Kansas BOE Chair - It's either the evolution or the Bible, not both

As we have discovered in Dover, public statements by Board members that are subsequently reported in the press can later become important pieces of evidence about the true motivations of those Board members’ actions

Now Kansas sate BOE chairperson Steve Abrams, mastermind of the 1999 creationists standards, the May 2005 “science hearings” and the current 2005 creationist standards, has given us a quote to remember. Speaking to a “group of Christian men called Open Public Education Now,” the Lawrence Journal World reports that

During a question-and-answer period to a mostly receptive audience of church-going social conservatives fed up with evolution, Abrams said one couldn’t believe in the Bible and evolution. You must believe one or the other.

“At some point in time, if you compare evolution and the Bible, you have to decide which one you believe,” Abrams said. “That’s the bottom line.”(my emphasis)

Well, that takes care of that, it seems.

My friend Red State Rabble (Pat Hayes) comments:

Abrams statement that one must choose between evolution and the bible is somewhat different than his mantra at the science hearings in Topeka last May. There, he said “I have been a proponent… of empirical science being defined by observable, measurable, testable, repeatable, and falsifiable… “ so often, that the audience began to mouth the words with him.

This is but one more example, among the many that might be cited, of the basic dishonesty of creationist and intelligent design advocates who say one thing in public where everyone can hear them, and quite another when they are speaking privately before groups that share their views.

Yep, (or perhaps “amen”) is what I have to say to Pat’s remarks. (By the way, I highly recommend you bookmark Red State Rabble as a concise and thoughtful blog for regular news and commentary on ID, evolution and related topics.)