Montana Governor Calls Out a Creationist

[CyberGuy]

Montana Governor Calls Out a Creationist

AP

BOZEMAN (Oct. 9) - A Republican state lawmaker is criticizing Gov. Brian Schweitzer for comments he made to a newspaper here about the lawmaker's belief that the planet is not millions of years old.

Here is a survey on AOL.

Is it bigoted to reject creationism?

No 74%

Yes 26%

Was it appropriate for the governor to call out the lawmaker?

Yes 65%

No 35%

Rep. Roger Koopman, R-Bozeman, called Schweitzer's statement "incredibly bigoted."

Speaking to a crowd of school children, parents and teachers in Bozeman on Friday about global warming, Schweitzer asked how many in the crowd thought the Earth was hundreds of millions of years old. Most of the children in the audience raised their hands.

He then asked how many believed the planet was less than a million years old. At least two people, including Koopman, who was in the crowd, raised their hands.

During an interview later with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Schweitzer noted Koopman's response. He said some people believe the planet is only 4,000 to 6,000 years old, despite geological evidence to the contrary.

Schweitzer said he needs support from a state Legislature that will help move Montana's agenda forward, "not people who think the Earth is 4,000 years old."

Koopman called the comments insulting.

"He insulted many Christian people and other people of faith that arrived at that position other than the way I arrived at it," he said.

Schweitzer did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment Sunday or Monday.

Koopman said his belief in the Earth's age is not based on his faith, but on his scientific investigations.

Koopman had initially planned to introduce a bill during the 2005 Legislature allowing the teaching of the controversial "intelligent design" theory, and other alternatives to evolution, in public schools. He never pursued the measure and said he has no plans to introduce a similar bill in the next session if re-elected.

The theory of creationism states that life and the Earth were created by God from nothing, while intelligent design, a secular form of creationism, argues the Earth was created by a series of intelligent events, not random chance. Evolution says that species change in response to environmental and genetic factors over the course of many generations.

Critics contend intelligent design is nothing more than creationism in disguise, but proponents say the theory isn't religious because it doesn't state who or what the intelligent designer is.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that creationism is religion and cannot be taught as science in public schools.

[Naomi]

Someone needs to send him a copy of our SS Lessons for this quarter ... or perhaps tapes

[Dr. Shane]

Well the journalist seems to be mixing up creationism with intelligent design. While secular progressives oppose both being taught in public school, they are not the same. If the intelligent design movement would try to get it taught in philosophy of science classes instead of natural science classes they would likely have more success. Science is too limitted in its scope which creates too high of a threshold to introduce intelligent design.

Looking at it politically, the governor seems to be a bit foolish. The old atage is "choose your battles carefully" and demeaning half of the electorate perhaps isn't a battle a politician facing re-election would want to fight.

Notice the elections where evolutionists have been victorous have been Spring elections. These are to elect school boards and the like. They are the ones with extreame low voter turnout. Those types of elections allow political machines the most influence. November elections have much higher voter turnouts and as a result the influence of a political machine is not as great.