Ben Carson Says Evolution is a Fairy Tale

[Airbrush]

This was a shocking revelation for me when I saw Fareed Zakariah interview a scientist about this.

 

Fareed went on to say almost all the republican candidates express a disbelief in evolution.

 

"Dr. Ben Carson...rejected some of the fundamental tenets of Darwinian evolution as "incredible fairy tales," asking how could "something come out of nothing" or "life evolve from non-life"? He also stressed that mutations in species tend to "degeneration," not improvement, and emphasized that "there are no intermediate species" to support the theory of evolution."

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/ben-carson-evolution-life-evolve-non-life-incredible-fairy-tales

 

It is terrifying to think that the next president may not believe in evolution. Or he is pretending to not believe because his supporters don't believe in the fact of evolution.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Airbrush

[iNow]

Ben Carson also said that Obamacare was worse than slavery, and at another time that Obamacare was worse than 9/11. He said that political correctness has made our country worse than nazi Germany, that the IRS is the same as the gestapo, and that being gay is a choice.

 

I watched the interview in Fareed Zakaria you mention. I also watched Ben Carson on Meet the Press today, and in the debate last week, and on numerous other occasions. To be frank, his lack of acceptance of the truth of evolution is the least of our concerns. More concerning to me is the fact that so many people seem him as a credible plausible candidate.

[Ophiolite]

Please select the response most pleasing to you:

 

1.Sadly, in a democracy, a people get the government they deserve.

 

2. Although he did not understand it, Hitler was a firm believer in evolution. Faced with the choice would you prefer Hitler or Carson?

 

3. Screw evolution! What's his economic policy?

 

4. Since he doesn't approve of political correctness it gives you great latitude in expressing your opinion of him.

 

5. Donald Trump's not looking quite so bad now, is he?

[MigL]

5- oh yes, Trump is still a clown.

 

But your first 4 were bang on.

[Sensei]

Once I said there must be mandatory IQ test done for the all politician, before they are elected..

 

I could now extend it to the level, if person doesn't know quantum physics, disallowed to be politician either.

[EdEarl]

Religious cultures change slowly. We live in future shock. If humanity survives long enough, religions will accept the current hot button science issues, just as they accepted Earth is not flat. To me, caring for humanity is critical, including climate and poverty. Unfortunately, opposition is strong and I have no magic.

[pzkpfw]

Seems to me (as an outsider, and no expert) that American politics has become more and more about polarisation.

 

There's less middle-ground; the two main parties strive to be more and more different than each other. That then tends towards the extremes.

 

It does seem this happens more with the Republicans *; their candidates seem to pander more to the extremes and absolutes of what they perceive as their party members beliefs. e.g. this "yay God, boo Darwin" stuff (which may be his genuine belief, but I still doubt an atheist would win the Republican nomination in any case).

 

I've seen commentators claim this is why they lost the last election. The ultra-right tea party types turn off the centre-right voters, who either abstain or vote Democrat; because the centre-left seems more aligned to their views than the far-right.

 

 

(* Republicans (as portrayed - by themselves - in the media, at least) seem to think that Democrats, being more "social", are gosh-darned Communists. But compared to much of the rest of the World, both Republicans and Democrats are on the Right.)

[MonDie]

If he is elected, it will be a sad day for the advancement of African Americans.

[iNow]

Screw evolution! What's his economic policy?

He plays all the classics like calls to end regulations and repeal Obamacare, but he also wants to implement a 10% flat tax (which would not only explode the deficit by decreasing revenues and raising the deficit by over 1-3 Trillion with a T dollars over the next 10 years, but also would place the heaviest tax burden on the already poor).

 

Carson says he'd implement a 3-4% general cut across every single government program like we did with the sequester, cuts that by definition include social security, Medicare, and military, though he's repeatedly claimed in both interviews and debates that he wouldn't cut any single one of those three.

 

He also wants to introduce a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget. This sounds wise and may make for a nice bumper sticker, but would consequently eliminate our ability to flex and ultimately survive economic downturns. It would make such downturns more frequent and more severe, increase job losses, and would p also prevent us from smart stuff like investing in programs with higher ROI than up front expenditure... Like what Eisenhower did when building the highways or Kennedy when targeting the moon).

 

Then, by some magic... erm... "dynamic" scoring, he claims that the "math works out very well" since these various steps and tax cuts will grow the economy like never before, despite decades of similar attempts having the exact opposite effect and them being contrary to what nearly every single objective economist and analyst says will happen when they actually run the numbers.

 

 

...their candidates seem to pander more to the extremes and absolutes of what they perceive as their party members beliefs. e.g. this "yay God, boo Darwin" stuff (which may be his genuine belief, but I still doubt an atheist would win the Republican nomination in any case).I've seen commentators claim this is why they lost the last election. The ultra-right tea party types turn off the centre-right voters, who either abstain or vote Democrat; because the centre-left seems more aligned to their views than the far-right.

Here's the challenge with your point. These Republican tactics have worked, and they've worked well. While Republicans have lost the last two presidential elections, they've absolutely been dominating both congressional and state-level elections across the country.

 

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/cokie-roberts/have-democrats-lost-900-seats-state-legislatures-o/

Our analysis shows Democrats have lost 910 seats since Obama took office. (You can see the changes in every state here.)

 

We took a state-by-state look of lost seats from the best source available, the National Conference of State Legislatures. Using the groups data, we compared the number of Democratic seats in early 2009, when Obama took office, to the number of seats after the 2014 midterms.

 

The bottom line: Republicans now control about 56 percent of the countrys 7,383 state legislative seats, up 12 percentage points since 2009.

 

Thirty-five states posted double-digit seat losses for the Democrats in state legislatures, including more than 50 seats each in Arkansas, New Hampshire and West Virginia.

 

Democrats during Obamas presidency lost 11 governorships, 13 U.S. Senate seats, 69 House seats, and 913 state legislative seats and 30 state legislative chambers.

[overtone]

Every major Republican Presidential candidate for the past four elections has claimed to have serious doubts about Darwinian evolution - we can all remember the panel of Republican candidates (a half dozen or more) a couple back solemnly raising their hands "yes" in response to that question.

 

The damage that kind of pandering to the fundies does is to education, and that is in State control by and large. It would be a bit embarrassing, in a President, but likely to be overshadowed by other and larger embarrassments if Carson ever moves into the White House - which is unlikely: He appears to be running a highly profitable campaign, something the Republican Party has introduced to the American scene as a kind of subgenre of the televangelist grift. With that as his apparent focus, he seems to be setting himself up to prove unelectable but lucratively martyred by the liberal media elite.

 

As far as his economic policies, he's a flat taxer to begin with - so he has none, essentially.

 

The dangerous aspect of Carson is that the Republican honchos have no interest in Presidential competence - as Norquist put it explicitly in 2012, they plan to run (ruin) everything from the Congress, and don't need their President to think - they are just looking for a guy who can sign the tax cut bills put in front of him. And they have a lot of influence on the media presentation of a guy like Carson - he'll be a standing joke on the left, but they will have no serious media access; as with W, as with Reagan even.

Edited November 2, 2015 by overtone

[iNow]

He appears to be running a highly profitable campaign, something the Republican Party has introduced to the American scene as a kind of subgenre of the televangelist grift.

 

Indeed, and it's much more organized and multi-tiered than most realize.

 

A shocking amount of conservative politics is a multilevel marketing scam

 

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/23/9603028/conservative-marketing-scam

most of these groups aren't really raising money in order to support conservative candidates for office or to lobby on behalf of conservative causes — they're raising millions of dollars and then spending 80 to 90 percent of that money on fees to consulting firms that are run by the people who started the groups. In effect, you have direct mail and email campaigns whose sole purpose is to raise funds to pay direct mail and email operatives.

 

Even Ben Carson's presidential campaign has something of this air about it. Carson is currently in second place in national polls and leading in Iowa. His campaign is raising tons of money from small donors and is spending most of that money on fundraising. People are giving Carson money so that he'll have the money to ask more people for money. It's a form of pyramid scheme.

[swansont]

To paraphrase someone on twitter (whose handle I can't recall), Ben Carson is causing us to re-evaluate the intelligence of brain surgeons.

[EdEarl]

Indeed, and it's much more organized and multi-tiered than most realize. A shocking amount of conservative politics is a multilevel marketing scamhttp://www.vox.com/2015/10/23/9603028/conservative-marketing-scam

Yes, and others are guilty of similar tactics. Politics in the US is a dirty business; most politicians succumb.

Edited November 2, 2015 by EdEarl

[Airbrush]

What is the consensus among democratic candidates? Maybe some of them are also disbelievers in science. According to Fareed Zakaria, 98% of scientists accept evolution, compared to only about 65% of the general US public.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Airbrush

[iNow]

Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have publicly acknowledged that they accept the truth of evolution.

[Arete]

So, my lab works on viral and bacterial evolution. I'm always a little confused by people who claim not to believe in evolution, as we actually watch it happen every day.

 

I'm also disappointed, but not overly surprised that an MD would express an anti-evolution viewpoint. Generally speaking, despite how core evolution is to the practice of medicine, most MD programs don't actually teach any evolutionary biology. One can potentially become a doctor without having studied evolution beyond a high school level - which I personally think deeply flawed. I am currently teaching evolutionary medicine to pre-med students to try and make sure that at least some of our future medical professionals understand how evolution affects medical practice and vice versa.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Arete

[Phi for All]

According to Fareed Zakaria, 98% of scientists accept evolution, compared to only about 65% of the general US public.

 

I don't think it's fair to poll until the engineered ignorance is filtered out. How many of those 35% that don't accept evolution have been told it would mean their god isn't real? The ultra-conservative candidates all seem to imply that they believe in God, not evolution, like it's mutually exclusive. It does no good to point to the Catholic's acceptance of the theory, because in many cases uber US right-wingers don't consider Catholics to be true Christians.

 

Must be part of the campaign to be the exact opposite of the Democrats, and eschew intellectualism, rational thought, long-range planning, sustainability, and knowledge, and replace it with fear and knee-jerk reactions.

[dimreepr]

I’ve always thought that anyone who wants to be a policeman should be rejected as an applicant; and that should, automatically, be extended to politicians, as anyone who thinks they know the answer almost certainly, doesn’t.

Edited November 2, 2015 by dimreepr

[CharonY]

I am currently teaching evolutionary medicine to pre-med students [...]

 

Off-topic, but my deepest condolences.

[Airbrush]

My feeling is that presidential candidates should be drafted or appointed, based on their intelligence. Most intelligent people would never want to be leaders. If someone WANTS to be a leader, watch out for them. There should be a way to search for great leaders based on certain criteria. Hitler wanted so badly to be a leader.

 

Phi for All: "....The ultra-conservative candidates all seem to imply that they believe in God, not evolution, like it's mutually exclusive."

 

That is a good point. Denying evolution is thought to look religious. Ben Carson and the others will deny evolution because it makes them look more Christian, and therefore more virtuous to their extremist supporters. It looks funny to see Trump, a very worldly man, try to look religious and therefore virtuous. I don't believe he loves the Bible as much as he says. What a good lier. There is a religious tyranny going on all over the world. Anyone who is NOT agnostic is either ignorant or a lier. The religous leaders must be intelligent enough to know what agnostic means, but they choose to deceive their followers to believe that God talks to them, all for the "greater good." That is why religion is in control. Even though religion is based on wishful thinking and lies, the religious leaders consider them good lies, for the greater good of the uneducated.

[CharonY]

Eh, you can be intelligent and be irrational or uneducated (and vice versa, of course). And if you do not want to lead, how can you force someone to still do a decent job?

Edited November 3, 2015 by CharonY

[MonDie]

Why have a leader? Why not a technocracy?

[John Cuthber]

So, he doesn't understand science?

I can't say I'm surprised; he doesn't seem to understand economics either.

[Airbrush]

Eh, you can be intelligent and be irrational or uneducated (and vice versa, of course). And if you do not want to lead, how can you force someone to still do a decent job?

 

True, but in the information age it may be possible to survey all the high performers in schools. There would be a set of agreed-upon qualities that we look for in a president. The best of the best students would be selected to go on to presidential school and learn to be a good president. They would be well-educated in the knowledge of international and domestic politics. They would be trained like Jedi knights and as great negotiators and debaters. Most of all they will be continually tested in all sorts of ways to weed out undesireables.

 

The public would vote also, as would an electral college, as we have today, but these candidates must not initially WANT to be president, but they could be PERSUADED to do the job, with great salary, perks, the best security, a chance to see the world, and they would be doing it for their country, and be remembered by history. It's a tough job but somebody has to do it. They would have a choice to opt out, but many may be convinced it is worth their while to run for the office.

 

That Ben Carson declares his disbelief in evolution just shows how delusional he is, or what a great lier he is if he suspects evolution is a fact but he must fake it to please his supporters, for the greater good in the long term.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Airbrush

[StringJunky]

I think he's bullshitting for popularity... means to an end. It takes 13 years to be a neurosurgeon and I can't believe he really thinks that.There must be a serious disconnect if he's sincere.