Rick Perry the Creationist

[n2doc]

Posted on: August 17, 2011 9:01 AM, by Ed Brayton

Now that Rick Perry has officially announced he's running for the Republican nomination for president, the Texas Freedom Network looks at his long history of promoting creationism in public school science classrooms.

"Recognizing that evolution is a theory, and not claimed by anyone to be more than that, the governor believes it would be a disservice to our children to teach them only one theory on the origin of our existence without recognizing other scientific theories worth consideration. Intelligent design is a concept that is gaining greater traction because it points to a notion that most people believe to be true: that we were created by an intelligent being who designed the human race with great detail and complexity...."


Ah, the tried and ridiculous "evolution is just a theory so we should present all theories" argument, which is convincing only to those who are ignorant of what the word "theory" means. If you think a theory is a wild-assed guess, this argument sounds compelling. If you know what the word actually means, it is revealed as utter nonsense.

Evolution is one of the strongest theories of science. For the past 150 years it has been enormously successful at predicting the nature of new evidence and has shown enormous explanatory power over a dozen fields of science. Intelligent Design explains nothing and relies on misleading arguments and "god of the gaps" reasoning. They are not equivalent in any way.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/08/rick_perry_the_creationist.php

[gratuitous]

1. Actually, evolution is more than a theory, it's demonstrated fact

As surely as water boils at 100°C, evolution occurs. These are indisputable facts. The mechanism of evolution is the theory. Is it natural selection? Survival of the fittest? Punctuated equilibrium? A combination of observed events, or something else?

[mysuzuki2]

2. It is "only" a theory that the earth is round.

Let's teach the "theory" that the earth is flat too and let the students make up their own minds. It is "only" a theory that the earth revolves around the sun. Let's also teach the "theory" that the sun revolves around the earth and let the students make up their own minds. Evolution is as established a scientific FACT as the above examples. Where the theory part comes in is explaining how evolution actually operates. There are several schools of thought on that topic and these should be taught in schools.

[and-justice-for-all]

3. The continued misrepresentation of the term theory...

Evolution is a theory, just like the the Theory of Relativity and all the other concrete natural explanations for how things work. Evolution is a fact that explains life without breaking natural laws, no god is necessary to explain anything and I mean anything.