We all know that Republicans aren’t really down with evolution in the U.S., and the Republican candidates for President are particularly dire. As if you need more proof of their ignorance and pandering, here’s Michele Bachmann (an elected Congresswoman) arguing that teaching only evolution and not intelligent design or other creationist theories is “censorship” on the part of the government. Let parents, school boards, and students themselves—nay, everyone—vote on what should be taught to our children.
The video below, taken from a post on Think Progress, shows Bachmann responding to a question today at an “education forum” at the University of Northern Iowa. The post notes that question camer from a Catholic student curious to know “why it’s not a violation of the separation of church and state for a public school to teach the religiously-tinged theories.” Take a minute and a half and listen to Bachmann’s muddled response:
Note that Bachmann equates evolution with “the origin of life” (a common tactic of creationists) and adds:
Why would we forestall any particular theory, because I don’t think that even evolutionists, by and large, say that evolution is a proven fact: they say that this is a theory—as well as intelligent design. So I think intellectually the best thing to do is to allow all scientific facts on the table and let students decide, but that’s my opinion.
But it’s a bad opinion, for although nothing in science is really a “proven fact” (though some things, like a water molecule having one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, come close), and all knowledge is provisional, evolution comes as close to “facthood” as does the “atomic theory” and the “germ theory” of disease. As my book showed, there’s a mountain of solid evidence for evoution. In contrast, there is no evidence for intelligent design. We might as well teach homeopathy in medical school and astrology in psychology classes. Put all facts on the table and let the students decide!
Don’t vote for these morons! But I suppose that’s superfluous advice to most readers of this website. And foreign readers, weep for America: there aren’t many “advanced” nations where someone so scientifically illiterate can be considered a serious candidate to run the government.
h/t: Michael Dowd
Bachmann responded to recent events at the British embassy in Iran by insisting that the US close its Iranian embassy as well. There has not been an American embassy in Iran since 1979. This candidate for the Republican nomination is polymorphously stupid.
At least she’s consistent.
Fractally stupid. Stupid on every level, no matter how closely you look.
Fractally wrong!
Double-O stupid, licensed to die (correct spelling: st00pid). She said it herself,and I quote: “… because I don’t think….”
To quote the sig I use on Slashdot :
The benefit being that hopefully the boil of endemic American anti-scientism would be lanced. And if the boil is encouraged rather than lanced, then at least America’s global reputation will be severely set back until the boil is lanced.
What year did Margaret Atwood set the rise of Gilead in ?
That comment, at least, I think can be let off as an innocent slip of the tongue, simply because saying “North” when you mean “South” is a common mistake and to my knowledge she hasn’t made a habit of calling North Korea an American ally.
I’m willing to bet that conflating evolution to include the origin of life isn’t so much a tactic, at least for some of these people, as it is simple ignorance, or just the result of what they think about the universe. Evolution is really not too complex, at least in terms of the basic facts. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that for most people (certainly most creationists), it’s either evolution or God, and when God is the answer, the question is not just “how do various species come about?”, it’s “explain the existence of all life.” Until evolution, they didn’t have to worry about the origin of life itself as a separate issue from the origin of species, because everything was the result of God. Now that we know how species came to be, they’re dealing with answering two questions when they had previously only had one. I’m sure for some this is tactical. As you’ve shown, there are seemingly intelligent people sitting around thinking about how to inject religion into our lives, so the idea that this might be part of some tactic is not far fetched. It just doesn’t quite make sense to me as a tactic, if for no other reason than the fact that the origin of species and the origin of life itself are, obviously, two different things…that some creationists haven’t taken the two seconds to realize this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. I just don’t see what this would achieve as a tactic. I think it’s mostly people talking about evolution, biology, and science who couldn’t have less (accurate) knowledge of those subjects.
No, it’s not simple ignorance – it’s deliberate and willful ignorance.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
— Isaac Asimov, Newsweek, Jan. 21, 1980
(The fun part is that the above Asimov gem was ‘quote of the day’ on goodreads some days ago, and went viral. Real wildfire. Needless to say, almost always unsourced, and sometimes even unattributed.)
Thanks for the cool quote, had never read it before. It really does sum up the majority of Republican candidates, or people in general trying to push whatever kind of pseudo-science into schools.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
— Isaac Asimov, Canadian Atheists Newsletter (1994)
Even more to the point, I think.
/@
What really bothers me about these candidates is that I’m not at all convinced they’re anything approaching honest about what they say they believe…because it takes a fair amount of intelligence to get to this level (possible presidential nominee) and they can’t all be that stupid when it comes to science. We’ve become so used to pandering that we (as an electorate) no longer even notice it.
It’s just so obvious that campaigns come down to “say whatever it is that will get you elected,” which, blatantly, goes for both parties. Really, is there anything left to be idealistic about? Esp. after the Obama disappointment?
Money = Power. QED.
Well we all know that we can’t know for sure what anyone thinks. However we do know that intelligence doesn’t equal great knowledge of science. Lots of people are intelligent but are simply ignorant of science and then there are scientist who still can’t let go of god regardless of how much knowledge they have.
To most Republican Americans science should only be used for two things, better weapons and medicine. People don’t equate better medicine to evolution knowledge. Lots of people don’t equate science with technology they see them as separate where they are not.
This is the biggest issue we have today is the lack of understanding of how important science is and it’s role in our world.
We focus a lot on the US but there are issues all over the world with this problem and it appears to be trickling in to places even more. It seems when right wing thinking takes over as it has done in a lot of Europe religious thinking and anti-science isn’t far behind. The two go hand and hand for some reason.
I can’t disagree with a thing you said, esp. your last paragraph, which is why I tend to see present-day European secularism as likely a temporary rather than permanent state.
It takes no intelligence at all to be a politician.
Witness George W. Bush. If you tell me that man is “intelligent”, we’re going to have to redefine “intelligent” to mean “brainless”.
Bachmann is not acting or pandering. She is literally exactly as dumb as she appears.
Which doesn’t bother me in the least, because there is not one scintilla of a mote’s speck of a chance that she’ll become President. She’s comic relief, nothing more.
It’ll be Romney (Obama-lite), or Gingrich. Both of them are panderers.
OK, maybe narcissism and/or hubris can substitute for intelligence…
There are certainly some Machiavellian manipulators amongst them…but there are also those so caught up in their own doublethink that they actually believe it. And probably an even larger number of victims of such truly unbelievable levels of cognitive dissonance that they at least believe they believe it.
And don’t forget. The “really true” believers don’t realize all the problems with religion. There are no contradictions in the Bible to them; it really is the case for them that anything that seems at first glance like a contradiction is a misunderstanding on the part of the reader. And if Jesus seems to say and do horrible things, those are really metaphors for standing up against evil or some such. So long as you don’t dwell at all on it (and why should a true believer?) and get right back to the praising and what-not, there’s no reason why it should ever truly occur to a non-curious person (and there are lots of them out there) that it’s all bullshit.
And don’t forget the sorry state of our education system! Most students graduate high school without learning anything at all about evolution, cosmology, geology or any other “deep time” science. If they’re lucky, they get two minutes of a 30-minute lecture parenthetically mentioning such things, and a half a page in a textbook homework reading assignment. Probably nothing on any quizzes or tests. And that’s supposed to compete with weekly zombie fellatio classes on Sunday mornings?
Sorry. Now I’m getting myself depressed…and I haven’t even had a cup of tea yet this morning….
b&
Try some poppy tea. It should make you feel much better. Of course, you may not get any work done the rest of the day…
Thank you, Pollyanna. Excuse me while I go step in front of a bus.
But don’t worry, the pols are right on top of the education problem–first, fire all the teachers…
I note that the young man with the moustache in the background understood the question whereas Bachmann did not. Watch him as he shakes his head and then has to endure the torture of her response.
“And foreign readers, weep for America”
Oh I do, but I also cheer “USA! USA! USA” when read what rational americans like yourself say too.
always nice to see people who consider themselves such good Christians consistently ignoring their own supposedly divine laws in order to push ahead their agenda. A little false witnessing anyone?
The end always justifies the means. That’s pretty much the fundie credo in a nutshell.
but for 200-feet (63 m), I would be in Michele Bachmann’s Congressional District. Gives me the shivers every time I think of it.
I’m a Minnesotan too (Rochester). She’s a total embarrassment to the state.
Just as Rick Perry is an embarrassment to Texas — after Texas was embarrassed by Bush and so many others. Sorry state of affairs, pun intended. At least, Texas finally got rain, though not after all Perry’s publicity prayers. It showed up, and rained hard, right in the middle of the Texas Freethought Convention/Atheist Alliance of America annual meeting in Houston, two months ago. And whose speech was most proximate and timely? Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, both! If I were superstitious…. but, of course, I’m not. For the religious zealots who are, though, this is a beautiful example of why they should believe… in atheism!
My parents are just outside Woodbury, in unincorporated Maplewood. About 1/4 mile from the Bachmann zone. They feel the same way that you do. I submit that if all of you actually were in her district, she wouldn’t be in Congress.
That is one weird gerrymandered district, by the way. Is it being redrawn following the 2010 census?
Gerrymandering should be illegal.
LOL,
I noticed him as well. You can see him barely containing his simmering disgust. He’s like a stand-in on stage for all of us here 🙂
Vaal.
I say YES! Teach the controversy.
… about whether or not God exists.
Wouldn’t it be great to ask her if public schools should teach the controversy about whether of not God exists?
It’s an easy exercise to systematically work through her argument above and substitute “religion and atheism” for “evolution and intelligent design”, without invalidating any of the principles she advocates, and then conclude that she must agree that public school children should be taught about the existence of atheism and the arguments that favor it against religion.
In fact, it’s not even clear that such a policy would violate the establishment clause of First Amendment like intelligent design would, and unlike evolution, it really IS a case of a clear and significant controversy among scientists. (Although it’s lopsided in the direction she DOESN’T like.)
Maybe if an interviewer pinned her down to explaining why one policy should be adopted and the other policy shouldn’t would be enough to make her little brain explode.
It’s actually entirely legal to teach religion in public schools.
The distinction is that religious ideology can’t be taught as if it’s factual.
Basically, the distinction is that you can say “it’s true that the Bible says this” but not “what the Bible says is true.”
…and the Twit of the Year Race shambles on…
who’s in the lead now, Gingrich?
You will, perhaps, appreciate commentary published at Der Spiegel online, entitled “A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses”.
I could not possibly do it justice in summary.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,800850,00.html
Interesting article – thanks for the link.
Particularly noteworthy was this passage:
“When did the GOP lose touch with reality?” wonders Bush’s former speechwriter David Frum in New York Magazine. In the New York Times, Kenneth Duberstein, Ronald Reagan’s former chief-of-staff, called this campaign season a “reality show,” while Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan confidante Peggy Noonan even spoke of a “freakshow.”
As a possible answer to Frum’s question one might suggest that occurred when the Party decided to throw its lot in with that of religious fundamentalists.
It’s good, but I still think Python had it covered.
still, I saw this shit coming.
It’s why I left the US after 44 years.
In fact, as much as the the current crop can be likened to a clown car spilling clowns, or the aforementioned gaggle of twits, I don’t think the US is done dumbing itself down yet.
little over 60% of the way to where they seem to be headed.
when they make it past the Twit of the Year stage, and move on to complete Idiocracy, then they will be done.
She at least said that science is dynamic, not static, so she got one thing right.
On a happier note, I saw WEIT: The Book in Waterstones the other day, the first time I’ve seen it on sale over here.
Would have been even happier if I’d bought it, I suppose.
Science is dynamic and the controversies should be debated. Understand though that scientific controversies should be debated as scientic papers presented to the experts instead being dumbed down and marketed to the under educated like myself.
“there aren’t many “advanced” nations where someone so scientifically illiterate can be considered a serious candidate to run the government.”
Here in Canada, Prime Minister Harper has consistently refused to answer whether or not he believes in the Theory of Evolution; he usually answers the question with saying that he believes in a higher power. He is known to be an evangelical christian and has a history of promoting creationism for the public good. Now that he has a majority government, he is refusing to provide aid to any foreign agencies that advocate full rights to women i.e. access to abortion
Yes, but the real concern is: why did he get a majority? Why do so many people, again and again, shoot themselves in the foot?
Politically, I thought the cancer death of Jack Layton no lesser a tragedy than that of Steve Jobs. A regime like that of Stephen Harper, all the more insidious for its dull, velvety smoothness, needs a vigilant, energetic, combative and vocal opposition. Or rather, the country needs it.
It seems that electorates consistently deluded themselves with the notion that some one politician is going to “appear” and do the right thing and fix all the wrongs and problems a country has to offer. This is the tactic of all politicians. Obama was particularly successful of this because he fit the jesus/saviour profile and spewed what the electorate wanted to hear and he did it very eloquently. Trudeau was famous/infamous for going this in Canada. Throw in some good looks, charm, and charisma and you got yourself a potential winner.
This naive wishful thinking clearly demonstrates the ill effects of religion (christianity in Canada) i.e. jesus/saviour will appear one day and solve all our problems because “I believe he will deliver us from….” What do you usually see a few months after a new candidate is voted in? Grumblings and disappointments.
Humans need to restructure their thinking. “Religion poisons EVERYTHING” (2007, Christopher Hitchens)
This naive wishful thinking clearly demonstrates the ill effects of religion (Christianity in Canada) ….
As a Canadian myself I share your concerns about Harper’s motivations and to whom he is beholden – in no small measure, the Christian Right – and the consequences of that. Seems that we really shouldn’t be all that smug relative to America about being immune to religious fundamentalism.
But you might not know of the following book and might be interested in it and find it of some use. It’s by Marci McDonald who:
… is a Toronto-based journalist and author who has won eight gold National Magazine Awards in a three-decade-long career that has spanned two continents and included two postings to Washington where she watched the rise of the American religious right from a front-row seat.
The book is titled The Armageddon Factor and is:
An urgent wake-up call for all Canadians who think that this country is immune from the righteous brand of Christian nationalism that has bitterly divided and weakened the United States.
There’s an article here by her titled Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons; The rising clout of Canada’s religious right that you might also be interested in.
Thanks Steersman… I’ll definitely look it up.
“There aren’t many ‘advanced’ nations where someone so scientifically illiterate can be considered a serious candidate to run the government.”
I would amend this statemernt to read, “There aren’t many ‘advanced’ nations where scientific illiteracy is an ACTIVE REQUIREMENT for running the government.
lol. oh so all you need is to attach the word “theory” to whatever you want and it can get equal time. that’d be awesome!
Not even for you, Jerry, would I listen to a minute and a half of Michelle Bachmann.
Well, I’m certainly not going to vote for Obama. Yes, the GOP is crazy, but the Obamacrats are completely corrupt, and until we deal with the latter we aren’t going to be effective in dealing with the former.
Good for you. President Romney thanks you for staying home.
I’m sure you’ll be happy when the Supreme Court reverses Roe v Wade, which is pretty much guaranteed with a Republican president. As an afterthought they may well endorse teaching some form of creationism alongside evolution in public school science class.
>Good for you. President Romney thanks you for staying home.
The only significant difference between Romney and Obama is that Romney’s failed policies will hurt the Right, while Obama’s hurt the Left.
>I’m sure you’ll be happy when the Supreme Court reverses Roe v Wade, which is pretty much guaranteed with a Republican president. As an afterthought they may well endorse teaching some form of creationism alongside evolution in public school science class
Pathetic.
But I invite rational liberal/lefties to visit The Confluence, Corrente, The Sideshow, Glenn Greenwald or The Naked Capitalist (among others) for why supporting the Obamacrats is self-defeating (unless you favor our current kleptocracy of course).
Pathetic.
Why is it pathetic? You don’t think reversing Roe will have a negative effect on millions of people?
But I invite rational liberal/lefties to…
…cringe in terror with us at the following fallout shelters!
yeah, I can’t disagree with Greenwald’s take on Obama’s policies; I often cite it myself:
http://www.salon.com/2011/04/13/obama_147/
but it’s no more or less rational than the things I’ve seen debated here, and your particular whinging does not impress.
Ichthyic – although many things here are not encouraging, it is not as bad as some places – quote from today’s New York Times: “My rapist has destroyed my future. No one will marry me after what he has done to me. So I must marry my rapist for my child’s sake.”
GULNAZ, a 19-year-old Afghan woman imprisoned for adultery after being raped, who has been pardoned on the condition that she marry the man who raped her.
Who does Michele Bachmann feel should make decisions as to what is taught in a science classroom? Does she actually think that the students and the scientifically under educated parents like myself should tell the teachers what is knowledge? While we are at it let’s save some money as well and fire those teachers. Why would anyone want to go through the years of education necessary to become a teacher if it will only results in being hired in a community that will have students and parents who refuse to respect the expertise they have and allow them to educate?
Illiteracy! I should reread my comments before pressing enter. Sorry.
When the theists present “Intelligent Design” as science, it is clear they do not understand what science is.
As I recall, all that is left to discover to prove life synthesis is possible without God is where the activated monomers came from.
I assume you mean “the activated monomers” as the polyphosphate charged nucleosides (nucleotides) in Szostak’s putatively replicating self assembling protocells. That is certainly a testable, if not yet fully tested, abiogenesis pathway out of 2-3 components. Meanwhile we have this recent whole 5 component self assembling protocellular pathway yielding replicating and metabolizing protocells, if based on a demanding set of environmental characteristics and also likely unrelated to our biosphere.
However, if we look at testability in general, we have been good since we found the fossil record and the finite age of the Earth. (Or more recently, of the universe.) Observing non-life when life tests abiogenesis as a natural process.
The discovery that spontaneous generation happily bottlenecked abiogenesis to test a subset of models having abiogenesis as a rare process. (While pointing to the possibility that all life is related.) Score two for testability.
I am not well versed to the history of the field, but I can pick up the trail at Wäschterhäuser’s surface metabolism pathway of 1988. If not before, it became apparent that this elaborated pathways was testable 2008. A paper could show that the theory predicted enzymes at the outset being at least as proficient as modern ones.
Somewhere here we join the RNA world/protocell pathway theories. I understand that Hazen et al continues to research surface metabolism, it has many merits.
If you are unhappy with having such low resolution theories, I believe a result of 2010 helps increase the reticulation. In “Impact of temperature on the time required for
the establishment of primordial biochemistry,
and for the evolution of enzymes”,
Randy B. Stockbridge et al shows how enthalpic enzymes are selected during chemical evolution of a cooling planet. And since we know from several other recent works that ATP metabolism was at least as old as nucleotide metabolism, at least during gene fixation, it results in a trait phylogeny of sorts.
Maybe the activation mechanism of monomers were in place before the polymers were.
More tests for early activation is the discoveries that modern bacteria can use inorganic polyphosphates instead of ATP and that these phosphates are produced around the subduction zones of plate tectonics.
That plate tectonics, or something like it, was present early is arguable, some observations on surviving early zircons says so, some not. Personally I believe the balance goes to the former option, but I am no geologist.
Having a token course in astrobiology under my belt I would claim that we have a field where pathways have been, arguably, invalidated, while many putative pathways remains, and some survive testing.
Yikes! That means, scientifically at least, no gaps for gods. Poor creationists, left behind.
Incidentally, why isn’t the No Child Left Behind Act applicable here? It is the law. (O.o)
If I were ever as “not well versed” in any field as Torbjorn is, I’d die happy…
Getting back to the question of activation of monomers, here is the changing timeline:
– Evidence for recycled crust, putatively evidence for sagduction and subduction (plate tectonics) both, ~ 2.8 Ga bp. (My course book, ~ 2006ish observations.)
– Evidence for plate tectonics in crust, ~ 3.8 Ga bp. (2007.)
– Evidence for plate tectonics in minerals, ~ 4.0 – 4.2 Ga bp. (2007.)
– Gene family clock estimate of earliest genes and specifically with ATP/PPi function, ~ 4.3 Ga bp. (2011; gene family self consistent model publication; own estimate.)
It’s certainly possible having a Szostak type protocell emerging right after the impactor that created the Earth-Moon system (>= 4.36 Ga bp). Maybe a late impactor set up the new crust (which had to reform) so that plate tectonics and PPi production was an immediate consequence.
Oops. The evidence for plate tectonics in minerals is from 2008. The point was that those few years pushed back the putative evidence a lot.
At least in the US these people proclaim their idiocy ‘in the synagogues and on street corners’. Here in the UK our politicians hide their religious shitwittery under a bushel.
If you lot vote for these imbeciles you get what you deserve. I didn’t vote for Blair but those that did were completely unaware of what a complete religious fruitloop he was. We now have Cameron who seems to be a weather-vane politician who panders to the religious lobby and seems to be unaware of what a bunch of heathens we all are.
If they’re successful in hiding their religion there must be something wrong with your press. I’d be happy to send you ours, if you promise to keep them…
“Evolutionists” (whatever the hell that is) say that “Intelligent Design” is a theory? Wow – that’s new to me. She’s obviously happy to make insane crap up (let’s not forget her anti-vaccination stance and the lie about someone telling her that a daughter became retarded thanks to vaccines) – how the hell is she even a contender for President? Are we living in a Hitchcock production with the loonies ruling?
It is an old claim of IDiots that ID is testable. Turned out it wasn’t, too fuzzy in the magic way (“predicts everything so tests nothing”) which explains their use of it.
Behe’s “irreducible complexity” is orthogonal to ID. And unfortunately for them, Muller used interlocking complexity as a test _for_ evolution.
Looney Tunes – no longer comical. :-/
Nowdays no one should be elected to public office who does not believe in evolution. Why? If he/she reject this settled matter in science what else might they reject and put our nation at risk? However, there is no way to prevent this except vote for the Dems.
Tho they’re equally infested with craven dingbats. And every bit as in bed with corporate cash.
I vote, mostly Democratic, every election, but I no longer think it matters much. Until we abolish the electoral college and adopt some form of preferential voting system we’re screwed.
My recent great find is a series of Teach the Controversy Tshirts. http://controversy.wearscience.com/
Not sure if my favorite is Alchemy or Atlantis. The trouble is I don’t think the target audience would actually get the humor.
Just for the record: Gingrich does not doubt evolution.
It’s true that in 2006, Gingrich said, “evolution should be taught as science, and intelligent design should be taught as philosophy,” Now that he’s trying for the nomination and pandering to the wackos, at an Iowa campaign event, after blathering about God and how the country has gone to hell since they took out school prayer, he mocked evolution when he said, “Fine, how do you think we came to — we’re randomly gathered protoplasm? We could have been rhinoceroses but we got lucky this week?”
It’s not so much what he actually believes that is important, but who he is beholden to, and who he must placate as president. Same with stem cell research, which he is all in favor of. Except, “But I am opposed to getting involved in a process of killing children in order to have research materials.” And this is the GOP science heavyweight.