Bush Unintelligently Endorses Intelligent Design

Oh, God. And no, I don't mean that religiously.

In an interview Monday at the White House with reporters representing Texas newspapers, Bush appeared to endorse the push by many of his conservative Christian supporters to give intelligent design equal treatment with the theory of evolution in public schools. Recalling his days as Texas governor, Bush said in the interview, "I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught." Asked again whether he believed that both sides in the debate between evolution and intelligent design should be taught in the schools, Bush replied that he did, "so people can understand what the debate is about... I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."

Memo to the Theocrat in Chief: There is no "debate" about evolution: no legitimate scientist doubts its existence or its functioning. It is a "theory" in a technical, scientific sense, not the pop sense of "possibly true." Evolution is to theory as banning murder is to law, a settled and - among the non-wingnuts - incontrovertible facet of life on Earth. Introducing a religiously-charged, relativistic approach to evolution makes America stupider.