Ben Carson Says Evolution is a Fairy Tale

[Arete]

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.

 

The church that Trump claims to be a member of issued a statement stating that he is not an active member. Trump seems to me to be completely delusional - listening to him I keep waiting for the punch line, but he seems to actually believe the absurdities that come out of his mouth. At first I thought his campaign might be just an elaborate troll of the republican party, but a substantial minority of people seem to be buying into his crazy.

[CharonY]

I am not actually sure whether he believes what he is saying. Rather I think he may be just flexible in his believes and used to reality bending to his will, with the option of unbending once it suits him better.

 

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.

 

There are plenty of medical professionals that have weird beliefs, including in things related to biology, as such it is not a huge surprise. After all, he went through medical education which often omits or skips over a significant part of biology. And even if it did, evolution and other aspects have little impact on their jobs (as opposed to jobs in biological sciences).

[Phi for All]

I suppose it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. The current chairman of the House Science Committee is a Tea Party Christian Scientist, and a climate change skeptic. In the US, science, politics, and ignorance go hand in hand in hand.

 

How will the Republicans find representation when they have to make neurosurgeons AND Christian Scientists happy? Some perspectives really are mutually exclusive. At least they have misunderstanding and misrepresenting science as a common ground.

[Nouveau]

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.

 

I would certainly concur with that sentiment. Though sadly most of his target voters are unlikely to have the intelligence to realise it. So perverse in the way he's gone after that idiot sector of vote and with the garbage he's using to attact them for someone who really surely should know better, just shear shamelessness.

[iNow]

There would be a set of agreed-upon qualities that we look for in a president.

Agreed upon qualities such as, "shares my faith in Jesus; understands that evolution is bullshit; agrees that climate change a massive hoax; is passionate that abortion should be disallowed even in the case of rape, incest, and health of the mother; and wants to kill the EPA, abolish the Fed, and revoke all welfare/social safety net programs?"

 

Moral of the story: Finding agreement in politics is hard. Agreed upon items are harder to find than virgins at a porn shoot or polar bears in Monument valley.

 

More focused criticism: Determining what people (potential future candidates) actually want in a way that doesn't rely on flawed self-report measures will be well neigh impossible.

Edited November 4, 2015 by iNow

[MonDie]

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.

His brain may be atrophying from a disease. He's 64.

 

Regardless of his positions, he would get even more votes if he defended them well.

Edited November 4, 2015 by MonDie

[iNow]

I suppose it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. The current chairman of the House Science Committee is a Tea Party Christian Scientist, and a climate change skeptic. In the US, science, politics, and ignorance go hand in hand in hand.

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter". - Winston Churchill

[Sensei]

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter". - Winston Churchill

Who is guilty for this? The all politicians which are not supporting free education for everybody at every stage of education..

Extremities of this are in US and UK. And result is known: the largest number of prisoners in US from the all civilized "western" countries..

Edited November 4, 2015 by Sensei

[Ten oz]

Perhaps I am too cynical but I do not believe that politicians (or anyone in the public spot light) is entirely honest about their beliefs. What Carson is doing is brilliant from a financial stand point. Being a neurosurgeon adds credibility to what he says in the minds of those who desperately want to believe that evolution is not real. Carson will write a book challanging evolution and it will become a must have for religious people who do not believe in evolution. Carson will become extremely wealthy. Wondering whether or not Carson believes what he says is akin to wonder how much of a reality stars personality is contrived.

[John Cuthber]

I suppose it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. The current chairman of the House Science Committee is a Tea Party Christian Scientist, and a climate change skeptic. In the US, science, politics, and ignorance go hand in hand in hand.

 

More so on one side than on the other. (For those seeking evidence, check the thread on the Republican party having lost it's collective mind)

 

It is not clear to me why anyone thinks brain surgeons need to be either educated or bright.

Dexterous, and able to follow the directions left by other perhaps.

 

It's not as if the idea is new or high-tech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning

[andrewcellini]

It is not clear to me why anyone thinks brain surgeons need to be either educated or bright.

Dexterous, and able to follow the directions left by other perhaps.

we can guarantee good, firm handshakes from carson

 

+1 vote

[iNow]

Who is guilty for this? The all politicians which are not supporting free education for everybody at every stage of education..

Extremities of this are in US and UK. And result is known: the largest number of prisoners in US from the all civilized "western" countries..

I also would rather we focus our investments on education rather than incarceration.

[overtone]

Ben Carson has expressed a great many views on matters of history, economics, geology, or physical fact that most informed people find - - unusual. They share the characteristic of appealing to the Christian fundamentalists that have been his major marks base of support.

 

Here's another:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ben-carsons-unusual-theory-egyptian-pyramids/story?id=34989643

Edited November 5, 2015 by overtone

[Phi for All]

Ben Carson has expressed a great many views on matters of history, economics, geology, or physical fact that most informed people find - - unusual. They share the characteristic of appealing to the Christian fundamentalists that have been his major marks base of support.

 

Here's another:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ben-carsons-unusual-theory-egyptian-pyramids/story?id=34989643

 

This is the kind of stupid thing he's probably been corrected on a thousand times ("Uh, Ben, you don't need to seal grain hermetically in the dry desert, certainly not on that scale"), but it's something he made up rather than learned, so he just keeps saying it/lying about it to anyone uneducated enough to listen.

 

And there are so many of those! The kind of people who cheer him when he says/lies that having a Muslim president is incompatible with the Constitution. Aren't there any Republicans out there who are ashamed that this guy is your strongest candidate so far?

[overtone]

Aren't there any Republicans out there who are ashamed that this guy is your strongest candidate so far?

 

 

The Party of Reagan has - of necessity, given Reagan - prioritized deflection of ridicule and disacknowledgement of shame, and any Republican's support for the Party is now invulnerable to direct assault in that manner.

 

What you will get in response there is David Brooks telling us that the meaning of Carson is dissatisfaction with a Congress in which both Parties have been screwing up, and if a reasonable Trump comes along (any minute now) he would get all these votes; or somebody on Fox telling us that Carson is a protest candidate and the reasonable center of the Party will weigh in during the primaries; or a talk show guest claiming the Democratic fringe voting for Sanders or Hillary is just as bad and the whole political scene is just another fiasco like always; and so forth.

Edited November 5, 2015 by overtone

[Bill Angel]

Carson, a Seventh-day Adventist, has connected to evangelical voters in part by describing his own spiritual journey.

 

He said he has felt the hand of God at several key moments in his life, including a dramatic near-miss traffic accident and receiving an A-grade on a chemistry exam for which he felt badly unprepared.

 

See http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/05/politics/ben-carson-2016-childhood-violence/index.html

Its offensive to suggest that this God people believe in would allow innocent people to die in auto accidents but intervene specifically in this traffic situation just to spare his life. And why would a deity miraculously impart to him the knowledge needed to get an A on a chemistry exam, but still keep his mind clouded so he can't recognize the validity of evolutionary biology?

[Phi for All]

See http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/05/politics/ben-carson-2016-childhood-violence/index.html

Its offensive to suggest that this God people believe in would allow innocent people to die in auto accidents but intervene specifically in this traffic situation just to spare his life. And why would a deity miraculously impart to him the knowledge needed to get an A on a chemistry exam, but still keep his mind clouded so he can't recognize the validity of evolutionary biology?

 

The mind-cloud seems to be God. I had both those things happen to me (multiple times), without God, and I see evolution everywhere.

[MigL]

You guys seem surprised that politicians will say whatever it takes trying to get elected .

How young and naïve are you ?

[overtone]

 

 

You guys seem surprised that politicians will say whatever it takes trying to get elected

Whether Carson is saying all this stuff to try to get elected by the fundie voters, or trying to get elected in order to say all this stuff to the fundie check-writers, is an open question that may have no clear answer.

 

If we follow the money, option two seems the more likely.

[imatfaal]

You guys seem surprised that politicians will say whatever it takes trying to get elected .

How young and naïve are you ?

 

Actually old and cynical enough to know that some politicians are actually bat-shit crazy. And worldly wise enough to understand that writing everyone in politics off as a unprincipled pragmatist is foolish and dangerous - unfortunately lots of them have strong, deeply help, and highly dangerous principles which they would not hesitate to act upon to the majority of humanity's detriment.

[Ten oz]

 

Actually old and cynical enough to know that some politicians are actually bat-shit crazy. And worldly wise enough to understand that writing everyone in politics off as a unprincipled pragmatist is foolish and dangerous - unfortunately lots of them have strong, deeply help, and highly dangerous principles which they would not hesitate to act upon to the majority of humanity's detriment.

We have seen this recently. In 00' many argued that there were no differences in major party candidates and a few million voted for Nadar. That helped Bush get into office. With him came Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the nomination of a couple more federalist judges to the supreme court. That team was not unprincipled pragmastist and proved all major candidates are not the same. For argument sake many try to write off the differences between administrations as petty personaility things with no real substance the truth is millions have died or lost loves ones in the middle east as a result of the previous administrations response to 9/11.

[iNow]

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, right? More evidence of the extreme disconnect from reality:

 

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/6/9681558/ben-carson-west-point

Ben Carson admitted a key part of his life story was false. And other parts look fishy.

 

Ben Carson, who is currently leading polls for the Republican presidential nomination nationally and in Iowa, has admitted that he has lied for more than two decades about being accepted to the US Military Academy at West Point.

<snip>

Other parts of Carson's past appear potentially fabricated too. The blockbuster Politico report comes a day after a devastating CNN segment suggested that Carson had made up other stories about his youth:

<snip>

It's a strange sight: a presidential candidate angrily insisting that he did too try to stab a relative in the gut. But the stories are key to the redemption narrative that Carson has been weaving his whole career, a narrative that has gotten tremendous buy-in from evangelical voters.

<snip>

Now, with Carson's admission that the West Point story isn't true, the details that CNN failed to verify start to look more suspicious as well. Even though Carson is sticking by his portrait of the neurosurgeon as a violent teen, his credibility is considerably diminished now that another key anecdote in Gifted Hands has been proven false.

[MigL]

Is any political candidate a viable president after the internet gets through with him/her ?

I still consider Hilary Clinton the best bet, although she would never get elected in Canada for being too right wing.

[overtone]

Is any political candidate a viable president after the internet gets through with him/her ?

Sure. Obama, for example. Al Gore. John Kerry, douchebag though he was. Reagan's divorce and B-movie actress-schtupping were in his forgiven past, and his real estate deals came with his territory. Lots of people knew Kennedy and Clinton were philandering, and voted for them anyway, because they didn't pretend to be other than who they were, and they didn't scold people from an assumed moral height, and they didn't run on their personal morality as their qualification for the job. It came with their territory.

 

The attempted selling of this current Republican Party as normal, as the standard political operations of American democracy, as populated by regular politicians behaving according to historical norms, is a campaign strategy and a marketing endeavor and a lie. "Both sides" don't, and aren't. This scene is ugly, and it's getting worse.

Edited November 6, 2015 by overtone

[Phi for All]

Is any political candidate a viable president after the internet gets through with him/her ?

 

Personally, I've recognized this inclination to homogenize political characters as a poor response to specific situations. I'm not sure where this need to paint everyone with the same crazy paint comes from. I thought it was a tactic of the US media, and their heroic efforts to make all perspectives valid and available 24/7, but you watch Canadian news, right?

 

Implying that any of the Democrat presidential candidates since the internet would have the same kind of trouble Carson is in right now? You're gonna get a hernia with a stretch like that.