Comment from Michael Shermer at Huffington's blog. Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com), the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, a monthly columnist for Scientific American (www.sciam.com), and the author of Why People Believe Weird Things, How We Believe, and The Science of Good and Evil. His latest book is Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown (all published by Henry Holt/Times Books).
"As for our President’s alleged endorsement of Intelligent Design, he didn’t. The media hyped it and everyone heard what they wanted to hear. There was considerable media hype over the story, and I did a number of interviews, including a live debate on CNN with lead Intelligent Design theorist William Dembski. Here’s what actually happened. On Monday, August 1, Bush gave an interview at the White House to a group of Texas newspaper reporters in which he said that when he was governor of Texas “I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.” When a reporter asked for his position today on whether ID is a legitimate scientific alternative to the theory of evolution, Bush wisely equivocated: “I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.” Well of course, but that’s a different question.
Our President was simply being politic in his choice of words. In fact, Bush’s science adviser, John H. Marburger 3rd, said in a telephone interview with the New York Times that “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” He added that the president’s comments should be interpreted to mean that ID be discussed not as science but as part of the “social context” in science classes, and that it would be “over-interpreting” Bush’s remarks to conclude that the president believes that ID and the theory of evolution should be given equal treatment in public school science courses."
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