BETTER LATE than never. This Presidential Proclamation, dated January 6, 2009, is posted at the White House website: Establishment of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument .
Your Curmudgeon has no particular interest in the Pacific Remote Islands area, so why are we posting this? You’ll understand when you take a look at what Bush’s proclamation says. The bold font was added by us:
Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands were first formed as fringing reefs around islands formed by Cretaceous-era volcanoes (approximately 120-75 million years ago). As the volcanoes subsided, the coral reefs grew upward, maintaining proximity to the sea surface.
Surprised? Here’s more:
Palmyra Atoll is a classic Darwinian atoll that formed atop a sinking Cretaceous-era volcano. Kingman Reef formed in the same manner but is considered an atoll reef because it lacks permanent fast land areas or islands. …
The rest of the proclamation has more about Pacific atolls and reefs, and the reasons for protecting them. You may find it interesting. But what we find interesting is that President Bush — widely regarded as a creationist — included such strikingly pro-science phrases in his statement.
Ah George, we hardly knew ye.
[We acknowledge being tipped off by this from Reason Magazine.]
Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
8 responses so far ↓
Stacy S. // 7-January-2009 at 9:16 pm
Don’t you remember this??
http://www.flascience.org/wp/?p=818
The Curmudgeon // 7-January-2009 at 10:08 pm
Stacy: Yeah, I think I even mentioned it at the time. Wow, I did a whole article about it less than a month ago: George Bush and Evolution: The Creationist Reaction. (But I forgot it!)
Tony // 7-January-2009 at 10:13 pm
Part of me thinks that Bush does have an inkling that evolution is true, but he has kept this under wraps in order to appeal to the large percentage of unintelligent creationists Republican base. Karl Rove told him to do that.
Another part of me thinks that maybe he has learned something in the last few years.
I’m not sure which is worse.
mightyfrijoles // 8-January-2009 at 9:49 am
I suspect few people know who GWB really is. The media and the Dems were very successful in painting his image and it got swallowed by the public, but periodically the real GWB comes through. Maybe this is one, or maybe he really had nothing to do with it (probable) and just signed it.
But I suspect “wishy-washy” is probably a good adjective and he is probably a decent man.
b_sharp // 8-January-2009 at 7:37 pm
Although few know who GWB really is, I suspect a great many know who they want GWB to be. His success or failure is determined by how well he can emulate that multi-headed figure.
The Curmudgeon // 8-January-2009 at 7:55 pm
Tundra Boy, GWB has had his 8 years. Too late now to change his record. It’s all up to the historians.
Modusoperandi // 10-January-2009 at 11:41 am
Um, same Darwin, different “Darwinian”. Not ToE, but Darwin’s theory of atoll formation.
“This necessarily led me to reflect much on the effects of subsidence, and it was easy to replace in imagination the continued deposition of sediment by the upward growth of coral. To do this was to form my theory of the formation of barrier-reefs and atolls.” ~ Charles Darwin (autobiography).
I’m not saying one way or the other if Bush Jr is “Darwinist”, I’m just saying that the Proclamation doesn’t seem to be what you’re implying.
The Curmudgeon // 10-January-2009 at 12:04 pm
MO says: “I’m just saying that the Proclamation doesn’t seem to be what you’re implying.”
True, atoll formation isn’t variation and natural selection. Still, when it comes to Bush the Younger, we’ll take what glimmers of pro-science thinking we can find.