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Bobby Jindal's Creationist Talking Points
On September 27, 2007, after avoiding public events where he might be asked unanticipated questions, Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Bobby Jindal participated in a televised forum that was carried live by Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB). In a segment in which each panelist was allowed to direct one question to a specific candidate, Baton Rouge Advocate columnist Carl Redman asked Jindal how his personal faith might influence his policies as governor on the issues of abortion, the teaching of intelligent design, and prayer at public meetings. Jindal addressed abortion and prayer but skipped intelligent design. Requesting time for a follow-up, Redman steered him back to that part of the question. Jindal’s response clearly indicated that he supports teaching intelligent design (ID) creationism in public schools (transcript below). However, the interesting aspect of his answer was that he seems to know the talking points and code language that ID creationists at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC) use to promote ID. The Discovery Institute (DI), a conservative Seattle think tank, is the headquarters of the ID creationist movement. Jindal also used such talking points during his first race for governor four years ago when asked whether he supported teaching creationism. Responding to a 2003 candidate questionnaire from the Louisiana Family Forum (the Religious Right organization for which LA Sen. David Vitter has earmarked $100,000 in a 2007 federal spending bill, ostensibly to enable the organization “to develop a plan to promote better science education”), Jindal answered “yes” as to whether he supported teaching the “scientific weaknesses of evolution” (code talk for teaching creationism). He reiterated this support in a November 2003 New Orleans Times-Picayune article:
Although there is no evidence that Jindal has had direct contact with the Discovery Institute, his November 2003 remarks were consistent with DI’s strategy of using code talk to promote ID, a tactic ID proponents adopted several years ago when they began to fear that the term “intelligent design” was becoming a legal liability. [PDF] Like Jindal, DI favors giving children “all the evidence,” as ID creationist and CSC director Stephen C. Meyer asserted in September 2003 during DI’s nationally publicized attempt to influence the selection of Texas science textbooks: “[D]esign theorists . . . are asking that students learn all the evidence they need to assess Darwinian theory, not just the evidence that happens to support it.” ID proponents also support teaching the “strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory,” Meyer said, because doing so would teach students “to weigh evidence—a key skill in scientific reasoning.” Jindal’s comments were also consistent with CSC associate director John West’s August 2003 code talk: “We wholeheartedly endorse good, accurate science and the complete teaching of evolution in accord with Texas law, which says students should learn all the scientific evidence that both supports and shows the weaknesses of existing scientific theories.” Jindal’s endorsement of teaching the “scientific weaknesses of evolution” was therefore significant in light of the consistency between the Louisiana Family Forum’s use of this semantic tactic and DI’s concurrent strategy. However, Jindal’s giveaway phrase in his November 2003 comments was “range of views.” In 2001, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania had inserted into the No Child Left Behind Act a sense of the Senate resolution that pro-science activists recognized as intended to covertly promote ID. (ID leader Phillip Johnson wrote the resolution. When these activists brought the resolution’s true significance to the NCLB conference committee’s attention, the committee removed it from the bill. However, pro-ID committee members (who included Rep. John Boehner of Ohio) then inserted the language into the bill’s legislative history where it now reads as follows, with the slight alteration that later showed up in Jindal’s comments to the Times-Picayune:
In 2003, when Jindal used the phrase “range of views,” the Discovery Institute was still using what had become popularly known as the “Santorum amendment” for propaganda purposes, interpreting the “full range of scientific views” to include ID. [PDF] This short phrase has become the most often-quoted part of the Santorum amendment. (See Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross, ch. 8, "Wedging into Power Politics," Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, Oxford University Press, 2007.) Jindal’s September 2007 forum comments likewise reflect DI’s talking points, as the transcript below shows. Earlier in the forum, responding to a question about how each candidate would define “integrity,” he had highlighted his integration of his personal religiosity into his political campaign:
Later, during a segment allotted for candidate-specific questions in which the candidate had one minute to respond, Redman directed his question about abortion, ID, and prayer to Jindal:
Jindal’s remarks, which clearly signal his support for teaching ID, are a study in incoherence. On one hand, this Rhodes scholar wants “the very best science” taught to children. On the other, his assertion that children should be told “what different theories are out there” in order to explain what science cannot is an admission that ID is not science. His inference of a creator from “looking at creation,” while legitimate as a personal religious belief, is at odds with his statement that “our kids” should be taught “the very best science.” Putting the two together in a public school science class violates not only the standards of responsible science teaching but the U.S. Constitution as well. Disturbing signs are converging in Louisiana. The Louisiana Family Forum’s plan to “promote better science education” with public tax dollars, courtesy of Sen. Vitter, is in truth a plan to promote creationism, which this affiliate of Focus on the Family has done since its establishment in 1999. One of its chief operatives, retired Baton Rouge City Court Judge Darrell White, who promotes both ID and young-earth creationism aggressively in Louisiana, helped engineer the Ouachita Parish, LA, School Board’s adoption of a stealth creationism policy [PDF] (which White wrote) in November 2006, a move loudly applauded by the Discovery Institute. If Jindal becomes governor, Louisiana may be headed for a repeat of the divisive fight over intelligent in Dover, PA. (See Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, NOVA, November 13, 2007.) The Religious Right appears to be lining up its ducks down here. [Disclaimer: I am writing as a private citizen. I am not speaking for the institutions or organizations with which I am affiliated.]
Bobby Jindal's Creationist Talking Points | 8 comments (8 topical, 0 hidden)
Bobby Jindal's Creationist Talking Points | 8 comments (8 topical, 0 hidden)
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