Creation Differences

Robert T. Miller, an assistant professor at the Villanova University School of Law, says that part of Sam Brownback’s New York Times op-ed on evolution is “obviously wrong.” But Miller does not object to Brownback’s evaluation of the science. Instead, he opposes the Kansas senator’s “general observations on the relationship between faith and reason,” which Miller believes are “worrying.” Miller writes at On the Square, the First Things blog:

For some people, of course, it’s a matter of faith that God created the world in six days about six thousand years ago; but it’s nevertheless knowable by natural science that this is not the case. Similarly, many people believe in faith that God exists, but Catholics hold (and Senator Brownback is a Catholic) that this proposition can be known by reason in philosophy. Hence, the subject matters of faith and reason in part overlap.

The distinction between faith and reason, correctly understood, is based not on a difference in subject matter but on a difference in epistemological warrant, that is, on the kinds of reasons a person may have for assenting to a particular proposition.

Miller adds, “Senator Brownback, as I said, is a Roman Catholic, but his view of faith and reason is not the one generally upheld in the Catholic tradition.” He explains:

It’s right that natural science doesn’t tell us anything about values, meaning, and purpose, but philosophy surely can, and it’s just ridiculous to think that human reason, as in Shakespeare, doesn’t teach us about suffering or love. To relegate normative questions to the realm of faith would be to deny the existence of an objective morality knowable by human reason — and in this way the virtues, natural law, and human rights become indistinguishable from whatever putative divine commands any crackpot may say he has lately received. This is not a view that anyone, especially someone involved in public life, should want to defend.

Last week, U.C.L.A. law professor Eugene Volokh, writing at The Volokh Conspiracy, examined (but did not answer) the question, “Does it matter that Sam Brownback doesn’t accept the theory of evolution?”

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Were the Democrats Blitzed?

The Chris Dodd campaign’s “Talk Clock” makes a persuasive case that moderator Wolf Blitzer, by speaking more than any of the candidates except Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, dominated Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate. But pretty much everyone else thinks Hillary Clinton was the winner.

The New Republic’s Sara Tenenbaum rounds up grudging praise for the junior senator from New York from around the Web. A sample: “It kills me to admit it,” Andrew Sullivan writes. “But there you are. And as it sinks in, a dreadful specter emerges. Think June 2008. Think Romney vs. Clinton. Plastic vs. Perma-Freeze. It could happen.”

Philadelphia Inquirer political columnist Dick Polman concedes that Clinton won the debate, but he’s still bothered that “on certain substantive matters, some of her remarks still didn’t pass the smell test.” He writes on his personal blog:

She contended last night (reprising one of her old lines) that she actually didn’t endorse a war when she voted Yes back in 2002. Rather, she insisted that she voted Yes on the expectation that Bush would first pursue further diplomatic options – such as building more international support for the idea of sending U.N. inspectors back into Iraq. But she said that Bush snookered her by moving swiftly to the war option; as she argued last night, “What was wrong is the way this president misused the authority that some of us gave him, and that has been a tragedy.”

But her argument contained a key flaw. The ‘02 war resolution did not contain any language that would have compelled Bush to pursue further diplomatic options; rather, it permitted the Decider to decide on his own whether “further diplomatic or other peaceful means…will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”

So whatever Hillary might have thought she was endorsing (especially in hindsight) was not covered in the actual text. Indeed, when she had an opportunity, during the ‘02 debate, to truly an endorse diplomatic language, she voted no. Some Democratic senators floated an amendment that would have specifically required Bush to pursue more diplomacy, and, if diplomacy failed, Bush then would have been required to ask Congress for a separate war resolution. Only 24 senators voted for this amendment. Clinton was not one of them.

Time political columnist Joe Klein can’t quite bring himself to endorse the consensus. “I still can’t get over the fact that her vote against funding the war — however symbolic — was a vote against a position she substantively favors: giving the troops what they need as a careful redeployment begins and a withdrawal strategy is implemented,” he writes at Swampland.

But Klein didn’t think much of any of the other candidates, either. His by-candidate breakdown:

Edwards — This browbeating of Clinton and Obama on the war vote is silly, cheesy and ineffective.

Obama — Better than the first debate, but still sort of muffled. Good get on Senator Bob Graham reading the entire National Intelligence Estimate and deciding to vote against the war. (It really is so un-Hillary for her not to have read it.)

Biden — Still have the feeling he’s working overtime to figure out the right modulation for each of his answers. A little too wild-eyed last night. But I do admire his willingness to go against the flow on the war funding bill.

Dodd — Every inch a Senator.


Richardson — Great diplomat, good governor, but It’s becoming sadly obvious that he can’t play in this league.

Kucinich — Dick Armey: this guy actually is for socialized medicine. His presence makes everyone else seem moderate, which they, essentially, are.

Gravel — Makes reference to his own “meds.” Please go home.

– Chris Suellentrop