It says a lot about Huntsman, struggling to stand out from the GOP herd, and Perry, looking to lead the gallop. It says even more about how climate change and evolution remain potent in our politics, for reasons having little to do with science, and everything to do with getting votes.
During a "Politics and Eggs" breakfast Wednesday in New Hampshire, Perry said that more and more scientists were challenging the notion "that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change."
Huntsman fired off his tweet that afternoon.
To add salsa to the taco, the next day, Perry said evolution was "a theory that's out there, and it's got some gaps in it."
Gaps! Controversy! Politics.
Charles Darwin's account of evolution is all but universally accepted. And most climatologists accept that our planet's climate is changing. It's harder to prove human beings are the culprits, but a predominance of scientists thinks so.
In the funhouse of American politics, none of that matters. Forrest Wilder, staff writer at the Texas Observer, says: "We have a long history of political-religious debate between what science says and what people believe. And there's an anti-intellectual streak that's always been there. With conservative voters, it's been dialed up to the limit."
The point is how things make people feel. In Darwin's account, human life arose from previous life-forms. To some people, that's like saying we're not special. To some, evolution threatens faith - though many, even Darwin, have said it needn't. To some ears, the words global warming seem to threaten sacred freedoms.
