Mike Pence, former member of
Congress and now GOP vice
presidential nominee. (AP)
“Every signer of the Declaration of Independence believed that men and women were created and were endowed by that same Creator with certain unalienable rights,” said former representative and now Republican vice presidential pick Mike Pence on the House floor in July 2002.
Pence made the remark during a speech about the theory of Darwinian evolution versus intelligent design.
“[Evolution] always was a theory, Mr. Speaker,” said Pence. “And now that we have recognized evolution as a theory, I would simply and humbly ask, can we teach it as such and can we also consider teaching other theories of the origin of species?”
“Like the theory that was believed in by every signer of the Declaration of Independence,” said Pence. “Every signer of the Declaration of Independence believed that men and women were created and were endowed by that same Creator with certain unalienable rights. The Bible tells us that God created man in his own image; ‘Male and female He created them.’”
In his remarks, Pence further said,
“But now comes a new find by paleontologists. In the newspapers all across America, a new study in Nature magazine, 6- to 7-million-year-old skull has been unearthed, the Toumai skull, and it suggests that human evolution was actually -- according to a new theory, human evolution was taking place, and I am quoting now, ‘all across Africa and the Earth,’ and the Earth was once truly, and I quote, ‘a planet of the apes on which nature was experimenting with many human-like creatures.’
“Paleontologists are excited about this, Mr. Speaker. But no one is pointing out that the textbooks will need to be changed because the old theory of evolution taught for 77 years in the classrooms of America as fact is suddenly replaced by a new theory, or I hasten to add, I am sure we will be told, a new fact.
“… I believe that God created the known universe, the Earth and everything in it, including man. And I also believe that someday scientists will come to see that only the theory of intelligent design provides even a remotely rational explanation for the known universe. But until that day comes -- and I have no fear of science, I believe that the more we study the science, the more the truth of faith will become apparent.
(AP)
“I would just humbly ask as new theories of evolution find their ways into the newspapers and into the textbooks, let us demand that educators around America teach evolution not as fact, but as theory, and an interesting theory to boot.
“But let us also bring into the minds of all of our children all of the theories about the unknowable, that some bright day in the future, through science and perhaps through faith, we will find the truth from whence we come.”
Pence represented Indiana’s Sixth Congressional district in the House of Representatives from 2000 to 2012 before being elected governor of Indiana. He is now the Republican vice presidential candidate.