“They said to him, ‘Then say Shibboleth,’ and he said, ‘Sibboleth,’ for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan.” (Judges 12:6)

Recently, Wisconsin Governor and GOP presidential contender Scott Walker was in London where the following exchange occurred during a question/answer session after his speech:

Question: “Are you comfortable with the idea of evolution? Do you accept it?”

Walker: “I’m going to punt on that one. That’s a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other. So I’m going to leave that up to you.”

Given the nature of the event (a global trade conference), this was an odd thing to ask of the Governor. But then, Walker is a rising star among those precious few conservative candidates vying for the Republican nomination, as such the question posed was quite typical of the kind a liberal reporter would ask of any GOP candidate for office; it was intended to be a “gotcha!” question designed to embarrass Walker and promote a secular stereotype of his religious supporters: an intellectually regressive mob of Tea-Partying, Global Warming-denying, Bible-thumping, homophobic creationists.

This was the political equivalent of the “Kobayashi Maru” Starfleet Academy examination (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan): a no-win situation (i.e. trap) where only two possible choices are allowed: either (1) alienate his narrow religious base or (2) alienate the mainstream culture. But like that enterprising Starfleet cadet, James Tiberius Kirk, Walker, too, refused to play by the “rules” of this rigged contest. And by declining to answer the question, the Governor more or less cheated in the eyes of his media interrogators.

Not surprisingly, conservatives defended his dodge while liberals condemned it. For his religious supporters on the Right, his honest answer would have showcased the extent of his presuppositional nuance (awareness of the role played by naturalistic and methodological assumptions informing science) in the origins debate; for the Left, Walker’s expressed view on evolution would have revealed his IQ. Owing to the fact that a sizable number of religious conservatives challenge the scientific consensus on such matters as evolution, global warming, embryonic stem cell research, to name just a few, one of the many fears that the Left has with conservative Republicans is the prospect that these Neanderthals will impose a “family values” theocracy, and make science a hostage to biblical literalism by outlawing evolution.

Not only is this liberal demagogic alarm irrational, it is also politically unrealistic. The authority of the Executive branch extends only as far as the Constitution (as interpreted by the courts) allows, and the current paradigm governing judicial review is that all legislation must have a secular purpose with no excessive entanglement with religion; this has been the firewall preventing alternatives to evolution from being taught in the public schools. For example, early in his first term President Reagan had expressed support for “equal time” laws then appearing in certain states that mandated the teaching of “creation-science” alongside evolution in tax-supported secondary schools. As it turned out, Reagan’s support for such legislation was at best moral, for no public school then (nor since then) has ever taught any theory of origins other than evolution as a scientific fact because the Courts decisively ruled that creation science was not science but a religion – hence any law requiring that it be taught in the classroom would be in violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

On the whole, the content of science instruction in this country is regulated by the States and the various local school districts therein; they formulate the policies, set educational standards, and choose the textbooks. The Courts will allow this local control over the science curriculum to continue so long as school board policy or state law is not at cross-purposes with the federal Constitution. Realistically then, the most that a creationist-leaning President could ever do while in office is to speak out on the issue, taking advantage of his bully pulpit to educate the American people by exposing the inherently religious basis of evolution or any other scientific theory of origins, or lecture on the judicial misuse of the “wall” metaphor whose original meaning was to protect religion from governmental intrusion – not the government from any religious influence. Moreover, the President could inform the people that according to the original intent of our Founding Fathers, one has freedom of religion in this country, but not freedom from religion. The list could go on – but you get the point.

Because of Walker’s artful dodge, we do not really know what his personal views are on the subject of evolution. However, we do know that his personal views – should they lean creationist – would not be allowed by our nation’s High Court to have any practical effect on policy. So in that sense, the media question does not matter. But as a measurement of Walker’s philosophical understanding of the nature of the creation-evolution debate, this question matters indeed.