Today the LA Times is reporting that, at least in 1997, Sarah Palin was a "Young Earth Creationist":
Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.
http://www.latimes.com/...
Alaska blogger and Wasilla resident Philip Munger recounts the episode in his "Progressive Alaska" blog:
In June 1997, both Palin and I had responsibilities at the graduation ceremony of a small group of Wasilla area home schoolers. I directed the Mat-Su College Community Band, which played music, and she gave the commencement address. It was held at her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God.
Palin had recently become Wasilla mayor, beating her earliest mentor, John Stein, the then-incumbent mayor. A large part of her campaign had been to enlist fundamentalist Christian groups, and invoke evangelical buzzwords into her talks and literature.
As the ceremony concluded, I bumped into her in a hall away from other people. I congratulated her on her victory, and took her aside to ask about her faith. Among other things, she declared that she was a young earth creationist, accepting both that the world was about 6,000-plus years old, and that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time.
Munger writes that several years later he ran into Palin again and she said that she was no longer "necessarily" a Young Earth Creationist.
http://progressivealaska.blogspot.co...
"Young Earth Creationism" is a minority view of Earth's history even among Christians who consider themselves "Creationists". Its most vocal public proponents have been the "Discovery Institute" of Seattle, which has also been the driving force behind teaching Creationism (and more recently "Intelligent Design") in public schools. Here is their website for those who are interested in their agenda:
http://www.discovery.org/
The scientific consensus is that the Earth is approxilately 4.6 billion years old and dinosaurs lived on Earth from 230 million to 65 million years ago. Humanoid ancestors in Africa nearly 5 Million years old have been identified, but "modern" humans have been around less than 250,000 years. The National Center for Science Education provides valuable resources on the issue of evolution:
http://www.natcenscied.org/...
While I firmly believe in our Constitution's prohibition of "No religious test" for public office (Article VI, Section 3), refusal to believe well-established scientific evidence in the natural sciences raises serious questions about fitness for office. In the 21st Century, believing that the Earth is only 6,000 years old is like someone in the 18th century still believing that the Earth is flat.
John McCain touted Sarah Palin as an "expert" on energy, and she has bragged about her knowledge of the oil industry. Knowledge of geology and paleontology is essential in the search for oil resources, which are derived from organic materials buried under millions of years worth of soil and rock.
Sarah Palin needs to tell us if she believes the Earth is only 6,000 years old.