You only have a few minutes to respond, and your answer is going to go all around the office. So what should you say?
Stephen C. Meyer has the answer at Evolution News.
He writes:
I spoke recently to the Faith and Law group on Capitol Hill in D.C., a regular meeting of congressional staffers. At their request, I addressed the topic: “What Should Politicians Say When Asked About Evolution?”
[…]In my talk, I not only gave an answer to the question “What Should Politicians Say When Asked About Evolution?” but I first explained why it is a difficult question for many politicians, especially conservative ones, to answer. There are three main reasons.
I’m only going to give the first reason:
First, the term “evolution” can mean several different things, ranging from (1) the scientifically uncontroversial idea of “change over time” (think of small-scale variations in the shape and size of Galapagos finch beaks) to (2) the more controversial notion of universal common ancestry (think of Darwin’s tree of life) to (3) the increasingly controversial idea that the mechanism of natural selection and random mutation have produced all the forms of life we see today without any guidance or design. The last meaning of “evolution” is what Richard Dawkins calls the “Blind Watchmaker” thesis.
Equivocation in the definition of evolution can make it difficult for a politician to express legitimate skepticism about the controversial meanings of evolution without being presented to the public as being ignorant of established fact, or “anti-science.” In Walker’s recent case, media coverage traded on precisely this ambiguity to present him as being at odds with the majority of the American public, not to mention the scientific establishment. Media outlets repeatedly cited a poll showing that 65 percent of the American people believe that “human beings have changed over time” — i.e., the first and non-controversial meaning of evolution — without mentioning that a huge majority of Americans (and many scientists) reject the third and distinctly controversial meaning of evolution — the idea that the cause of the change over time is an unguided and undirected mechanism.
You can click through and read the other two, but for now, let’s jump to the right way to answer the question:
Most politicians, of course, don’t know about this tumult in the field or of any of the scientific problems with modern Darwinism. They are thus often unnecessarily intimidated by the consensus that supposedly exists in its favor.
In light of all this, any candidate asked about “the theory of evolution” would be well advised to give an answer that affirms the need to teach about contemporary evolutionary theory, but one that also makes clear distinctions between the different meanings of evolution and indicates an awareness of the scientific problems with the standard theory as demonstrated in the scientific literature. And frankly this is not party-specific advice. The scientific literature says what it says, whether consulted by Democrats or Republicans.
Politicians can also say that they think students should learn about those problems since they regard knowledge of the actual status of the theory as a matter of basic scientific literacy. They should not frame the issue as one of “Science versus the Bible,” or answer as if they were being asked about their personal religious beliefs, or as if they think the only alternative to current dogmatic teaching of Darwinian evolution (with its strict insistence on undirected evolution) is to teach Bible-based creationism. They can challenge the dogmatic (and often ideological) way the topic is currently taught and at the same time affirm their commitment to scientific literacy, academic freedom, and critical thinking.
And here’s a sample question and answer:
Reporter: “Do you believe in evolution?”
Candidate: “Of course, I believe that organisms have changed over time. I certainly believe in evolution in that sense. But I am skeptical about unguided evolution — the idea that natural selection and random mutations have produced the major changes in the history of life we observe without any guidance or design. In fact, in peer-reviewed scientific publications, many scientists have expressed doubts about the creative power of natural selection and random mutation. I think that students in learning about the modern version of Darwin’s theory should learn why scientists have these doubts. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories is a matter of basic scientific literacy. And there are scientific weaknesses in modern Darwinian theory.”
This is the right answer because you pull in the majority of people – the young Earth creationists, the intelligent designists and the guided evolutionists. The only people you leave out are the flat-out materialist naturalists, and they are in the minority. So that’s how you answer the question. It would probably help a great deal if you had read both of Meyer’s books on biological evolution, since he writes at the highest level – far higher than left-wing journalists who probably dropped biology because it was too much work.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Great thoughts on this matter. I have Stephen Meyers book and plan on reading through it. I was recently in a debate with an Atheist friend on the topic: “Is God the Basis for Morality?” and I argued in a similar fashion, in terms of how Methodological Naturalism fails as a philosophical position.
I said that it is more rational to believe that morality originated from an intrinsically valuable, intelligent Creator (commonly known as God) , than for morals to have emerged evolutionarily through a valueless, non-intelligent, non-moral, cause-effect physical process.
Though I am a Creationist, I argued that even Theistic Evolution has more common ground than Naturalistic Evolution, because at least “guided evolution” by an intelligent mind can explain design, free will, and human value. Unguided, material only evolution is bankrupt.
LikeLike
I think that’s excellent. It’s good to have your view, but when you are talking to a naturalist, it’s important to make naturalism the issue, and ask whether naturalistic mechanisms are sufficient to explain origin of life and/or Cambrian explosion.
The morality question is another good angle to explore. I don’t think you can get to prescriptive morality from observing nature.
See this:
https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/mark-d-linville-the-moral-poverty-of-evolutionary-naturalism/
LikeLike
I do not “believe” in evolution, rather, I “understand” that descent with modification, coupled with natural selection, explains the diversity of life on Earth in a way that is entirely compatible with the evidence, unlike the Genesis account.
LikeLiked by 1 person
First, I only discuss the accuracy of the Genesis account with people who already believe in God. For a discussion with you, we only care whether naturalistic mechanisms can account for the origin and diversification of life, or whether intelligent causes are needed to explain specific effects in nature, such as specified complexity.
Second, you do believe in evolution, since you have no naturalistic solution to the origin of life or the Cambrian explosion. Perhaps you are like Richard Dawkins, who puts the origin of life down to unobservable aliens. But these are not things that you know.
LikeLike
My objection is not the “accuracy” of the Genesis account, but rather it’s failure to be supported by the evidence. For instance, we have discovered there is not actually a firmament over the earth dividing the waters.
LikeLike
I’m not sure if you can understand English, so I’ll try again.
The Genesis account and Darwinian evolution are not mutually exclusive. Evidence against one is NOT evidence that the other is true. There is a third option, namely intelligent causes.
For example, consider this comment that you are reading right now. We could say that God created it out of nothing. Or we could say that that it evolved by chance. Or we could say that an intelligent agent wrote it. If you ask God whether he did it, and he says no, then that doesn’t mean that the chance option is automatically correct. It could be that I, WK, wrote it. That is the hypothesis of intelligent design, and it is used in many other disciplines, such as machine learning, cryptography and archaeology.
I hope you understand that you have a mental block such that you cannot keep the Bible out of the discussion about origins. I want to talk about what the science shows, not what the Bible says. What the science shows is that Darwinism is incapable of explaining the origin of life, and the Cambrian explosion. For those effects in nature, which exhibit specified complexity (information, as in a blog post, or a computer program), we must infer than an intelligence is involved. That means that Darwinism, as a complete explanation is false.
Yes, we have evidence of finch beaks better longer and shorter across generations. But that process, evolution within a type, is not an explanation for the origin of life, nor is it an explanation for the sudden origins of all body plans in the Cambrian explosion.
Any more comments on the Bible will not be approved. You will debate the science, or your comments will not be approved.
LikeLike
“For instance, we have discovered there is not actually a firmament over the earth dividing the waters.”
It’s funny how people misunderstand the Bible (usually because they only read the KJV and don’t understand the dated English), misunderstand the science (like the problems with unguided evolution as an explanation for life’s complexity or the huge problem of getting life from non-life in the first place), and then make fun of others when it’s their own ignorance that is the problem.
LikeLike
Want to see something funny: drop the accusation of equivocation into a chat about evolution and watch the heads EXPLODE. OR demonstrate that what the article is talking about ISN’T Darwinian evolution and watch the same reaction. It’s funny.
LikeLike
I used to believe in evolution, then I learned more about the genetic code, Life is based on symbolically encoded information. I don’t believe software can invent itself, much less make major revisions to itself. It would be like thinking wood pulp and natural inks could invent a language and write books.
LikeLike