Creationism, Bush and Corporate Responsibility

A post on Dan Gilmore's Bayosphere blog bemoans business leaders' silence in the face of (one of) Bush's attacks on science.

...I asked Benhamou, one of Silicon Valley's more distinguished people, whether it was the duty of executives to speak out when the president of the United States suggests that science classes be required to teach "intelligent design"--basically creationism in new clothing--as an equally valid alternative to evolution.

They absolutely should speak out, he said. It's a fact, he observed, that today's knowledge-based companies need people "whose minds are trained on knowledge and scientific fact, and not mixed up with this creationism bullshit."

I then asked if he could name anyone in a prominent corporate position who'd actually spoken out in this way. He could not, he said with what sounded like regret: "It's hard to be caught on TV saying these things, but it's particularly important now. I feel quite worried that we're passive about it."

Corporate America's leaders are willing to speak out on purely selfish matters. They'll call for lower taxes, for curbs on shareholder lawsuits, for all kinds of things that might be good for business interests in a specific way.

They'll even call for better education in a general sense. And some of them push for higher standards in schools.

But when it comes to even discussing the willingness of George Bush, his administration and his fundamentalist followers to turn public education into religious indoctrination--and to mock the foundations of scholarship by promoting faith as a legitimate scientific alternative to the scientific method--they fall silent.

Silence in the face of this challenge to basic education is damaging America. It gives yet another advantage, at least in the long term, to nations that teach children to think logically...