It can hardly be surprising that someone who thinks a woman’s body has a magical ability to flush a rapist’s sperm — and he didn’t “misspeak” when he said that, he really believed it — also rejects the validity of evolution. In fact, he thinks it just a “matter of science” at all.
“I’ve taken a look at both sides of the thing and it seems to me that evolution takes a tremendous amount of faith,” Rep. Todd Akin said in audio of the event obtained by Think Progress. “To have all of the sudden all the different things that have to be lined up to create something as sophisticated as life, it takes a lot of faith.”
“I don’t see it as even a matter of science because I don’t know that you can prove one or the other,” he explained.
This kind of ignorance is pretty standard, especially among the Christian right. It’s the “golly gee, this sure is complicated” argument. It never occurs to them that anything that could create something that complex must be even more complex, by their reasoning.
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StevoR
October 16, 2012 at 10:35 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bet he doesn’t believe in Global Overheating either and thinks Pi = 3 too.
Taz
October 16, 2012 at 10:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Since science doesn’t seek to prove things, I guess nothing is a matter of science.
Abby Normal
October 16, 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Admit it; you hired Badlee Dean to be your new editor, didn’t you? Or, perhaps this is a manifestation of Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation. Does it count if it’s a different article published on the same day?
holytape
October 16, 2012 at 11:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He also rejects imaginary and irrational numbers numbers such as the square root of -1 and pi. To quote him “I thunk about it, and it hurt.” He then went on to say that he rejects boolean values, as to quote him, “There just too darn french. If we teach our electronic adding machines boolean values, they’ll just surrend to the terrorist.”
Gregory in Seattle
October 16, 2012 at 11:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And this maroon is on the House Science Committee. Crimeny.
Mr Ed
October 16, 2012 at 11:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The shameless opportunist in me wants to start writing about a flat geocentric Earth and then run for office in the bible belt.
busterggi
October 16, 2012 at 11:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wish the anti-science fundies would just give up all technology and move back into caves where they belong.
AsqJames
October 16, 2012 at 12:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I know it’s so common as to be almost a given, but it’s still worth pointing out that he’s conflating evolution and abiogenesis. Demonstrating once again that most people who deny evolution don’t even know what subject they’re talking about, nevermind anything at all about that subject.
baal
October 16, 2012 at 12:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
To Mr.Akin, “We’re going have you take a Turing test.”
Mr. Akin, “Great! I love car rides.”
eric
October 16, 2012 at 12:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Totally agree with the overall message and Akin’s stupidity. But…
Not really. A single six-sided die is a pretty simple object, but it can produce a string of numbers more improbable than Dembski claims is possible in this universe. :) The string/sequence is not “in” the die, it doesn’t have to be.
Of course, with that “by their reasoning” bit at the end, maybe you are agreeing with me.
Modusoperandi
October 16, 2012 at 12:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, please! Everybody knows that things that are complicated or unlikely can’t happen!
Abby Normal
October 16, 2012 at 12:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
On average the human male ejaculates 180 million sperm per orgasm. If any other sperm had reached the egg first at the time of Akin’s supposed conception, he would be a different person. The same holds true for each of his parents, and their parents, and their parents, and so on. So the odds of Akin existing are 180,000,000:1 against, with the odds growing drastically worse with each generation we consider. And that’s not even including the odds of complications with the pregnancies, or his parents meeting, or the millions of other factors that could come into play. Therefore I highly doubt that Akin exists at all.
Sastra
October 16, 2012 at 1:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
AsqJames #8 wrote:
Not necessarily. Akin could be talking about more complex life forms than just the first form of life. Apparently he thinks evolution involves a “sudden” event when all the chemicals and parts of an object — the atoms, the carbon, the tail, the wings, the eyes, the inside and the outside, the top and the bottom — all come together with a great big zooming “whoosh” and — where there was once empty space — now you’ve got a bacteria. Or a cell. Or a bat, or a duck, or what have you. Like magic.
In which case, Akin is drawing a perfectly reasonable conclusion. Yes, believing this took place would take a lot of faith. Scientists would indeed need to see it happen, for themselves, preferably right in front of them, a whole bunch of times.
roggg
October 16, 2012 at 1:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is news? Call me back when some ultra-right wing christian conservative jerk-wad affirms belief in evolution. That would be news.
petezushin
October 16, 2012 at 1:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sastra, you just outlined Hoyle’s Fallacy, or the idea that evolution can’t be true because the odds are roughly same as a tornado in a junkyard creating an airplane. Wikipedia has a pretty good rundown on it.
jba55
October 16, 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“I’ve taken a look at both sides of the thing”
Ok, this “both sides” phrasing just infuriates me. If you’re looking at it as science vs religion then there are dozens of sides, almost as many sides as there are religions. Just because you don’t think other beliefs are correct doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Jackass. grumblegrumble.
Michael Heath
October 16, 2012 at 3:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rep. Akin:
jba55 writes:
Well then we have the other side to scrutinize where I’ve seen a mere handful of creationists who have sufficiently and competently studied evolution. And then that few depend on gigantic blind spots or outright dishonesty to make their arguments.
I’d be happy giving odds Rep. Akin is not one of those few, that’s he’s thoroughly unable to articulate both the compelling evidence natural selection and convincing evidence for common descent and why that evidence requires faith, let alone more faith than creationism which rests completely on a falsified faith.
pilch62
October 16, 2012 at 11:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ve looked at evolution from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s evolution’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know evolution at all
With apologies to Joni Mitchell & Judy Collins . . .
dingojack
October 16, 2012 at 11:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
pilch62 -
Sir, I’ve read Brownian, I’ve digested his/her thoughts, I’d like to think I’d be a friend of Brownian’s.
You sir, are no Brownian*.
:D Dingo
—–
* (s)he moves in jiggly ways
dingojack
October 17, 2012 at 12:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
PS: for the record neither am I. The closest I got was the following (on the old Dispatches):