Bachmann Promotes Creationism
The Republican primary season is already starting, and we are in for another round of candidates saying embarrassing things about science. To be fair (this is not a political blog so I want to make sure I don’t come off as partisan) bad science is not limited to the Republican party. But there are some issues where they definitely take the lead – and evolution/creationism is one. In some states creationism is on the Republican party platform. Last election cycle 4 of 10 Republican primary candidates endorsed creationism over evolution when asked directly in a debate.
This cycle we have Michele Bachmann, congresswoman from Minnesota, who is already on record as supporting creationism. In 2006 she stated:
“there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact… hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel prizes, believe in intelligent design.”
Now, following a speech to Republicans in New Orleans, she said to reporters:
“I support intelligent design. What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don’t think it’s a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.”
She is dead wrong, of course. There is no scientific controversy about the fact of evolution. The overwhelming majority of scientists support evolution – because the evidence for it is overwhelming. The controversy is entirely a political/religious one. This is embarrassing for Bachmann. I don’t expect every presidential candidate to be a scientist, or have any level of expertise in science. But I think in the 21st century we should expect a basic level of scientific literacy from our leaders. There are simply too many issues that require an understanding of science.
This also demonstrates a weakness for any candidate. It indicates that they are willing to cater to a special interest. Even worse, if is a failure of process. Even if a candidate is not well-informed on an issue, they should know how to consult the proper experts to quickly get a working knowledge of an important issue. Before Bachmann makes public statements about such a hot-button political question she should talk to a few experts – find out what the real issues are.
So her statements represent a gross failure of due diligence – not something I want in a president. Or, if she did consult experts and was still able to make these statements, that is a profound failure to understand the issue, or of intellectual honesty. All of these possibilities are bad news – there is really no interpretation that can save her.
Her more recent statements indicate that she is steeped in pro-creationist propaganda, however. She has certainly listened to that side. She is giving the “academic” freedom line – the current approach of the creationists. This approach seems superficially fair – but it is a demonstrable ruse. She makes it seem as if there is equivalent doubt on either side of the evolution question, but there isn’t. This question has been decided – as much as it has been decided that DNA is the molecule of inheritance, and that plate tectonics play an important role in understanding the geology of the Earth – even as much as the sun-centered solar system.
We don’t need to teach geocentrism, growing earth nonsense, the ether, or alchemy to students and then let them decide. Such notions are only useful in teaching the history of scientfiic thought – how we currently know that these discredited ideas are wrong, and why we currently accept other theories.
Of course, not all Republicans, or even Republican candidates are creationists. In a way it’s a very useful issue – it gives a very quick window into a candidate. I feel I can infer quite a bit about Bachmann from those two comments (none of it good). But for the Republican party, this issue is a disaster. The leaders of the Republican party should lead – just say it like it is. The scientific community has spoken – we should listen to them. Teach whatever you want at home and at church – but science classrooms are for teaching accepted science.
“I support intelligent design. What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide.”
That should save a lot of money on Teacher’s Edition books, since students get to decide if their answers are right or not. Actually, now that I think about it, it should save a lot of money on teachers. We will need some really large tables, though.
Gah. Again, gah.
Some of those republican candidates are promoting outright theocracy.
nice link, but it doesn’t support your point that some republican candidates are promoting outright theocracy.
unless you think support of intelligent design IS promoting outright theocracy
please refine your argument.
Steven, You are being far too generous. Michelle Bachmann is an unmitigated disaster in the making. She’s loonier than the former governor of Alaska, a fundamentalist evangelical, a global warming denier, author of the “Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act,” and a Tea Party mouthpiece. If we really do get the government we deserve, we Minnesotans must have done something very bad.
We should concede that those who spout a political position won’t always reflect their personal life/belief. Gay rights and abortion come to mind. Regardless, Ms.Bachmann appears to be a genuine ditz in science – and perhaps religion and philosophy as well.
Bachmann is the new Palin.
I honestly think that Bachmann is too wrapped up in her far-right ideology and too utterly without the ability for self-introspection to have ever considered that her views are uninformed, let alone wrong. Quite the contrary, her “success” has come from turning herself into a walking stereotype for the far-right (radicals) who have come to “wag the dog” that is the modern Republican party. Ideological purity has become for them so simple-minded, uncritical, and unquestioned that just mindlessly repeating the “party line” has been enough for Bachmann to “succeed” — despite the fact she otherwise embarrasses herself whenever she opens her mouth.
At least she is such a joke that maybe she will help the Republicans realize just how much they’ve sold out their long lost principles — and the Democrats that if they just show a little backbone they can show everyone just how nutty their opposition has become.
“Democrats that if they just show a little backbone”
They have lost THAT some time ago. Evolution due to environmental pressure.
The crazy thing is how much more educated and distinguished she is than Palin, yet Bachmann seems to buy into this nonsense even more wholeheartedly. It’s almost so seamless that it could be that she is doing it out of simple intellectual dishonesty to set herself apart from other candidates. Almost.
I wouldn’t say that a representative is more distinguished than a governor.
Apparently Freedom of Speech doesn’t apply to comics at GoP meetings:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13834179
It’s OK to tell jokes about the Donkeys, but don’t dis the Teabaggers.
Didn’t someone recently challenge Bachmann to name the Nobel laureates who support “Intelligent Design”? How many people will vote for a candidate who just makes stuff up?
“How many people will vote for a candidate who just makes stuff up?”
Probably many more than we would care to find out.
70 million voted for Obama…
According to Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, that was the answer to a question about who those Nobel laureates were.
Anyway, vast numbers of Americans agree that valid research methods include “making s**t up.”
A high school girl in Bachmann’s Congressional district challenged her to a debate on science issues.
How is Bachmann taking what is becoming more and more the standard position for religious conservative Americans “embarrassing for” her? It’s pretty clearly a safe position for her to take when significant portions of the religious population agree with her. This could only be an embarrassing act for her in the eyes of the few non-creationism favoring voters who haven’t already discounted her as a viable candidate (which I’d wager is a rather small number of people). It certainly isn’t going to cost her any significant number of votes.
“This is embarrassing for Bachmann” Sorry, but you’re dead wrong. The woman cannot be embarrassed. She’s certainly the poster-child for the far-right religious agenda run amuck but she’s not the new Sarah Palin. Bachmann is very smart and should not be underestimated. She is a formidable fund-raiser, very adept at garnering media attention, and adored without question by her followers. The trick will be to keep those followers to a minimum and expose her extreme positions to thinking people. I, however, can be embarrassed and cringe everytime I see “Bachmann-R, Minnesota.”
Bachmann is the personification of the hard-core right-wing evangelical movement, and everything she says comes from their perspective. Unlike Palin, however, she got a law degree and is reasonably intelligent, so she is much more dangerous that Ditzy Sarah. But her law degree is from Oral Roberts University, and she is a follower of the school of thought that the Founding Fathers were devout Christians and intended the U.S. to be a theocratic “Christian Nation”–never mind their own writings that show they were deists or atheists (like Jefferson and Paine) who deliberately set up the U.S. separation of church and state BECAUSE they knew the evils of the theocracies of Europe. Everything else she does flows from this viewpoint: hardcore creationism and anti-environmentalism (the Lord is coming soon, so why save the Earth?), hardcore anti-gay beliefs, etc. Her stuff only sounds bizarre and dumb to those of us raised in secular, scientific world viewpoints, but not to the evangelicals in this country that Falwell and Roberts and others preach to.
This article is particularly revealing: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/14/michele-bachmanns-unrivaled-extremism-gay-rights-to-religion.html
It’s interesting how someone who has a degree in law can know nothing of the nation’s constitution and its earliest amendments as incorporated in the Bill of Rights. Has Bachmann passed the bar exam or does she merely have a degree from Oral Roberts?
If you read about her background the ORU law school is full of a bunch of these David Baraton-type revisionists who cherry-pick statements by the Founding Fathers to make them sound more devout than they really were. So you can still learn the basics of law but get an entirely ideological viewpoint of the Constitution at a place like ORU. Whether she ever took or passed the Minnesota bar exam, I can’t say, but then again, creationist students can pass an exam about evolution by memorizing the material without accepting any of it.
And here’s another even more shocking and revealing article about her background and mindset…
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michele-bachmanns-holy-war-20110622?page=1
Are the extremists be trying to shift the Overton window?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Trying to? They’ve succeeded. Look at the “Democrat” who’s now President of the US. He softpedaled reproductive choice in the national insurance-care bill, for example.
That said, in sucking up to G. Sachs and the banksters, Obama moved himself; no window moving was necessary. (That’s why I voted Green in 2008; I “saw through him” by the end of 2007.)
Unfortunately, endorsing Creationism is only a “disaster” among voters who think facts are more important than pre-conceived ideologicial dogma. And sadly, that demographic is far smaller in this country than we like to think.
I used to think that creationists were a minority whose claims had been exaggerated by the “liberal” press in the US but my vision is rapidly changing with candidates from the Republican Party like her, she is by far a more refined Palin, with actual speech skills and academics degrees and that can just mean that the voters are happier with that kind of person running for public offices, and if those voters were just a minority they wouldn’t matter enough to the Republican party to lay out such a number of idiotic candidates for people to choose from.
So sad to have in my TV ignorant, prejudiced and intolerant people stating their garbage without little to none response from the journalist conducting the broadcast.
I think you ARE being political. Show me the democrats who are running based on their atheism. I don’t mean show me a democrat who is an atheist I mean show me one who runs on his non-belief. I personally don’t care if a person is religious or not I am much more interested in their record and their politically philosophy. Of course a religious Christian will believe in evolution. Where is the suprise in that. Be honest you don’t like Bachmann.
I mean “not believe in evolution”.
There are a large number of Christians in America who do believe in evolution – depending on the polling, maybe even a (slim) majority. Let’s not lump all believers in with the Fundamentalists.
There are religious Christians like Francis Collins who accept theistic evolution.
But you don’t even have to believe in evolution to know that it’s not a scientific controversy, and that science classrooms are for teaching accepted science. The problem with ideologues like Bachmann is that they distort science, history, and law to suit their personal beliefs.
Actually, no, I don’t like willfull, mindless idiocy. Since you seem to fall under that category, maybe even you can complete the “don’t like” syllogism.
You are avoiding the point. Simply believing in something that the majority disagree with does not make you stupid or unfit for public service. Some very intelligent and productive people believe in the bible and are religious. You are fighting an anti-religious war based on your anti-religious beliefs. Is religion or the belief in god “willfull, mindless idiocy”???
Ironically, Bachmann is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
But seriously, does she distort national intelligence to suit her personal beliefs the same way she distorts science and history?
Actually, most members of Congress from both parties do. Not in the way Bachmann might, but, nonetheless.
No Democrat on the Intell Comm ever came up with the idea of simply “reading on the House floor” the black ops sheiss Bush was doing. If Bush/CIA threatened them, all they had to do was cite the “free speech and debate” clause of the Constitution.
Keeping your oath to protect classified information is not the same as distorting intelligence to fit some agenda or pet theory.
When we do maths, put ALL the answers on the table, and let the kids decide what is correct. Then we will take those answers and build cars, buildings, bridges, rockets…..
While it is clear that you are being ironic,there are real life examples of such attempts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill
“The Indiana Pi Bill is the popular name for bill #246 of the 1897 sitting of the Indiana General Assembly, one of the most famous attempts to establish scientific truth by legislative fiat.”
Bachmann made an appeal to nature fallacy when arguing that CO2 can’t be harmful:
“Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide…
As a matter of fact, carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful, but there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas. There isn’t one such study because carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas.”
Ah. I would suggest Bachmann put a plastic bag over her head then and let the carbon dioxide accumulate. Harmless gas indeed – even the material safety data sheet would disagree with her. Strychnine is also a natural product; Bachmann should drink a few grams of it to show how harmless that natural product is.
Seriously what’s wrong with this people?, they shouldn’t have a high school diploma, but they end up with university degrees and political power to decide our fate…and she might be labeled the next “maverick” from the Republicans for having the courage to go against this elitist way of seen things called: Reason.
Since political issues have been broached:
Sure, Bachmann says things that mean she should just go away, but scientific ignorance is not the only kind of culpable ignorance. Her unsupportable creationist statements would create less harm than these: “We need to remake the American economy” (implying that the way to do that is clear and distinct to me), “Sometimes you have made enough money” (and I will decide how much is enough), and “We should spread some of this wealth around” (and I will decide how to do that).
Those are frames and caricatures created by the GOP and in no way reflect proggressive ideas.
They are direct quotes from the President.
For one, Gregor, I can’t seem to directly find any of the quotes you posted. So it doesn’t seem like they’re “Direct” quotes at all, but paraphrased ones.
Secondly, these all seem to be out of context by varying degrees.
-I couldn’t find anything about Obama saying anything about “remaking” the economy, only articles from other people talking about what Obama might do.
-The full quote on ‘Sometimes you have made enough money’ is rather different from yours: “We’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I do think that at a certain point you’ve made enough money, but you know part of the American way is that you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you’re providing a good service.” The intent of this statement is not “I decide when people make enough money,” and the BUT after “enough money” DEFINES the statement: “We’re not trying to punish earners. I think there’s a point at which you’ve made enough money, BUT the beauty of the system is that you can keep earning past that if you’re good.” 1) Obama went off of his teleprompter to say this, so it was not a premeditated statement. 2) I personally believe there IS a point where you’ve earned “enough” money. This does not mean I condone the concept of an income cap in the least, raise taxes without good reason, or that I think it’s my place to decide what is universally “enough”.
-The “spread the wealth” comment came at the tail end of a discussion with a small business owner (“Joe the Plumber”) about raising taxes for those making over a certain amount so taxes could be lowered for people making less. “…I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Basically it was an endorsement of progressive taxing after talking about it at length with a small business owner. Which may be essentially a similar message to your paraphrase, but is still very different in attitude. “I think it’s good for everyone when…” does not equal a simple “YEAH LET’S SPREAD THE WEALTH.” Nor does it imply some sort of smug concept that he alone knows what is right. He very plainly labels it humbly as a personal/party belief.
So yes, you did mischaracterize those quotes. I’m not even sure if one of them exists, one of them was heavily out of context (“I think sometimes you’ve made enough, but hey, you can keep earning as much as you want in America” VS “I decide who’s made enough!”) and the other underwent a rewrite in intention. I think what’s especially comical is that the two quotes I COULD find both involved a humbling use of the words “I think” by Obama to imply his own fallibility and gap between policy and opinion, and yet you not only omitted that from your paraphrasing, but paraphrased and added your thoughts in such a way to make Obama sound like a pompous douchebag.
Also, you think a progressive tax rate is more damaging than subverting science education for million of kids? Yipes.
‘You think a progressive tax rate is more damaging than subverting science education for million of kids? Yipes.”
Well PFsign, can you elaborate on this interesting thought of yours?
Where exactly did Gregor mention a progressive tax rate? He did not paraphrase, he used direct quotes. He may have been quote mining, but was certainly not paraphrasing.
You brought up progressive taxing, not him. You are paraphrasing, not him.
Is this a skeptic site or not?
“also you think a progressive tax rate is mor damaging than subverting science education to million of kids? Yipes” False dilemma.
Our schools are subverted right now. Science education is in the toilet.
Especially in big city schools. Most kids don’t even know what evolutiion is.
You seem to be unaware that science is being perverted already. Would you be in favor of correcting “all” perverted science or just the one that disagrees with your “social” beliefs?
subverted, not perverted, countrygirl!
!
“subverted, not perverted”!! Really? And this should make me feel better?
I don’t care how you feel.
If you’re going argue a point you should use words precisely.
If you can’t you shouldn’t comment here.
Perverted: Deviating from what is considered right and correct.
The “remaking” quote should have been, “we’ve begun the work of remaking America.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aEOXy3xJPVoU)
The others seem to be correct, and arguably the interpretation that Obama will decide how much is enough is justified by his propensity to centralize. He is a “centrist” in that respect only.
country girl, you’ve given us a dictionary definition of perverted, now give us a dictionary definition of subverted. Go ahead look it up then look up what “is” means and get back to me. Then you can integrate it to my response to PF. (sarcasm)
I try to defend Gregor’s good points and call out PF and you jump in an act like you’re not following the conversation.
Well! Excuuuuuseeee Meeeee!!
Bachmann can’t do simple fact checking either. Called the Smoot-Hawley Act the “Hoot Smalley Act” and blamed FDR for it, even though it was signed by Hoover and sponsored by Republicans Smoot and Hawley. Wow.
Is there a way to flag a post as inappropriate?
Not that I know of, but I’ve removed that comment. I agree that it was inappropriate.
Paul, no he didn’t use direct quotes. PF told us that. Yeesh.
Oops, meant that to go above.
That said, I posted a link to Dunning’s legal woes under his post about Inside Google, and it’s now gone. So is the whole thread of responses.
I find that “interesting.”