Advice for GOP Candidates

Philosopher of science Jay Richards co-wrote a column for the American Spectator with David Klinghoffer in which they offer some advice to presidential candidates about how to handle the inevitable evolution/creationism question. Journalists who themselves know little about the issue seem to delight in ambushing political candidates, or more precisely Republican political candidates - since they're not likely ever to do this to a Democrat - with a question about teaching creationism in public schools.

So far this campaign season a version of the question has been posed to Michelle Bachman, Tim Pawlenty, and Chris Christie (who is not a declared candidate, but they fear he will be). There's only one reason for asking politicians to respond to what is usually a very poorly framed query and that is to embarrass them as they struggle to come up with an answer that makes them sound neither uninformed nor unsophisticated. There can be no other reason, at least no good reason, since what a president believes about what should be taught in schools is pretty much irrelevant, the case law on the matter being what it is.

Anyway, what Richards and Klinghoffer suggest is this:

Asked about evolution, here's what Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, or Chris Christie could have said:

"Life has a very long history and things change over time. However, I don't think living creatures are nothing but the product of a purposeless Darwinian process. I support teaching all about evolution, including the scientific evidence offered against it."

Dogmatic neo-Darwinians won't like that answer (they admit of no scientific arguments against their theory, unlike in any other area of scientific inquiry). But some other scientists will be fine with it, and, according to Zogby polling data, so will the 80 percent of Americans who favor allowing students and teachers to discuss evolutionary theory's strengths and weaknesses.

Such a formulation, true to the scientific evidence and to the Constitution, would also be devilishly hard for rival candidates to disagree with. Campaign staff and advisors would do well to commit something like it to memory.

Of course, they shouldn't have to, but sadly, given the shallowness of so much contemporary journalism, they do. I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing they'll have to have an opinion on is the Casey Anthony trial. Maybe John King of CNN can work the creation/evolution thing into a "This or That" question if anyone ever lets him moderate another debate.