From The Sunday Timeshttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1724138,00.htmlBush’s neocon friends shocked as he backs the Darwin-doubters THE theory of intelligent design, which emphasises the role of a creator in the development of the universe, has received a boost from President George W Bush. He has called for it to be taught alongside evolution in schools, writes Sarah Baxter.
While Bush’s conservative Christian fundamentalist base is delighted by his pronouncement, it has opened a split with neoconservatives and other secular allies on the right.
In Texas, where the president likes to spend August reconnecting with his heartland, Bush said last week: “Both sides ought to be taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about.”
The teaching of Darwinism is a controversial issue in Kansas and other patches of middle America, where legal and political challenges are being mounted to introduce intelligent design into the science curriculum. Many fundamentalists believe that the world is only 6,000 years old and that atheistic theories are being foisted on children.
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“With the president endorsing it, at the very least it makes Americans who have that position more respectable, for lack of a better word,” said Gary Bauer, a leading Christian activist. “It’s not some backwater view. It is a view held by the majority of Americans.”
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