Perhaps most disturbing in broad policy terms is his support for teaching intelligent design in public school. Jindal's position on creationism and intelligent design reveals a colossal break with reason that we cannot accommodate again in our elected officials. Bush was a disaster we dare not repeat, but Jindal appears to be nothing but W with Indian ancestry. Denying the validity of evolution is no different than claiming atoms do not exist or that the DNA is not genetic code, or that al Qaeda was in Iraq before our invasion. Jindal's position is untenable.
(Ea). So Bush was a disaster because he didn't believe in evolution? Okay. If we make believing/not believing in evolution the dichotomous variable on which to judge candidates, then you'd have to support a third W. term, because he believes in evolution.
"I think you can have both [evolution and creationism]. I think evolution can — you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."
W's take-away is that, yes, God could have used evolution, but he also could have used something else. It's fundamentally a position of ambiguity, a postmodern tact Schweitzer should fondle.
But Schweitzer doesn't fondle it -- instead, he delivers the same dogmatic certainty he so loathes in fundamentalists.
The rest of the world beyond the insular borders of the United States understands that evolution is the most thoroughly tested, documented, proven scientific fact ever put forth. To debate evolution is to question that the earth is round. To question the reality of evolution is absurd.
(Ea) A "proven, scientific fact". What a pleonasm. The theory of evolution will never be a "scientific fact". We can only prove adaptation, but not the kind of salamander fucking an alligator up the ass to get a horse theory of origins Schweitzer's presumably talking about.
Second, it's absurd to question the reality of evolution? What the hell are scientists good for, then, if not to question and test things. Failing to question evolution is absurd. Even Stephen Gould would agree. It's certainly not absurd to believe it, but it is absolutely absurd to accept it without rigorous logic and/or experimentation.
Schweitzer and some fundamentalist Christians are the same beast -- they huff and puff until they blow the other house down... only to realize the other house is actually a mirror.
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