Texas Gov. Rick PerryGOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry is the latest high-profile politician to purposefully and publicly stir religion, science, education and politics into an unsavory stew. The result is an affront to most people of genuine faith, a setback for public education, a sullying of science and an embarrassment to the millions of Americans who believe that politics ought to be about good governance rather than a vehicle for self-promotion.
Perry, the governor of Texas and, according to recent polls, the favorite to win the Republican nomination for president, made it clear during a recent campaign talk that he believes in “intelligent design” — code words for evolution. He told a young questioner in New Hampshire that evolution is “just a theory” with “some gaps in it.” He added that in Texas they teach “both creationism and evolution.”
Those statements might serve a vital political purpose for the ambitious Perry, who is courting the right and far-right wing of his party, but they deny the truth on the one hand and defy widely accepted research on the other. A man who wants to be president, though, should stick to the truth. If he does not, someone will set him — and the public — straight.
It didn’t take long after Perry made his statements about evolution for that to occur. A large number of individuals, including many from his own party and many with deep religious beliefs, quickly challenged his statement that evolution is “just a theory” and publicly contradicted his account of what is taught in Texas schools. In both instances, the challengers got it right.
They pointed out that decades of research into the fossil record and the human genome as well as related studies in other areas had produced an almost unassailable body of evidence to support the principle that all life on Earth arises from a common ancestor or gene pool. Consequently, most scientists now believe that evolution does occur. The only remaining questions are how and why it does. Perry obviously prefers to think otherwise.