I already talked about the day of prayer governor Rick Perry took part in. And my amazement at the type of people that were attracted to the event and he associated himself with. The hint for me came that something wasn’t quite right about this association was when Vonette Bright said she wants to see the 10 Commandments and prayer in school.

So when at the Politics and Eggs breakfast in Bedford, NH, Jim Rubens noted that the National Academy of Sciences, which has advised presidents since its founding by Abraham Lincoln, has concluded that global warming is caused primarily by fossil fuels. And he subsequently asked “If observed scientific data and the National Academy of Sciences are both wrong on an issue involving thousands of scientists, and an issue as prominent as global warming, doesn’t this call into question the entire science discovery process that forms the foundation of a hundred years of America’s technological preeminence?”

The answer from Perry stunned me:

You may have a point there, because I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly or even daily scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes our climate’s changed, they’ve been changing ever since the earth was born. But I do not buy into a group of scientists who have in some cases found to be manipulating this information.

And the cost to the country and the world of implementing these anti-carbon programs is in the billions if not trillions of dollars at the end of the day. And I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money still on a scientific theory that has not been proven, and from my perspective, is being put more and more into question.

In his answer he’s referring to Climategate, that supposedly showed manipulation of data to get the results they wanted. But in every investigation it has been shown that no data or results have been fudged. And that the whole fuss people created around certain phrases and emails was completely unwarranted and often complete misrepresentations of what was being said:

And even if the global warming crisis is based on trumped-up data, why has no one come forward with the real data that shows there is no reason for concern? It’s impossible to keep such data suppressed, if it existed, just by the sheer number of people involved and all the fake data scientists would need to fabricate.

But I have the biggest problem with this statement that man-made global warming is a “scientific theory that has not been proven”. A scientific theory is what a hypotheses becomes once it has been verified and accepted to be true. It means that it explains a set of related observations and has been verified multiple times by independent scientists. Just by the fact that it is a scientific theory means it is proven.

But everyone who has discussed online with creationists has heard the “it’s just a theory” argument. So it might not come as a surprise that Perry had the following to say on evolution and the age of our planet:

Boy: How old do you think the Earth is?

Rick Perry: How old do I think the Earth is? I don’t have any idea. I think it’s pretty old. It goes back a long long ways. I’m not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how long ago the Earth is. I hear your mom was asking about evolution. It’s a theory that’s out there and it’s got some gaps in it. In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our programs.

It shows a blatant denial of basic scientific facts on his account. And the scary thing is Rick Perry is doing quite well in the polls, I would fear the day if someone like him would become the president of the United States.