Evolution and Politics

I am holding back a bit on the political stuff, at present...

The whole picture of it is less than satisfying, divisive and generally a conflated mess of talking points that amount to nonsense.
You and I both know it, even if we have differing opinions on what should be done to improve our situation.

Anyway, I do find some of the yammering from GOP hopefuls to be a bit...

Crazy.

The evolution thing, for example.


I thought this Dawkins post spoke to that rather effectively-

A politician’s attitude to evolution is perhaps not directly important in itself. It can have unfortunate consequences on education and science policy but, compared to Perry’s and the Tea Party’s pronouncements on other topics such as economics, taxation, history and sexual politics, their ignorance of evolutionary science might be overlooked. Except that a politician’s attitude to evolution, however peripheral it might seem, is a surprisingly apposite litmus test of more general inadequacy. This is because unlike, say, string theory where scientific opinion is genuinely divided, there is about the fact of evolution no doubt at all. Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Evolution is not some recondite backwater of science, ignorance of which would be pardonable. It is the stunningly simple but elegant explanation of our very existence and the existence of every living creature on the planet. Thanks to Darwin, we now understand why we are here and why we are the way we are. You cannot be ignorant of evolution and be a cultivated and adequate citizen of today.

I still find it baffling that evolution is still a relevant talking point, in the political context.

Perhaps I have too much faith in the reasoning abilities of my fellow citizens?