Friday, July 8, 2005
Every once in awhile I get that "squirmy" feeling of discomfort about my self-label of "conservative." Reading this survey piece of prominent conservative columnists and their opinions on Evolution and Intelligent Design gave me one of those moments.
The New Republic: CONSERVATIVES AND EVOLUTION
I like Bill Kristol, but this is an awfully weasly answer:
Whether he personally believes in evolution: "I don't discuss personal opinions. ... I'm familiar with what's obviously true about it as well as what's problematic. ... I'm not a scientist. ... It's like me asking you whether you believe in the Big Bang."
How evolution should be taught in public schools: "I managed to have my children go through the Fairfax, Virginia schools without ever looking at one of their science textbooks."
Thankfully, Charles Krauthammer to the rescue:
Whether he personally believes in evolution: "Of course."
What he thinks of intelligent design: "At most, interesting."
Whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools: "The idea that [intelligent design] should be taught as a competing theory to evolution is ridiculous. ... The entire structure of modern biology, and every branch of it [is] built around evolution and to teach anything but evolution would be a tremendous disservice to scientific education. If you wanna have one lecture at the end of your year on evolutionary biology, on intelligent design as a way to understand evolution, that's fine. But the idea that there are these two competing scientific schools is ridiculous."