An excellent piece by Justin Webb at the BBC on the ongoing war on science by evangelical christians in the US and its impact on politics and the Republican party.

Patrick has previously blogged about so-called “intelligent design” and I don’t think I can improve on his points, suffice it to say that I am fervent supporter of evolution and rational science. Whether or not there is a higher power is a question beyond my faculties–agnostic is the best way to describe my views (nicely summarized by Bertrand Russell). However, I know enough about evolution to know that it does not purport to explain the creation of everything, but rather the development and variation of organisms. All we need to do is refer back to the title of Darwin’s masterpiece–The Origin of Species–how it is that the world came to be populated by numerous species. The origin of the building blocks of life are an open question. (If you press even the most staunch evolutionists they will tell you that we do not have a complete explanation for the emergence of the most fundamental building blocks of life–a modesty and humility that is lacking from the ID crowd.) And regardless, I still fail to understand how creationists manage to reconcile the two contradictaroy stories of creation from Genesis. If we are to take the Bible literally it seems a problem to me. In either case, replacing science with religous dogma is dangerous and irresponsible. Hopefully, Kansas can get its act together.

Filed as: Evolution, Intelligent Design