Christine O'Donnell - "Why Aren't Monkeys STILL Evolving into Humans? - Updated

Christine O'Donnell is priceless. I have to admit, that she appears to have been a bit better at being the abstinence goddess than has been Bristol Palin. This evolution stuff, though?




Has any reporter in Alaska asked Joe the Teabagger yet why monkeys aren't still evolving into humans?

Update - 2:15 p.m: Juan Cole, of all people, has taken up the issue of this O'Donnell clip, and what it informs us of, regarding how the USA is starting to fall seriously behind in areas of education, science and research:

The practical implications of O’Donnell’s nonsense should not be lost sight of. Her anti-scientific way of thinking harms education in the biological sciences, and in turn harms the prospects of American leadership in biotechnology.

Biotechnology and pharmaceuticals not only have the potential of saving millions of lives and improving tens of millions of lives, but they are becoming a significant contributor to US economic growth. The sector has grown at a time when the rest of the economy is in crisis, and it will be key to global prominence in the rest of this century. If South Korea or France outstrip the US in this area, their citizens will grow wealthy and even more of ours will fall into poverty than already have.

I checked the Delaware Development Office web site, and was unsurprised to find that it touts biotech as a significant engine of the state’s economy, and is expected to grow as such.

O’Donnell and her like would, if sent to Washington, destroy that potential faster than you could sequence a gene. A dedication to ignorance and a demonization of science are a one-way ticket to being a poor, backward country of illiterate yahoos. In other words, candidates like O’Donnell are not just quirky potential senators. They are shapers of our future in their own image.

Quirky potential senators, eh? When I first asked Sarah Palin about her views on evolution, back in June, 1997, my interest was based on her being an advocate of what certainly appeared at the time to be a takeover attempt at the Mat-Su School District school board, by creationists. I asked her questions then, and later. Finally, in 2006, reporters half-heartedly took up the issue with her, during her gubernatorial run. Her responses were dealt with cursorily. No reporter, when confronted with her meme that "both sides should be taught," bothered to ask whether she meant in science classes, civics, history, or what.

If you google "Joe Miller Alaska evolution" you come up with no evidence that any Alaska reporter has dealt with the connection between anti-evolutionary science views by a potential US senator and how that might play out to help keep our national wealth, through hindering scientific education and research, to continue to plummeting.

I dare Kyle Hopkins, Sean Cockerham, Tony Hopfinger, the APRN crew, and any other Alaska reporters to confront Mr. Miller, not just on where the hell his DD-214 is, but on what his precise views on evolution are. And to see it through after he gives you a typical bullshit answer.

At least Maureen Dowd today, all the way over in New York City, Kyle, Sean, Tony and friends, has found a way, sort of like Prof. Cole above, to put Joe Miller into the mix on this:

In the Republican primary, O’Donnell beat Congressman Mike Castle, who had the temerity to support stem-cell research and acknowledge global warming. O’Donnell’s numbers are dropping, while Castle is still beating the Democratic candidate, Chris Coons, by almost 20 points in a theoretical matchup.

In 2007, O’Donnell frantically warned Bill O’Reilly, “American scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.”

--- snip ---

Sarah Palin will believe global warming is a hoax until she’s doing aerial hunting of wolves underwater. And in a 2009 clip, Sharron Angle, the Republican Senate candidate from Nevada, suggested that autism — a word she uttered with air quotes — is a phony rubric. She suggested that people are taking advantage of such maladies to get extra health benefits, adding that she doesn’t see why she should have to subsidize maternity benefits for other people either, especially since, as she said, she’s not having any more babies.

--- snip ---

Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Jim DeMint and some Tea Party types don’t merely yearn for the country they idealize from the 1950s. They want to go back to the 1750s.

Joe Miller, the Palin-blessed Republican nominee for Senate in Alaska, suggests that Social Security is unconstitutional because it wasn’t in the Constitution. The Constitution is a dazzling document, but do these originalists really think things haven’t changed since then? If James Madison beamed down now, he would no doubt be stunned at the idea that America had evolved so far but was hemming itself in by the strictest interpretation of his handiwork. He might even tweet about it.

Evolution is no myth, but we may be evolving backward. Christine O’Donnell had better hope they don’t bring back witch burning.

I hope they don't. But I do hope we can bring back real journalism in Alaska - journalism that has the courage to ask questions that reveal the depth or lack of depth in important candidates, in ways that protect our state and country from superstitious yahoos.