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Huckabee Bristles at Creationism Query

By LIZ SIDOTI and LIBBY QUAID
16 hours ago

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher who has surged in Iowa with evangelical Christian support, bristled Tuesday when asked if creationism should be taught in public schools.

Huckabee — who raised his hand at a debate last May when asked which candidates disbelieved the theory of evolution — asked this time why there is such a fascination with his beliefs.

"I believe God created the heavens and the Earth," he said at a news conference with Iowa pastors who murmured, "Amen."

"I wasn't there when he did it, so how he did it, I don't know," Huckabee said.

But he expressed frustration that he is asked about it so often, arguing with the questioner that it ultimately doesn't matter what his personal views are.

"That's an irrelevant question to ask me — I'm happy to answer what I believe, but what I believe is not what's going to be taught in 50 different states," Huckabee said. "Education is a state function. The more state it is, and the less federal it is, the better off we are."

The former Arkansas governor pointed out he has advocated for broad public school course lists that include the creative arts and math and science. Why, then, he asked, is evolution such a fascination?

In fact, religion seems to be more of an issue in the GOP Iowa caucuses with one month left before the voting.

In recent weeks, Huckabee has moved from the back of the pack in the state to challenge longtime leader Mitt Romney, who would be the first Mormon president. The race is now a dead heat, with the Iowa caucuses — the first contest in the nomination fight — set for Jan. 3. Christian evangelicals, by many estimates, make up anywhere from 30 percent to 50 percent of Republicans who will attend the caucuses.

Huckabee, at a dinner in Des Moines, told reporters that the theory of intelligent design, whose proponents believe an intelligent cause is the best way to explain some complex and orderly features of the universe, should be taught in schools as one of many viewpoints. "I don't think schools ought to indoctrinate kids to believe one thing or another," he said.

Earlier Tuesday in Newton, Iowa, Huckabee wouldn't say whether he thought Mormonism — rival Romney's religion — was a cult.

"I'm just not going to go off into evaluating other people's doctrines and faiths. I think that is absolutely not a role for a president," the former Arkansas governor said.

While he said he respects "anybody who practices his faith," Huckabee said that what other people believe — he named Republican rivals Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton — "is theirs to explain, not mine, and I'm not going to."

He also resisted wading into theology when pressed to explain why some evangelicals don't view the Mormon faith as a Christian denomination.

For months, Romney held wide leads in polls in the state, but he also has faced skepticism about his religion. The former Massachusetts governor plans to address his faith in a major speech Thursday in Texas.

Huckabee has consolidated the support of influential religious conservatives, primarily by reaching out to a network of pastors across the state. He spoke privately Monday night to several hundred gathered in Des Moines for a conference, the only presidential candidate to do so.

He appeared with more than 60 Iowa pastors endorsing him at a news conference Tuesday, including best-selling author Tim LaHaye of "Left Behind" fame and his wife, Beverly. Also endorsing him was Chuck Hurley, an influential Iowa conservative who had backed Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a conservative who quit the race in October.

LaHaye called Huckabee "the most electable candidate who shares our commitment."

As he has risen in polls, Huckabee has emphasized his own faith and in recent weeks has sought to draw subtle distinctions with his rivals by running a TV ad on the issue in the state.

"Faith doesn't just influence me. It really defines me. I don't have to wake up every day wondering what do I need to believe," Huckabee says in the ad. "Let us never sacrifice our principles for anybody's politics. Not now, not ever."

A group affiliated with Huckabee supporters has begun taking on his rivals directly, organizing caucus-goers in Iowa and making automated phone calls that favor Huckabee and criticize his rivals. Huckabee has urged an end to the calls; Romney on Tuesday asked Iowa's attorney general to investigate the group's activities.

Huckabee said an investigation "would be fine with me."

"As you heard me say, I repudiate anything that attacks another person. It does not help us. I believe it hurts us."





An Open Letter to the Texas Education Agency and State Board of Education regarding science education and the termination of Chris Comer

As representatives of various scientific societies, we write to express our deep concern about the recent termination of Chris Comer from her job as Director of Science Curriculum for the Texas Education Agency (TEA). According to press reports, Ms. Comer was forced to resign for political reasons, directly after she forwarded an email announcement about a lecture critical of Intelligent Design (ID). These reports are deeply troubling. Not only has Ms. Comer suffered an apparently grave injustice, but it appears that members of the TEA administration are willing to sacrifice standards of science education in the state of Texas to partisan political ideology. This is just the kind of purging employed by Trofim Lysenko and other ideologues within the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, when rejection of well-established principles of Mendelian genetics set Soviet biology back by 50 years. We fear that the stage is now being set for a similar erosion of science education for a current generation of Texas students.

The Austin America-Statesman (Nov. 20, 2007) reported that the call to fire Ms. Comer came from TEA’s senior adviser on statewide initiatives, Lizzette Reynolds. We are shocked by Ms. Reynold’s statement that the email in question is “highly inappropriate” in assuming that evolution “is a subject that the agency supports.” We are further shocked by the purported rationale for termination in the published memorandum from Monica Martinez: that Ms. Comer's email “implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker's position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral," and that this "creat[es] the perception that TEA has a biased position." And we are dumbfounded by TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe’s implication, reported in the New York Times (Dec. 2, 2007), that evolutionary science is a matter of “personal opinions and beliefs.”

Such statements betray an astonishing lack of understanding about not only about basic biology, for which evolution is fundamental, but also about the nature of science generally. It is not a matter of “personal opinions and belief” to include well-established scientific findings, such as Mendelian genetics or evolution, in science classes. It is not “biased” to exclude unfounded pseudo-scientific ideology such as Lysenkoism or “Intelligent Design” from science curricula. Indeed, for a science educator or agency to “remain neutral” about such critical matters—which go to the very heart of science education—would be the height of professional irresponsibility.

In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in science classes violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Since that 1987 ruling, the creationist movement has “evolved” into “Intelligent Design” in a thinly veiled attempt to avoid the issue of separation of church and state. Intelligent Design has been exhaustively discussed in the academy and its claims to scientific status have been carefully examined and thoroughly dismissed. Its specious arguments against evolution have been considered and soundly refuted. The recent Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board Federal Court case only confirmed what scientists and philosophers of science had long before concluded—“Intelligent Design” is not a scientific theory but a narrow religious view that aims to establish itself above other, mainstream, religious faiths. It has no place in the science classroom, neither explicitly nor disguised under the false pretence of teaching “controversy” in science. Any responsible educational agency should exercise careful oversight to ensure that such religious ideology is not included in the science curriculum.

Indeed, scientists and science educators should be even more pro-active. As part of its 6 November 2002 Board Resolution on Intelligent Design, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) expressed the general conclusion of the scientific community that “Intelligent Design” creationism was not science. Moreover, it explicitly called upon its over 260 affiliated scientific societies “to assist those engaged in overseeing science education policy to understand the nature of science, the content of contemporary evolutionary theory and the inappropriateness of 'intelligent design theory' as subject matter for science education."

SSE concurs with the AAAS Board’s conclusions and its recommendation. Professional ethics demands that one not “remain neutral” when science is deliberately misrepresented by creationists. Chris Comer thus acted responsibly and professionally in forwarding the announcement about an educational lecture regarding “Intelligent Design” creationism.

In contrast, the administrators who called for her termination and who forced her resignation acted irresponsibly and in direct opposition to the professional standards expected of those who oversee science education. Their comments, quoted above, make it clear that they have sacrificed not only a dedicated public servant but also the facts and the very nature of science to partisan political ideology. It is a sad day for Texas when TEA administrators resort to Stalinist-style purging to suppress the truth about the bankruptcy of “Intelligent Design” arguments.

The TEA loses considerable stature and credibility in making Ms. Comer a martyr to political interference in the teaching of science. We urge the TEA to instead immediately reinstate Ms Comer in her position as TEA’s Director of Science Curriculum. We also applaud Ms. Comer for her distinguished career in science education and her dedication to defending sound education for the children of Texas.

Robert T. Pennock, Chair, Education Committee
Johanna Schmitt, president-Elect
Donald Waller, President

All, Society for the Study of Evolution
http://www.evolutionsociety.org/

Rick Amasino, Past-President, American Society of Plant Biologists
http://www.aspb.org





Brazos County Democratic Party
P.O. Box 4568
Bryan Texas 77805
979-779-5600 Fax 979-779-5601

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman, Democrat, President of the United States of America