScienceAvenger said...

The candidates were asked who doesn't believe in evolution, and these were the three that raised their hands. In addition, I've seen Huckabee make a statement that amounted to "We didn't come from no monkees" on the news, which I'll link to as soon as I find it.

The "creative input of God" argument is a dodge anyway. No one says they believe in the theory of gravity, but it alone cannot pull them to earth without the creative input of God. Ditto with germ theory or quantum theory or any other scientific theory. Theists who accept evolution, like Ken Miller of Brown, don't talk like that.

People like Huckabee use that phrase because they know they'll look foolish if they outright deny evolution, but they give away what they really think by everything else they say. Notice in the video of that debate that Huckabee describes God as intervening in the process. That's Intelligent Design talk, not evolutionary science.

Yes, his answer was eloquent, he is a fine speaker. But I don't see much of an advantage going from ignorant and inarticulate to ignorant and eloquent. Sure, his answer definitely resonated both with the other candidates and the audience. That only makes it worse.

If these guys were on a street corner begging for booze, I wouldn'y give it a second thought. But these men are lobbying to become the leader of arguably the most powerful and technological society that has ever existed, and here we sit arguing well-established science with them. That doesn't scare any of you in Red State America? Did it ever occur to you that maybe if Bush knew more about the world, we wouldn't be ensnared in the quagmire that is now Iraq? Knowledge matters, and the President of the United States ought to understand the basics. The bar isn't that high.