No, because those people are acting in an official capacity as advisers and political philosophy is directly related to establishing public policy.
I think when those associations are made, you have to be able to show what makes those associations relevant.
The association being made about Darwin are being made to "fill in the blanks" to build evidence with the objective of applying it to a theory based on a misperception that it is relevant to that theory.
That does not strike me as being a particularly sound methodology.
And Frank Marshall Davis, a communist, was a friend and adviser to Obama when he was just a child growing up in Hawaii.
And then theres Reverend Wright, a black liberation theologian with sympathies to anti-Israel regimes, who was his minister for more than two decades longer than Obama has been in politics.
And so on.
None of these hold an official capacity as adviser, but a person would not be irrational to conclude they affected Obamas thinking.
That does not strike me as being a particularly sound methodology.
Some no doubt would say that Darwin should get a pass on filling in the blanks because he was a scientist and Obama should not because he is a politician.
But others would say not so, because the way people look at the world around them can be influenced by many, that it would be a non-sequitir to conclude that because Darwin's theory is science it then therefore cannot influence the worldview of others.
And I would advocate on that point, that science is rooted in philosophy.
Beginning of Modern Science and Modern Philosophy
Well good grief, tacticalogic, if as you say these men are acting in an official capacity to establish public policy, wouldn't you say it's important that we understand what they think and believe since we are the public the policies are intended to affect?
I think when those associations are made, you have to be able to show what makes those associations relevant.
Why not just try your eyes!
Captain Zero's public policies are all "radical progressive," totalizing ones, of the Marxist, Communist, socialist, some say fascist sort; with shades of Alinsky-style anarchism and Black Liberation tossed in for good measure. It seems clear to me that "Obama's advisors" have been affecting his thinking and for a very long time back to childhood, e.g., Frank Marshall Davis at least.
I think it's also true that, as David Horowitz recently noted, none of these people have spent 15 minutes in their entire lives thinking about what constitutes the Good Society. What they are up to is all about Power, and only about Power consolidated in their own hands, of course.