Ron Paul Thinks Evolution is Just a “Theory”, and Doesn’t Believe In It [With Quote]

“I imagine that schools would be able to teach whatever they wanted in the classrooms — evolution, creationism, flying-spaghetti-monster-ism… — that’s what freedom is about.”

I’m all for freedom. But, IF we believe that an education is something we want to make available to our children .. for their good and for the good of the country, then we SHOULD believe that it should be a quality education. Requiring schools to have high standards and even to teach particular things is NOT anti-freedom. A candidate who believes that it is cannot get my vote.

“…IF we believe that an education is something we want to make available to our children .. for their good and for the good of the country…”

I do not share this sentiment. I do not believe that people will become hopeless, uneducated zombies if the government does not control education. The high availability of information in this country is taking a toll on brick-and-mortar schools. Alternative forms of education like homeschooling are becoming very popular. This is the market stretching itself because “public education” is a colossal failure. The only legitimate role of the government is to use law (which is force verbalized) to protect the life and property of the citizens who created it. Defense is the only proper use of force — education by force is something we call brainwashing. And if you doubt that this country educates by force, take your children out of grade school for a few days without “properly justifying” your actions to the authorities, and you will feel the full wrath of the education police.

Carl M –

It’s not a question of Paul being concerned or unconcerned with it. I’ll keep saying it. The value of a Paul presidency is structure, not policy. Please reread my post 18. I don’t want to live in a country where a President’s views on evolution matter.

Yes, the solution IS to abolish the Department of Education. Eventually, you have to look at what is happening rather than what you imagine should happen. Particularly as you congratulate yourself on being a rationalist in a world of superstition. The situation you describe is precisely what one would expect when people have pushed responsibility for a problem a thousand miles away and diluted their influence over the solution to zero.

In technology, business, even the military, the watchword is decentralization. In government, people crow over the collapse of the Soviet Union and its hidebound central planning. And yet, nearly 20 years later, here sits Carl M stamping his foot and telling Captain Obvious that only Washington can get parents to care about their children’s education.

Think about it.

I seriously doubt anyone will agree with every view of Dr Paul’s. What is important is his political views and not his personal views. I believe he is one of only a hand full of elected officials who truly understand what the rules of the game are. The rest just say what the popular views are to raise money. Dr Paul has always voted correctly instead of what is popular. We need him now more than ever. I am not voting for him to be my best friend. I am voting for him because he has always done the right thing in the past. I am willing to bet he will continue to do the correct things in the future.

Hmmm. Once again, words are being put into my mouth.

First, I have never congratulated myself on being a rationalist in a world of superstition. It is true that I think that science ought to be the basis of policy and that I could not possibly vote for anyone who felt otherwise. But, this isn’t the same thing at all.

Second, I have never even REMOTELY suggested that ONLY Washington can get parents to care about their children’s education. I thought I was pretty clear, but let me quote myself:

“In general: until a child has an appropriate mastery of the Nth grade curriculum, they do not move to grade (N+1). THIS is how we leave no child behind. THIS is how we get parents more interested in their children’s education. The general public has NO CLUE how poor the education of their children is. It’s not a huge secret, but people turn a deaf ear to things they don’t want to hear. And, school systems that promote students who are not ready to move forward enable these deaf ears.”

I blame the local school districts and it is ONLY in the local school districts that real change can happen. However, I do not trust local school districts to do this on their own. It’s really that simple. Do I claim that the Department of Education has gotten it done? No. Obviously not.

More to say .. but need to go.

Carl M –

Your quote: “Requiring schools to have high standards and even to teach particular things is NOT anti-freedom. A candidate who believes that it is cannot get my vote.” Are you now saying you meant a candidate for the local school board and not president? You clearly believe direction from Washington is essential.

I am not asking you to trust local school boards. The difference between trusting local school boards and trusting the Department of Education is that when the local school board screws up, you can actually do something about it. By subdividing into smaller regional groups, your leverage over decision makers increases hundreds-fold, and ideologically unbundling eduction from other issues increases it even more. Nobody has to choose between the teachers’ union package on eduction and a war with Iran.

As for your first paragraph, it obviously is the same thing beyond the mere rhetorical difference. I’m not asking you to forgo rationalism — I’m asking you to use it. At some point, you are going to have to stop dreaming and rationally examine the results of establishing a Department of Education and honestly ask yourself why it has not done what you hoped. Year after year, administration after administration, the Department of Education has become nothing more than a faith-based program for do-gooders, sucking money and initiative from concerned parents. You say that “it is ONLY in local school districts that real change can happen”, but it can’t happen if their policies are set in Washington or their funding is cut off.

Your fear that some schoolboard somewhere might continue to fail is no reason to keep going down the same path.

Some schoolboard SOMEWHERE? If only it was only SOME schoolboard somewhere. You’re quite right that the existence of a Department of Education has not meant widespread success in education. It doesn’t follow that getting rid of it will result in a better situation. I think that oversight is essential. But, I NEVER said that direction from Washington is essential. It’s a structure that is already in place and it seems to me a good place for the oversight. Nor did I say (or even HINT) that we should keep going down the same path.

What I said is that I don’t trust local school boards to do the TOUGH things. Things like admitting that their local schools are failures .. like telling parents that their children are not ready for the Nth grade .. like telling taxpayers that they’re going to need to pay more for the education of the children of their community .. like finding ways to solve these problems.

You say that when a local school board screws up, you can actually do something about it. Really? Well, I suppose that if MY local school board screws up, I can try to vote out someone on the board .. or even run to serve on the board. This might work in a community in which the citizens were educated and appropriately concerned about education. Things aren’t so easy in most of the real world. There are many adults who vote for lower school taxes as soon as their children are out of the school system. They don’t see the bigger picture. There are many adults who are concerned ONLY with their local school system and don’t care if the ones in neighboring communities are failing. They don’t see the bigger picture. There are many adults who are not educated themselves and do not have the ability to judge whether their local school system is failing their children or not .. and wouldn’t know how to fix things if there was a problem.

How local should education be? County or City based? Entirely? Funding too? If funding is entirely local, then families in rural or poor counties are screwed. If funding is NOT entirely local, then the sources of the external funding have the right to know that their money is being used wisely. The schools need to be accountable. Suppose a local school doesn’t have a good teacher of some subject (math, biology, English, French, … whatever). The solution? Hire one. Well, sure .. if there is one to hire. What if there are not enough math (or whatever) teachers to go around? What if no French teachers want to teach in a small rural community when they can live in a city with more cultural activities? These issues are not easy to solve locally.

Education begins at home .. and in the local community, but it is too big an issue, too important an issue to handle (or at least to handle effectively) entirely at that level.

while I’m here … @ncloud: “The only legitimate role of the government is to use law (which is force verbalized) to protect the life and property of the citizens who created it.” It is probably clear already, but I disagree. I think that there are MANY issues that fall reasonably in the role of government.

2

I hear you, and I see what you’re saying, but at the same time you have to wonder what would happen if he were to suddenly change his mind. I mean, if God wants certain things, but the constitution wants something else…how long can the constitution win?

We’re basically banking on him never interpreting God’s will to go against his previously held policies of separation. It’s just not a good position to be in.

Comment by Daniel Miessler — 12/17/2007 @ 8:33 pm

It’s simple… He never has yet. Rather he has a 100% positive voting record. Get over your yourself, please. This coming from an Atheist, me, secular fundamentalism is just as bad as the religious fundamentalists…

Quit requiring people think like you. Allow them to be who they are. When you finally find one so principled with such high integrity and an unmatched voting record, for the sake of liberty please don’t allow your own intolerance to get in the way of my freedom.

Tofu I liked it so much I just wanted to repost it.

Quit requiring people think like you. Allow them to be who they are. When you finally find one so principled with such high integrity and an unmatched voting record, for the sake of liberty please don’t allow your own intolerance to get in the way of my freedom.

Look at the so called Christian we have in office now. Is it possible to do worse?

Outcome based learning has never worked. Will never work. Is structured to fail and cost a lot of money in the process.

@Tofu and Steve

You consider the non-belief in evolution to be a minor issue that’s inconsequential to whether or not someone can be a good president. Going with that I would agree with your statement that I should stop requiring people to think like me as a standard.

But I don’t think it’s a minor issue. Not at all.

Why is it that nearly every other person in public life that I respect believes in evolution? Why is it that nearly the entire scientific community believes in it? This is not a strange position. It’s not special for people to agree with me on this. It’s not a litmus test. It’s a simple matter of a default for a thinking person in today’s world.

In other words, when someone doesn’t believe in certain core concepts it shows a MAJOR gap between them and the vast majority of logical people I know and respect. It’s not a minor thing. It’s not some peripheral opinion that doesn’t matter.

You say I shouldn’t get in the way of your freedom. I’m saying that you should be careful what you’re wishing for because you may find that the things you thought were minor become very major in the future.

Carl M –

I’d love to continue this discussion, but you keep contradicting yourself: “But, I NEVER said that direction from Washington is essential”, yet “A candidate who believes that [a central education policy] is ["anti-freedom"] cannot get my vote”. If direction from Washington is not essential, why is it that a candidate for president with no education policy will never get your vote? This seems to define essential, at least in terms of choosing presidents.

As for your other points, sure. With no drive from local citizens, schools will suck. Just like now, with a Department of Education. What centralization does is shoehorn successful districts into a single policy and stifle their innovation in exchange for helping failing school districts which then fail to improve. All cost, no benefit. You mention the steps you could take if your local school board goes wrong. What steps could you take if the wrong turn comes from Washington? If you think it’s hard to get people to pay for school taxes when there’s no alternative, how hard do you think it’ll be to convince people to give up the free money from Washington that they’ll lose in order to maintain an independent course? How do you resolve the competing values questions that arise when putting so many different functions into one vote? The answer is that you can’t resolve it.

Your summary shows you are my polar opposite: education is not too important to keep at the local level, it is too important not to.

Dan –

The rise of creedal science is not a good thing.

@ Captain:

What you claim I said: “A candidate who believes that [a central education policy] is [”anti-freedom”] cannot get my vote”.

What I actually said: “Requiring schools to have high standards and even to teach particular things is NOT anti-freedom. A candidate who believes that it is cannot get my vote.” I believe that oversight is critical to the establishment and maintenance of high standards. There are some who believe that taking any education decisions out of local hands is anti-freedom. I disagree with them and cannot support a candidate with those views.

When you put words in my mouth, you can indeed make it appear that I am contradicting myself.

It boils down to this. The education of the children of America is too important to leave entirely in local hands. If we believe in the American Dream, then I believe that it is important to give EVERYONE the opportunity to succeed. I believe that this requires that they have the opportunity to get a solid educational foundation. This is not happening now. (I think this is the one thing we agree on.) If education was left entirely to the local level, some school districts might improve. I think that many would get worse. I believe that a disproportionate number in impoverished areas and areas with parents who have relatively low levels of education (these are mostly the same areas) would find their school systems get worse, not better. So, the American Dream of “If you work hard, you can accomplish anything you put your mind to” would move even more from the ideal of applying to everyone (this is the ideal … not reality at this point) to applying only to those fortunate enough to be born into an educated and/or relatively wealthy family. This is what I’m worried about. Without outside help, there are many parts of this country that do not have the resources to offer strong educational foundations to their children. And, once again, without oversight I don’t trust school districts to make the tough decisions they need to make. It isn’t enough that SOME school districts are willing to make them. They ALL must.

For a brief analysis (by a public school teacher who won New York’s “Teacher of the Year” award three times) of the government school system, I refer you to John Taylor Gatto’s book “The Underground History of American Education” (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm). He retired from teaching after almost 30 years by priting a letter in the Wall Street Journal in which he stated that he no longer wished to hurt children through compulsory government education.

Education is very important. That is why we need to get government out of it. The government forces teachers and student to conform to standers. Conformity kills creativity. History shows the majority of successful people are people who were not willing to conform. Each county should set their own standards and schools should have to compete for students. That would be ideal. However no matter what we can never make every school equal. One last note look how the government runs the DMV and the Post Office. Those are places most people dread to go to.

“Believes” in evolution is appropriate because it’s a religious belief. I’m kind of befuddled, Daniel, that you would support someone who has such honest, logical thinking…and when he logically looks at the goop-to-man theory called Darwinian evolution, and honestly pegs it for the nonsense that it is, you suddenly become one of the lemmings who looks at Ron Paul as some sort of extremist. Are you THAT afraid he believes God created man as opposed to chaotic processes creating man?

I’m not a Ron Paul supporter per se, but I am a physician and someone who does not believe in Darwinian evolution. I think God explains origins a lot better than science. I love science but it’s often very capricious and sometimes strangely religiously dogmatic.

The entire “scientific community” is composed of leftist academicians. I don’t believe there is any sort of conspiracy, but rather a tendency to espouse certain presuppositions or philosophies when interpreting science. While belief in evolution is not a strange position, the other way isn’t strange, either. It warms the cockles of my heart to know that up to 50+% of Americans aren’t buying what Dr. Leftist Humanist Ph.D. feeds to them vis-a-vis evolution.