The Blue Voice

Thursday, December 29, 2005

"Brother Jeb" Bush hearts the flat-earthers

On the face of it, it looks like Brother Jeb is trying to outdo his presidential brother in kissing up to the Christian Right. You wouldn't know it from the title of the article, though: [Jeb] Bush: Science comes before intelligent design by Daniel Ricker Miami Herald 12/26/05.

But what Ricker actually quotes Bush as saying is this:

The Watchdog Report [Ricker] asked a follow-up question: Does the governor believe in Darwin's theory of evolution?

Bush said: "Yeah, but I don't think it should actually be part of the curriculum, to be honest with you. And people have different points of view and they can be discussed at school, but it does not need to be in the curriculum." (my emphasis)

It's a real sign of the extent to which the Christian Right has become an integral part of today's Republican Party that Dubya and even that bold, independent Maverick McCain are cowtowing to them by adopting their position on creationism, aka, "intelligent design".

The current Christian Right slogan, tailored to their current legal strategy, is "teach the controversy". What it means in practice is that they want to require public schools to teach the creationist scam in science classes as science along with the theory of natural selection, aka, Darwinian evolution.

Problem is, there is no scientific "controversy" about creationism. The creationists, basing themself on a religious theory that they dress up as science for both legal and philosophical reasons, have made their own "controversy" over the theory of evolution. But it's a controversy between a particular Protestant fundamentalist religious view and a scientific view. Not one between competing scientific theories. Their attempt to dress up creationism as the "science" of intelligent design is just one more of the scams that have become the modus operandi of the Christian Right and of today's Republican Party.

You might say it's a controversy between science and a scam.

What Rickers quotes the Florida governor as saying, though, goes beyond even the current slogan of "teach the controversy". He said he doesn't think evolution should be taught in the public schools at all!

It sure sounds like Brothuh Jeb is trying to make sure nobody gits theirselves positioned to the right of him when it comes to kissin' up to the flat-earthers.

(Parenthetical note for any godless heathens among our readers: "Brother" is commonly used in Baptist churches as a ministerial title, like "Reverend" in many Protestant denominations, or "Father" for Catholic priests.)

What will Brother Jeb try next? Writing into the graduation standards for Florida high school students that they have to memorize the four Gospels word for word?

Brother Jeb's spokesman did come out later in the week with an attempt to cloud the issue a bit: Leave evolution out of standards, Bush says: The governor does not think the theory belongs in the state's school science standards; a spokesman later says he is not against teaching it St. Petersburg Times/AP 12/28/05. (The headline is definitely better than the one used by the Herald.)

On Tuesday, Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss clarified Bush's position somewhat: Evolution "is a scientific theory and he's not opposed to it being taught in classrooms," Schweiss said. "But he doesn't think it should necessarily be dictated in the standards."

Florida's science standards do not mention evolution by name but do reference some of its core principles. They were slated to be reviewed next year, but state education officials decided a few weeks ago to postpone the process until 2007 or 2008.

Bush, a Catholic who personally believes God created life on Earth, also thinks science teachers should have some discretion to discuss "any scientific theory," Schweiss said.

It sounds like Schweiss' instructions must have been something like, "try to back off from Jeb's don't-teach-evolution-at-all comment but do it without ticking off the flat-earthers".

Yep, that's the Republican Party of 2005. Its 2006 successor isn't likely to look any different. They're joined at the hip with the Christian Right. Including Brother Jeb, of course.

posted at 6:50:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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