Friday, May 04, 2007

I wonder how they feel about gravity and heliocentrism?

Three out of ten Republican presidential candidates do not believe in evolution: Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo.

From the article:

"None is a front-runner but even so there will be American scientists who will feel deeply depressed that serious politicians in 2007 can be disputing the entire thrust of modern knowledge about how the world was formed and how it, well, evolved."

Count me as one of those depressed American scientists. Evolution is not a matter of opinion, it is a scientific fact. If you do not "believe" in it, you are STUPID and WRONG and should not be running for President of a modern nation.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh sure -- gravity and heliocentrism -- scientist get somethings right every now and then. But what about phrenology?

Anonymous said...

There isn't a whole lot of scientific support for resurrection and magical carpenter/sky gods, but that doesn't stop billions of people from believing in these things. Are they all stupid and wrong?

eileen said...

Antoine, I'm not making the argument that God doesn't exist or religion is false. Your examples are matters of faith and not comparable to scientific conclusions based on centuries worth of data and experimental evidence. Contrary to how you are trying to spin it, science and religion are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Evolution is indeed a scientific fact, a natural phenomenon, just like gravity, and not believing in evolution is akin to not believing that the Earth is round. Those who deny the truth of evolution are indeed incorrect and yes, STUPID. Gah!

Anonymous said...

I understand what you are saying, but to me, evolution contradicts too many fundamental precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Arguing that man was created by an accident of mutation and natural selection creates a completely impotent god.

I would also ask, why would any rational person accept the divinity of Jesus? There is no scientific or historical basis for it. You only believe because of a tremendous leap of faith. To me, accepting evolution as fact rather than a misinterpretation of god's will is not that much different.

Anonymous said...

Antoine (or others struggling with the idea that evolution/scientific progress/etc and God can and do coexist), you might enjoy reading "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth Miller... or perhaps something by John Haught or Francis Collins.