Ape Has Killed Ape
Michael Shermer, author of Why People Believe Weird Things, has a good response to the Deepak Chopra post mentioned below. One thing I found kinda strange though was this bit :
As for our President’s alleged endorsement of Intelligent Design, he didn’t. The media hyped it and everyone heard what they wanted to hear. There was considerable media hype over the story, and I did a number of interviews, including a live debate on CNN with lead Intelligent Design theorist William Dembski. Here’s what actually happened. On Monday, August 1, Bush gave an interview at the White House to a group of Texas newspaper reporters in which he said that when he was governor of Texas “I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.” When a reporter asked for his position today on whether ID is a legitimate scientific alternative to the theory of evolution, Bush wisely equivocated: “I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.” Well of course, but that’s a different question.Our President was simply being politic in his choice of words. In fact, Bush’s science adviser, John H. Marburger 3rd, said in a telephone interview with the New York Times that “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” He added that the president’s comments should be interpreted to mean that ID be discussed not as science but as part of the “social context” in science classes, and that it would be “over-interpreting” Bush’s remarks to conclude that the president believes that ID and the theory of evolution should be given equal treatment in public school science courses.
That’s a nice thing to hear, but one hopes that the President pays a little more attention to his science advisor than he does to his economic, environmental, and military advisors.
2 comments
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.


Well, the next reporter who gets Bush’s ear should pin him down. Something like: “Mr. President, when you said that ‘both sides should be properly taught’ did you mean that evolution should be presented as a scientific fact and that Intelligent Design should be ‘properly’ presented as an example of a an unscientific masquerade promoted, foremost, by those with religious and political agendas?”
Follow up: “Why do so many conservatives hate science?”
Comment by oyster — August 26, 2005 @ 12:21 pm
“I’ve looked at life from both sides now”
Since there are many, many sides, let’s also include Gilgamesh & Ishtar, the Norse Giant Ymir, Zoroastrianism, heck, the list goes on and on. Let’s teach ALL sides to this issue, and let everyone figure it out for themselves.
After all, isn’t Empirical Observation what it’s all about? No, wait, it’s faith? Now I’m confused.
How about science? Let’s try that.
Comment by SteveAudio — August 28, 2005 @ 1:09 am