"Intelligent" Design?

The greatest argument against survival of the fittest exists in these answers the New Republic got from "prominent" conservatives on evolutionary theory. What a hodgepodge of baboons:

William Kristol, The Weekly Standard

Whether he personally believes in evolution: "I don't discuss personal opinions. ..

You don't discuss personal opinions? You are a fucking pundit you douche!

Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform

Whether he personally believes in evolution: "I've never understood how an eye evolves."

What he thinks of intelligent design: "Put me down for the intelligent design people."

How evolution should be taught in public schools: "The real problem here is that you shouldn't have government-run schools. ... Given that we have to spend all our time crushing the capital gains tax I don't have much time for this issue."

John Dewey lies a spinnin' in his grave. Reality is fucking parody. How the hell did Grover evolve, let alone an eye. Oh, here is how an "eye" evolved dopey, it was partially government funded so perhaps you just won't read it out of principal -- though you undoubtedly won't understand it.

David Frum, American Enterprise Institute and National Review
Whether he personally believes in evolution: "I do believe in evolution."

What he thinks of intelligent design: "If intelligent design means that evolution occurs under some divine guidance, I believe that."

How evolution should be taught in public schools: "I don't believe that anything that offends nine-tenths of the American public should be taught in public schools. ... Christianity is the faith of nine-tenths of the American public. ... I don't believe that public schools should embark on teaching anything that offends Christian principle."

Ugh, nice baseline.

Norman Podhoretz, Commentary (via email)

Whether he personally believes in evolution: "It's impossible to answer that question with a simple yes or no."

Just like answering whether he is John's father I imagine.

Tucker Carlson:

How evolution should be taught in public schools: "I don't have a problem with public schools or any schools teaching evolution. I guess I would have a problem if a school or a science teacher asserted that we know how life began, because we don't so far as I know, do we?

Somebody at the Heritage Foundation hasn't sent Tucker the memo.

David Brooks, The New York Times (via email)

Whether he personally believes in evolution: "I believe in the theory of evolution."

What he thinks of intelligent design: "I've never really studied the issue or learned much about ID, so I'm afraid I couldn't add anything intelligent to the discussion."

Bobo, who is very tiny apparently (he does have a Hobbity name after all) also is not getting the memo.

To be fair there are a couple of decent responses. Richard Brookheiser for example. And now your yearly allotment of Krauthammer being correct (he is also, I think, notably the only one of these people to have substantial biological instruction):

Whether he personally believes in evolution: "Of course."

What he thinks of intelligent design: "At most, interesting."

Whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools: "The idea that [intelligent design] should be taught as a competing theory to evolution is ridiculous. ... The entire structure of modern biology, and every branch of it [is] built around evolution and to teach anything but evolution would be a tremendous disservice to scientific education. If you wanna have one lecture at the end of your year on evolutionary biology, on intelligent design as a way to understand evolution, that's fine. But the idea that there are these two competing scientific schools is ridiculous."

But Krauthammer, as far as I know, never writes columns stating these things, he wouldn't want to offend his audience with rationality.