If a candidate for President of the United States announced on national television that he believed that the world was flat, and that fantastic sea monsters lurked in the depths near the edge of the world, would you feel he had the requisite knowledge or judgment to be President? For the most part, looking at a politician's belief in science is useful only because it is indicative of his analytical abilities, and someone who believes in sea monsters or creationism probably also doesn't have the requisite analytical abilities to manage bureaucracy, defeat terrorism or keep social security solvent.
But belief in evolution may be useful for policy as well. Suppose that there's an epidemic, and the President refuses to take certain preventative measures because he doesn't believe the pathogen can evolve. In that case, hopefully unlikely, people could actually die because of a failure to accept modern science.
I think you agree with the author. Are you an athest? (a real question, not intended to insult).
You’re absolutely correct about one thing. Those without the analytical ability to reject flat earth-like theories (such as macroevolution) should be nowhere near public office.
Now you are conflating a scientific knowledge of the “evolutionary process” of mutations and genetic manipulations with the historical recreations of the origins of species using an evolutionary, non-creative framework.
They are two separate things. If a person doesn’t think mutations exist, they are denying what can be seen with their own eyes, and tested and proven.
But (not advancing a theory) if God simply created the universe 10,000 years ago with exactly the properties it would possess had it evolved over 4 billion years, all your “science” would be unable to tell the difference.
And if there WAS a creation, that creation had to make everything SOMEHOW, so to argue that it’s absurd that a Creator WOULD make things in one manner or another is simply to argue against something you probably don’t believe anyway.
After all, some things would almost have to be created with appearance of age — gravity seems to operate in the time domain, so to create a solar system, the Creator would best apply gravity as if the things brought into being had done so minutes earlier (such that the gravity was already effecting the outcome), and if you are going to create lights in the sky, it makes sense to create the light waves reaching the earth.
In fact, it would be really funny if God just created the light wave/particles/effects, and skipped the whole actual BODIES, for things that were “too far away”.
This is not what I believe, or don’t believe, it’s just to point out that once I accept that there is a God powerful enough to create the universe, your entire theory of Evolution is useless for explaining origins, as my God’s creation could be precisely aimed at misleading those who refuse to believe in Him.
Fantastic red herring.
Or he could be an evolutionist and decide to let all those unfit organisms (people) get killed off by natural selection.