Bobby Jindal is not a scientist, man.
At a prayer breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor this morning, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said the Obama administration is filled to the brim with “science deniers” who are “holding our economy hostage” by not harnessing every available domestic energy resource. Jindal went on to cite the Keystone XL pipeline as a job creator the Obama administration is allegedly blocking but, according to the State Department’s analysis, the pipeline would only create 50 permanent jobs after construction is complete.
To say that the Obama administration is refusing to utilize every available resource is a dubious accusation to make and one that some liberals would dispute as they oppose the president’s “all of the above” energy policy, but I digress.
At the same event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Jindal was asked by reporters if he believes in evolution and his response was to say that he’s not a scientist.
“The reality is I’m not an evolutionary biologist,” the Republican governor and possible 2016 presidential hopeful told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
“What I believe as a father and a husband is that local schools should make decisions on how they teach,” he said. “And we can talk about Common Core and why I don’t believe in a national curriculum. I think local school districts should make decisions about what should be taught in their classroom. I want my kids to be exposed to the best science, the best critical thinking…”
Bobby Jindal wants kids to be exposed to “the best science” unless the best science involves man-made global warming and climate change, and he says “the best science” on either should be presented alongside competing theories.
Jindal also says that we should “let the scientists decide” if man-made global warming and evolution is real, and given that scientists have decided that both are real, there should be no controversy, right?
There shouldn’t be, but Jindal wants to have it both ways. Jindal says intentionally-vague things in an attempt to accept the science and deny the science at the same time, and he does this while accusing the Obama administration of being “science deniers.”
As Sahil Kapur at Talking Points Memo points out, Jindal did study biology at Brown University. He may not be a scientist, but he knows enough to know that he is full of shit.
Governor Jindal was a supporter of Common Core education standards up until the point that he wasn’t. Jindal personally signed Common Core into law in the state of Louisiana, but Common Core has become a proxy for attacking President Obama and “big government” even though neither the president or big government created it. Common Core was created by a bipartisan group of governors and educators.
The superintendent of Louisiana public schools and the state legislature have lined up against Jindal in his new push to dismantle the Common Core standards he lobbied for and signed into law. Because he’s not a scientist, man.