Creationism and the presidency

It's a deal-breaker for me too. If a candidate cannot accept Darwinian evolution, then I simply lose all respect for him or her. I do not trust their empirical judgment, which means I don't believe their political decisions will be affected by, er, reason.

No, that wasn't written by some wacko, leftist atheist. That was the author of The Conservative Soul, Andrew Sullivan.

John Logsdon points out that Wired Science also has a good article on why a candidates views on evolution matter.

Huckabee, we are actually not asking you if there is a creator behind the cosmos. We are clear that you think there is. We are asking if you would weigh rational scientific evidence that has been peer reviewed and is reproducible in your most critical decisions about medical research, terrorist weapons threats, the environment, and education. My concern is that your answer to Bill Maher, “We just don't know [the age of the earth]” is an indication that you don't include science on your reference shelf. If you did, you would know that we do know the age of the earth. It's 4.5 billion years old.

I have a link to the debate video here.