Last week, just days after announcing that he was running for president, Rick Perry was approached by a nine-year-old boy on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. As the TV cameras rolled, the child's mother could be heard, just out of shot, urging her son to ask the Republican candidate what he thought about evolution.

Smiling down at the boy like a kindly uncle, Perry, three-term serving governor of Texas, said, "It's a theory that's out there, and it's got some gaps in it." A few seconds later he rushed off, no doubt relieved that the child refused to repeat his mother's follow-up question about Perry not believing in science.

For Perry, an evangelical Christian and darling of the Republican right, Darwinian evolution is not just a theory. It is a bad theory. And his views on the subject could prove to be important for two reasons.

First, Perry has a very real chance of securing the Republican nomination. As soon as he announced his intention to run, he steamrollered his way towards the front of the pack of Republican candidates. Last week, a poll from Rasmussen Reports placed Perry in the lead with 29% of support among Republicans to Mitt Romney's 18%.



Second, if Perry were to reach the White House in 2012, he may try to alter the teaching of science in schools. Last year, Perry answered an interview question about evolution by saying, "I am a firm believer in Intelligent Design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution."



When talking to the boy in New Hampshire, Perry continued, "In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools – because I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right." (PolitiFact.com, a political fact-checking organisation, has labelled this statement as false, saying, "It's not [Texas] state law or policy to intermix instruction on creationism and evolution.")

In Europe, teaching both evolution and creationism may appeal to one's idea of fair play. But in America, due to ideals of separating church and state, the US supreme court decided in 1987 that teaching creationism was unconstitutional.

Soon thereafter, creationism advocates developed "Intelligent Design". ID states that although evolution may be correct, it must have been guided by an intelligent designer because several structures encountered in cell biology are too complex to have evolved purely by natural selection.



ID is being taught today in some schools, but has been challenged. Most notably, in 2005, a district judge in the state of Pennsylvania had to rule on whether a local school board had breached the constitution by requiring its schools to teach ID. The judge held that "ID is a religious view, a mere re-labelling of creationism and not a scientific theory," and that teaching it in science class breached the constitution. Although the decision does not bind courts outside Pennsylvania, it accords with the majority scientific consensus.



Admittedly, evolutionists agree that Darwinian evolution is, as Rick Perry says, a "theory" – but only in the scientific sense of that word. This means it provides a powerful, useful and predictive explanation of a whole range of supporting scientific facts. In that sense, "theory" means much more than a hunch (as it is often used colloquially, in non-scientific circles).



Perry's comments in New Hampshire indicates that he considers he should take the credit for allowing the teaching of creationism in Texas state schools. But it is doubtful whether there is any credit to be taken. Not only does creationism fly in the face of current science, but teaching it breaches the constitution. And as seen in Pennsylvania, teaching ID instead hardly avoids these problems.

If Perry really does intend to go down the route of introducing ID and creationism into schools, it will not only be a step into the realm of what is presently illegal, but for many Americans, it will also be a step too far.

And the mother of one nine-year-old boy will be especially unimpressed.