# Attack ads "accuse" politician of believing in evolution
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [May 15, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517 "2010-05-15T05:14:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/1 "2010-05-15T05:14:54Z")
[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/13/ad-questioning-candidates-faith-jolts-alabama-governor-contest/](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/13/ad-questioning-candidates-faith-jolts-alabama-governor-contest/)
> [@](#):
>
> A mysterious ad that accuses a candidate for governor in Alabama of supporting the theory of evolution and questioning the Bible has triggered a dizzying and nasty shouting match in the state’s hotly contested Republican primary race.
Believing science is a political liability in Alabama. How does this happen in the 21st century?
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### Author:  [@akennett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akennett)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/2 "2010-05-15T05:38:27Z")
> [@Revtim](#):
>
> How does this happen in the 21st century?
It doesn’t. It happens in Alabama.
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### Author:  [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/3 "2010-05-15T05:51:57Z")
I was going to ask if you had visited Alabama lately…
(I did, last year. Quite a unique place.)
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### Author:  [@Wheeljack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheeljack)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/4 "2010-05-15T05:58:02Z")
> [@akennett](#):
>
> It doesn’t. It happens in Alabama.
Oooh, burn!
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/5 "2010-05-15T06:08:30Z")
If you want to get **really** depressed, read the OP’s link, where the “accused” denies everything:
> [@](#):
>
> The ad – part of a campaign against Republican candidate Bradley Byrne by a group called the True Republican PAC – questions Byrne’s faith and accuses him of being a “liberal.”
>
> Referencing Byrne’s time on the state school board, where he was first elected as a Democrat in the 1990s before switching parties, the ad’s narrator says in a quizzical voice:
>
> “On the school board, Byrne supported teaching evolution, said evolution best explains the origin of life – even recently said the Bible is only partially true.” Another voice closes the ad by saying Byrne is “trying to look conservative.”
>
> That and other ads triggered an all-hands-on-deck response from the Byrne campaign […]
>
> In the statement, Byrne said he believes “every single word” in the Bible is true and that, to the contrary, he fought to get creationism taught in Alabama’s schools.
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### Author:  [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/6 "2010-05-15T06:49:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> If you want to get **really** depressed, read the OP’s link, where the “accused” denies everything:
☹ I has a sad.
If I had realized, when I was young, how stupid a sizable chunk of the population is. . . nah, nothing would change, except maybe I’d be even more cynical. And sad.
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### Author:  [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/7 "2010-05-15T09:20:49Z")
In b4 “Don’t ignorantly generalize all the fine people of the south!”
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/8 "2010-05-15T11:44:54Z")
I hate these sort of attack ads even more when they are false. Especially the NRA ones that paint a good ol boy hunt-loving Democrat as wanting to take away your guns (because I agree with 90% of the NRA’s position on guns, enough to know that most elected Democrats in rural areas also do, _because if they didn’t the NRA would have had a field day with them already so they need to make shit up in order to get donations_.)
It’s a sad reminder to me that lying often works.
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### Author:  [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/9 "2010-05-15T11:57:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> “Bradley’s faith is very important to him and this has been very painful to him to have this kind of attack launched on him,” Sullivan told [FoxNews.com](http://FoxNews.com). “There’s nothing about it that’s even remotely true.”
My faith is so important to me that God has given me the gift of prophesy:
“My grampa’s so old he remembers when the United States wasn’t an insignificant, third-world country.”
“Yeah, but we’re the _best_ insignificant, third-world country! Lick our dust, Nauru! **USA! USA! USA!** ”
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/10 "2010-05-15T12:14:35Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> In b4 “Don’t ignorantly generalize all the fine people of the south!”
out b4 “We’re just misunderstood and misrepresented.”
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### Author:  [@Cort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cort)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/11 "2010-05-15T12:44:07Z")
> [@ivan astikov](#):
>
> out b4 “We’re just misunderstood and misrepresented.”
“By millions of us…”
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/12 "2010-05-15T14:50:30Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> In b4 “Don’t ignorantly generalize all the fine people of the south!”
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> out b4 “We’re just misunderstood and misrepresented.”
Right, because everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line is an ignorant rube.
:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/13 "2010-05-15T15:02:46Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> In b4 “Don’t ignorantly generalize all the fine people of the south!”
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> out b4 “We’re just misunderstood and misrepresented.”
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#):
>
> Right, because everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line is an ignorant rube.
>
> :rolleyes:
People, don’t you know I’m only human-who-did-not-evolve-but-was-created-by-God,
Don’t you know I have faults like any one
But sometimes I find myself alone regretting
Some little thing; some foolish thing
That I have done-or-said-in-a-press-release
I’m just a person-who-is-south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line-and-an-ignorant-rube,
Oh lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood….
Nah, not nearly as catchy.
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### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/14 "2010-05-15T15:12:45Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#):
>
> Right, because everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line is an ignorant rube.
>
> :rolleyes:
Dunno about that, but there are apparently enough ignorant rubes in Alabama that politicians are competing over who’s the most ignorant in order to win votes. Not really any getting around that.
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### Author:  [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/15 "2010-05-15T15:16:26Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#):
>
> Right, because everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line is an ignorant rube.
>
> :rolleyes:
It only takes a majority. And if you don’t think there is one, look at who you elect to represent you.
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### Author:  [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/16 "2010-05-15T15:18:34Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> In b4 “Don’t ignorantly generalize all the fine people of the south!”
Exactly, the elected officials are just statistical outliers!
-Joe
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/17 "2010-05-15T15:26:28Z")
> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> If you want to get **really** depressed, read the OP’s link, where the “accused” denies everything:
I wonder how far this will go. In the next ad, maybe he’ll be accused of accepting germ theory and denying that people get sick because of evil spirits that enter our bodies during sneezes that aren’t immediately followed by a “God bless you”.
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### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/18 "2010-05-15T16:18:27Z")
Was he also accused of not having a “3” sticker in the back windw of his pick-em-up truck?
I’m beginning to think the country would have been better off if the South won the Civil War, and went their own way. Let them have their lack of health care, their gay-free proms and yearbooks, their megachurches that pick and choose what parts of the New Testament are valid, their cable knife shopping networks, their pronunciation of Gaaw-DUH, and their schools that teach the Baby Jesus created the universe in seven days.
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### Author:  [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/19 "2010-05-15T16:26:14Z")
> [@elmwood](#):
>
> Was he also accused of not having a “3” sticker in the back windw of his pick-em-up truck?
>
> I’m beginning to think the country would have been better off if the South won the Civil War, and went their own way. Let them have their lack of health care, their gay-free proms and yearbooks, their megachurches that pick and choose what parts of the New Testament are valid, their cable knife shopping networks, their pronunciation of Gaaw-DUH, and their schools that teach the Baby Jesus created the universe in seven days.
Um, excuse me? Please don’t generalize the south like this. They’re not all like that! The fact that you don’t hear about this stuff happening in New York, Seattle or San Diego is, um, well, a coincidence!
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### Author:  [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attack-ads-accuse-politician-of-believing-in-evolution/539517/20 "2010-05-15T16:29:29Z")
> [@elmwood](#):
>
> Was he also accused of not having a “3” sticker in the back windw of his pick-em-up truck?
>
> I’m beginning to think the country would have been better off if the South won the Civil War, and went their own way. Let them have their lack of health care, their gay-free proms and yearbooks, their megachurches that pick and choose what parts of the New Testament are valid, their cable knife shopping networks, their pronunciation of Gaaw-DUH, and their schools that teach the Baby Jesus created the universe in seven days.
Well, that and they won’t have to pretend the phrase “That’s mighty white of you” has any meaning other than the obvious.
-Joe
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