Conservatives and evolution

Via Kevin Drum:

Do conservative thinkers and pundits believe in evolution? Ben Adler at the New Republic decided to find out. Here's a summary:

• 8 said yes: David Frum, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, William F. Buckley, James Taranto, David Brooks, Richard Brookhiser, and Ramesh Ponnuru.
• 3 said no: Grover Norquist, Stephen Moore, and Pat Buchanan.
• 4 waffled or declined to answer: Bill Kristol, John Tierney, Tucker Carlson, and Norman Podhoretz.

Coturnix compiles reactions to Adler's artcile at Science and Politics.

Comments

[global yokel]

The mere existence of "conservative thinkers and pundits" is ample proof that evolution is not a valid theory.

[mudkitty]

Fortunetly, facts don't require belief.

[Ol Cranky]

If I stop believing in Conservatives, will they go away?

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

Norman Podhoretz waffled or declined to answer? I thought only Christians were nutty on evolution (I'm a Christian, so I get to say that :-)). Then again, maybe he knows better, but isn't willing to come out and offend the nutty Christian right.

Sigh.

[Flint]

# 3 said no: Grover Norquist, Stephen Moore, and Pat Buchanan.
# 4 waffled or declined to answer: Bill Kristol, John Tierney, Tucker Carlson, and Norman Podhoretz.

These are the ones who are simply embarrased because they still have family members who walk on their knuckles.

[coturnix]

There is quite a lot of response around the blogs, Kevin's being the shortest and least sophisticated of them. I have compiled a number of them on my blog.

[epistemology]

Carlson is such a lying opportunist. More money to be made in conservative punditry, so that's where he is.

[epistemology]

Carlson is such a lying opportunist. More money to be made being a conservative bloviator, so that's where he is.

[Daniel]

Why doesn't anybody ask whether Bush et al. believes in the Book of Revelations? I think it's relevant given their control of mideast policy.

[Xerxes1729]

Pat Buchanan reveals his total lack of understanding of the issue when he repeatedly asserts that evolution cannot explain the origin of matter.

[Michael Bérubé]

It's even worse than that: Frum claims to believe in evolution and intelligent design, and Buckley says "yeah, sure, absolutely" to the question of whether schools should raise the possibility (but not in biology classes) that man was created by God in his present form. Frum also says we shouldn't teach things that offend Christians.

So it appears there are six conservative intellectuals in the punditocracy, at most. The rest are frauds and loons, with the Grovernator leading the pack. Nice to have it as part of the public record, just this once.

[mudkitty]

Grover Norquist's existance is an argument against evolution.

[pansauce]

You might want to take a look at the NYT article on one Catholic bishop's re-definition of the church's position on evolution.

Given the new pope, it's about what you'd expect, i.e. cover for the ID folks. However, it is heartening that the article about the change includes this paragraph:

Darwinian evolution is the foundation of modern biology. While researchers may debate details of how the mechanism of evolution plays out, there is no credible scientific challenge to the underlying theory.

Every article about evolution, or its detractors, needs to include that paragraph or one like it.

[Clayton]

If this catholic bishop is simply clarifying the previous pope's position, isn't it a bit curious that he waited for him to die before doing this since he had been presumably been troubled by widespread misinterpretation of the pope's views for years now? It seems to me that this bishop who wrote the NYT op-ed piece is really trying to hijack the catholic church (though he probably has friends in high places).

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

It's even worse than that: Frum claims to believe in evolution and intelligent design.

That's almost understandable, actually, because "intelligent design" is usually described so darn vaguely that it's hard to tell whether, in affirming it, you'd be affirming a stupidly literal reading of Genesis, or just some sort of vague belief that God created the universe, in some way or other. I'm still not sure whether "intelligent design" describes any theory which is actually falsifiable.

[MrPete]

Darwinian evolution is the foundation of modern biology. While researchers may debate details of how the mechanism of evolution plays out, there is no credible scientific challenge to the underlying theory.

Now if only they would also admit the truth-that-embarasses: "Darwinian evolution" is actually more than one theory. One part (special evolution) is accepted and foundational. The other parts (general evolution, and an accompanying historical timeline construct) are not even scientific (because they are not falsifiable hypotheses) let alone proven.

In essence: General evolution explains any observable trait. I.e., it explains *too much* and therefore explains nothing.

A good analogy: suppose we discover dog fossils for chihuahua, beagle, collie, great dane. We need a theory capable of denying that chihuahua leads to beagle, to collie, to great dane...

[MrPete]

I'm still not sure whether "intelligent design" describes any theory which is actually falsifiable.

Not sure about that one. AFAIK, others (see the new book "Origins of Life" by Ross) are generating non-evolutionary hypotheses that are truly falsifiable.

[Instant Dogma]

we're fucked.