An obvious follow-up question for any Republican politician who accuses Democrats of being science deniers is one about science, to which Jindal bobbed and weaved like a welterweight champ.
Acknowledging that he's pandering praying about whether to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Gov. Bobby Jindal was in Washington, D.C. to talk up his 47-page blueprint called "Organizing Around Abundance: Making America An Energy Superpower" before reporters at a Christian Science Monitor-hosted breakfast. Jindal used the occasion to issue a head-scratcher of an accusation against the Obama administration: "The reality is right now we've got an administration in the Obama administration that are science deniers when it comes to harnessing America's energy resources and potential to create good-paying jobs for our economy and for our future. Right now we've got an administration whose policies are holding our economy hostage," Jindal said, ignoring (or ignorant of) the fact that U.S. domestic energy production reached an all-time high last year, has been climbing every year of the Obama presidency and currently accounts for 84 percent of all domestic energy needs. (Domestic energy production was at an historical low point in 2005 when it met only 69 percent of U.S. energy needs. A former Texas oil man was in the Oval Office at the time.)
An obvious follow-up question for any Republican politician who accuses Democrats of being science deniers is one about science, to which Jindal bobbed and weaved like a welterweight champ.
When asked whether he personally believes that evolution is the best explanation for the complexity of life, Jindal, according to an account over at Talking Points Memo, did his best Marco Rubio:
"The reality is I'm not an evolutionary biologist," the Republican governor and possible 2016 presidential hopeful told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
"What I believe as a father and a husband is that local schools should make decisions on how they teach," he said. "And we can talk about Common Core and why I don't believe in a national curriculum. I think local school districts should make decisions about what should be taught in their classroom. I want my kids to be exposed to the best science, the best critical thinking..."
The reporter interrupted Jindal, a Rhodes scholar who studied biology and public policy at Brown University, to press him on the original question of whether he believes the theory of evolution reflects the best scientific thinking about life on Earth.
"I will tell you, as a father, I want my kids to be taught about evolution in their schools, but secondly, I think local school districts should make the decision," he said.
Pressed a third time on what he personally thinks, Jindal again sidestepped.
"I told you what I think. I think that local school districts, not the federal government, should make the decision about how they teach science, biology, economics. I want my kids to be taught about evolution; I want my kids to be taught about other theories."
In the backdrop to Jindal's evasiveness are the cognitively incompatible facts that, a) he has a biology degree from an Ivy League university and, b) he signed into the law the Louisiana Science Education Act, a gift to creationists that has been widely ridiculed in biology circles and against which dozens of Nobel laureates have signed on in opposition.