Bush’s neocon friends shocked as he backs the Darwin-doubters - “To impose it on the teaching of evolution is ridiculous.”

Bush’s neocon friends shocked as he backs the Darwin-doubters - Sunday Times - Times Online: "August 07, 2005

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.”
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Some of the president’s greatest supporters in the war on terror are shaking their heads in disbelief at his remarks. Charles Krauthammer, a neoconservative commentator, said the idea of teaching intelligent design — creationism’s “modern step-child” — was “insane”.

“To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of a religious authority,” he wrote. “To impose it on the teaching of evolution is ridiculous.”
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... “It is very clear to me that he is sincere about this,” Krauthammer said. “He is not positioning.”