Santorum vs. Santorum

Over at Sciencegate, Chris Mooney catches Rick Santorum flip-flopping on whether or not to teach ID. Though he’s said before, in no uncertain terms, that he thinks ID should be taught in schools, now he just wants to teach “the problems and holes in the theory of evolution”.

Of course what this really means is teaching ID–which consists almost entirely of arguments against evolution–more or less as it stands now. The problem, as always, is that these arguments, when they aren’t outright false or misleading, consist of exaggerating unknowns and focusing on areas where our knowledge is currently thin, all while ignoring the larger body of evidence. It is basically an exercise in trying to convince students that evolution is far more deserving of doubt than biologists would think legitimate. How this differs from simply “teaching ID” isn’t at all clear.

As an astute commenter points out, this isn’t really Santorum’s flip-flop, it’s the ID movement’s flip-flop, and Santorum is just parroting their latest talking point.