George W. Bush way smarter than Ben Stein

[hgc]

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/better-late-never

I think you can have both. 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.


Leaving aside that he's not explicitly trashing ID creationism and that he's couching the whole thing in a bunch of religio-mystical mumbo-jumbo, this is quite nice to see. Kudos to President Bush. He says later down that he's not a literaralist, and I take that as an indication that his talk of a theistic creator of ".. the earth ... the world" is religious metaphor. Or perhaps it's just his usual confusion about his own views. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Now back to your regularly scheduled disdain: Why on God's green Earth did he run an anti-science administration?!? Anyone remember the college dropout religious fruitcake who was censoring the output of NASA scientists that didn't match the ideological line on global warming? Oh yeah - religious charlatanism always serves Mammon.

[CFLarsen]

It sounds a lot like he is confused about the difference between abiogenesis and evolution.

Maybe if someone explained both to him, he would actually say that evolution is right and creationism is not.

[Lonewulf]

Hey! Ben Stein isn't stupid. He's just misguided. :o

[Skeptic]

He says later down that he's not a literaralist, and I take that as an indication that his talk of a theistic creator of ".. the earth ... the world" is religious metaphor.

Er, usually "not a literalist" means that someone thinks (the Judeo-Christian) God DID create the universe, but that the creation did not go exactly like the literal account of Genesis has it.

[Lonewulf]

Er, usually "not a literalist" means that someone thinks (the Judeo-Christian) God DID create the universe, but that the creation did not go exactly like the literal account of Genesis has it.

Which can mean anything, such as that God directed evolution or anything else.

[Sefarst]

I take back 5% of the bad things I ever said about him.

[fuelair]

Speaking of Bush and NASA, the Orlando Sentinel this morn had an FP article stating that the current head of NASA is refusing to work with the Obama transfer team and he specifically insulted the person on it looking at NASA. IIRC '(she is) not qualified to talk about MY rockets.' !!

[hgc]

Er, usually "not a literalist" means that someone thinks (the Judeo-Christian) God DID create the universe, but that the creation did not go exactly like the literal account of Genesis has it.


Yeah, depends on how an apologist presents notions of creation. When he says "the world," I can imagine he's referring to his creator's sparking the Big Bang by striking a celestial match. When he says "the Earth," I can't imagine that anyone but a real literalist would reject the standard scientific line on the formation of the solar system due to what's said in Genesis, and neither, likely, is Bush. That means that he's even equivocating on the meaning of the word "creation," using it metaphorically for the natural processes in the aftemath of the nova that preceded it.

[luchog]

Er, usually "not a literalist" means that someone thinks (the Judeo-Christian) God DID create the universe, but that the creation did not go exactly like the literal account of Genesis has it.
To be more exact, the account in Genesis is not, and never has been, literal. The literary mode of Genesis varies, and that part of it is in a mode of Hebrew literature that is... not metaphorical exactly, but not literal either. Perhaps 'allegorical' is a better term. If memory serves, it's typically referred to as a "royal chronicle", which is a mode almost unique to ancient Hebrew and Aramaic literature. It chronicles the notable events and characteristics of a ruler in a poetic manner, and is not necessarily chonologically precise or a direct depiction of the actions of said ruler. It simply does not fit into a literalist framework without a lot of twisting and re-defining. There's nothing there that's incompatible with the science as we know it.

[Zelenius]

I think if George W Bush said in 2000 what he is saying now about religion and science, he probably wouldn't have won so much support from right-wing evangelical Christians and probably wouldn't have "won" the election(this is another debate entirely, I know).