> eric brunsell

I originally saw this video here.

In an earlier post, I included a link to a SEED article about why science matters in the presidential race.  Here is an article that discusses why a president’s views on evolution are important.

Here is more on the candidates views on science –

Hot Science Topics Avoided by Presidential Candidates

There really are no surprises in this story.  Clinton probably takes the strongest pro-science position. Romney and Huckabee are both against Stem Cell Research. McCain isn’t as clear.  Giuliani apparently doesn’t want the press to know his views on science.

Unlike most Republicans, McCain is strong on the need to reduce CO2 levels. However, his stance on teaching of evolution is questionable.

…on the teaching of evolution, telling the Arizona Daily Star that “there’s nothing wrong with teaching different schools of thought [on] … how the world was created.

This is nearly the same language President Bush used in 2005 when he promoted teaching alternative theories.

Bush said Monday he believes schools should discuss “intelligent design” alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life.

 During a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, Bush declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life. But he said students should learn about both ideas, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported.

“I think that part of education is to expose people to diferent schools of thought,” Bush said. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.” (08/02/2005)

In 2004, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Science at Butler University worked with clergy from Wisconsin to draft a letter supporting the teaching of evolution in the science classroom. The effort was in response to anti-evolution policies adopted by the Grantsburg School District.  Since then, more than 11,000 clergy have signed on to the letter.

Here is my favorite line –  “We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.” 

The Clergy Letter Project

“Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”

  “Because, frankly, Darwinism is not an established scientific fact. It is a theory of evolution, that’s why it’s called the theory of evolution.”

      —- Mike Huckabee  (read here)

“Oscar Howard Jr., superintendent of Taylor County’s School District, and Danny Lundy, vice chairman of the School Board, spoke in accents from that other Florida. ‘’We’re opposed to teaching evolution as a fact,’’ Howard said, adding that his School Board and 11 others have passed resolutions against the imposition of evolution in the school curriculum….”  Read more at Florida Citizens for Science

If you haven’t read it yet, check out the anti-evolutionists “Wedge” strategy.  As you can see, they are moving along quite well in their “plan.”  They even got their “PBS documentary on intelligent design and its implications.”  However, I don’t think this is what they meant!

Here is my question… Why don’t Biblical Literalists have faith in their beliefs?  If they had faith, they wouldn’t need pseudo-scientific proof.