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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>>…</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Max More<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 12:45 PM, James Clement <<a href="mailto:clementlawyer@gmail.com" target="_blank">clementlawyer@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> "Numerically speaking, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/four-americans-believe-strict-creationism.aspx" target="_blank"><span style='color:#00598C;text-decoration:none'>according to Gallup,</span></a> only a marginally higher percentage of Republicans <b>reject evolution completely</b> than do Democrats. Yes, an embarrassing <b>half of Republicans</b> believe the earth is only 10,000 years old—but so do more than <b>a third of Democrats</b><span style='color:#1F497D'>…James<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Ja. I have a hard time taking seriously these kinds of studies however, for the direction of US education (and for that matter the sizeable portion of the rest of the world which is following our common core standards) takes the attitude that if something is not going to be covered on the evaluation tests, don’t even mention it in class, for that would be taking time away from that which will help the student and the school to better assessment scores. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Regarding politicians and their views on creation, we fool ourselves if we think we can get at their actual views. Anything any politician utters on the topic of evolution has extremely nothing to do with evolution or science in general, even if we recognize the awkwardness of the term “extremely nothing.” A representative’s job is to represent. Most politicians are lawyers. A defense lawyers own personal views of a client’s guilt or innocence is irrelevant to that lawyer’s task. You cannot learn what a politician believes on evolution merely by asking. You can only learn which views they perceive will get them the most votes. We cannot say that a self-proclaimed creationist politician believes in creationism, and therefore is stupid. If they managed to get elected, they are smarter than their evolutionist opponent, regardless of either’s views on the topic (if any.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Regarding the citizen’s views on evolution, even that is mostly out of reach. We are seeing currently a proposed takeover of most school curricula by the Federal Government. If that means introducing evolution into the classroom in a meaningful way, this would be a benefit to a plan mostly filled with detriments, the most important one being it takes away control from the state level and hands it down to the Federal level.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Ron Numbers has shown that the views of the citizens on evolution vs creationism cannot be determined from multiple choice surveys, for most of the surveys contain answers that are mutually contradictory. Numbers did a study in which the self-contradictory surveys were eliminated. The remaining surveys showed an overwhelming understanding of, and firm belief in evolution (see Numbers, The Creationists, 1992: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Numbers">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Numbers</a> )<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Currently we in the USA face bigger problems than ever regarding creationism in the public schools. If evolution is not introduced in school, there is little chance proles will ever come to any significant appreciation of the topic. We have evolution being neglected as a component of Common Core, we have states’ rights issues all mixed up in there, we have the concept of evolution coming under fire from both ends of the political spectrum and several points in between, for reasons having nothing to do with science: the notion that evolution fights religion, that evolution promotes immorality, that it promotes racism, that it’s teachings result in homosexuality (not kidding on this last bit, there are those who claim that.) These are political notions, for nature cares not how we humans deal with her ways.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>