Ted Rall for November 28, 2012

*groans

Backwards, turn backwards, Oh time in thy flight. And give me a brain again,Just for tonight.

I hates me some science but I loves me mah microwave.

Er…Poe? Is that you?

Excuse me while I go bury some fake dinosaur bones to fool the scientists.

Actually, you’ll never know if the GOP candidates really support creationism. They have to say they do, or at least waffle & deny that they don’t, to get GOP primary votes. It’s a political tactic which has nothing to do with their actual beliefs. All politicians have to say what the voters want to hear, not what they genuinely believe.

First: Obama was asked the question in a religious setting, and specifically it was a question about “what he would tell his kids about the Biblical creation story.” If you want to be able to reconcile the Biblical creation story with what science says, that’s a reasonable response.

Rubio, on the other hand, was asked a specific question about “what is the age of the earth”, and it was in a secular context. He chose to make a purely religious answer.

Furthermore, his answer was, from a scientific and reality-based perspective, completely wrong. " I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries" is false; it has been answered; and anyone with basic knowledge of the science ought to be able to say “the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, give or take a couple hundred million.” And that’s pretty much that.

@ansonia:

Thanks for posting the full text. Gives me hope for the future. When I saw all those candidates’ hands go up at one of the first debates when the question was “who here believes in creationism”, I was expecting at least one of them to tell us that gravity is only a theory.

Nice try, but WRONG! Obama clearly supports science and Darwinian evolution:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFsB1Jk1OQ0

How many people on this forum believe the world is a few thousand years old? Could you reply?

The universe was created just last Thursday!! I know because my cat told me so!

And yet, more Democrats than Republicans voted to extend tax cuts in 2010.

How dare they attack my pseudoreligion with their pseudo science?

Oh, look! DOCUMENTED MELTING of the Arctic — and, no, the Antarctic doesn’t make up for it…http://youtu.be/_76ljY_NbS0

“Genesis” should begin with the words: “Once upon a time…”

Yeah Eryn, you know if it isn’t on ox it is wrong. (now THAT’S a joke!!)

Wow, your reading comprehension sucks.

It’s not a personal attack, ansonia. It’s a comment on your reading comprehension.

Which sucks. No, seriously.

I didn’t feel up to trying to correct you as much as the situation requires, because you came at what I wrote at such a weird angle I’m not even sure how to tackle it. Only one thing is sure, and that is the fact that you completely didn’t ‘get’ any of that, and the level of incomprehension of the situation as described seems so bizarre and blinkered that it may not even be possible to explain — because it kind of seems like you have absolutely no interest in understanding.

I’ll try short words and sentences.

Obama was asked what he would tell his daughters about the Bible story.

Obama was in a Church group at the time.

Obama is a devout Christian.

Obama is, however, not anti-science.

Obama said that he would try to explain that the Bible story of Genesis can be understood as an allegory.

If you want to reconcile the Bible with what science can tell us, then that is not a bad way to do it.

Separately:

Rubio was asked how old he thought the world is.

It was a general interview.

It was not a religious question.

It is a question about physical reality, and how much Rubio knows about that.

Rubio thought that religion addressed this just as well as science does.

Rubio claimed that “no-one could really know.”

That’s actually false. Because science addresses this better than religion, and we not only can, but do know.

If this doesn’t clear things up for you, then I cannot help you. Maybe no-one can help you.