More Anti-Science From God's Own Party

From Representative Todd Akin, some more crazy nonsense:

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), whose Senate campaign against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill has been largely disowned by national Republicans after his false comment that women's bodies can prevent pregnancy in cases of "legitimate rape," said this week he also doubts the scientific basis of evolution.

"Well, I've taken a look at both sides of the thing. And it seems to me that evolution takes a tremendous amount of faith," said Akin, in audio of a tea party group meeting on Thursday, obtained by Think Progress. "To have all of a sudden all of 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 as a matter of science, because I don’t know if you can prove one or the other.

Then there's Representative Paul Broun (R-GA):

Evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are major underpinnings of mainstream science. And Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun, a physician who sits on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, says they are “lies straight from the pit of hell.” [Emphasis added.]

And a paragraph later:

Here are his remarks:

“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually. How to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all our public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason, as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.” [Emphasis added.]

In case you didn't know it, Akin is also on the House Committee on Science Space and Technology.

Hardly surprising, then, that 58% of Republicans polled by Gallup dismiss reality and believe with no evidence whatsoever that God created humans in their present form sometime within the last 10,000 years.

As I've said before, if we are a nation in decline, this has to be one of the reasons: an ignorant, stubborn, faith based anti-intellectual retreat from science.