Canada's Current Minister for Science and Technology is a Worrisome Entity. (March 23, 2009)

It was first reported by Canada's popular media, then taken up by Science and last Saturday came to the attention of the redoubtable Bob Park.

CANADA: ELECTION DID NOT GO WELL ABOVE THE 49TH PARALLEL.
 

Stephen Harper, newly elected Conservative-Party Prime Minister, [on October 30, 2008]named Gary Goodyear, an obscure Member of Parliament, to be Minister of Science and Technology. Already this year Goodyear oversaw a series of massive science funding cuts, including zeroing out the Genome program.

A chiropractor and acupuncturist with no science background, he is known for opposing same-sex marriage and favoring full legal rights for fertilized eggs.

Asked in an interview if he believed in evolution, he objected to being questioned about religion. Later that day he said he believed in evolution. He should have stopped there, but expanded with an example from chiropractic about women’s shoes and the spine. He clearly confused genetic inheritance with adaptation of an individual, or perhaps he  believes in Lamarckian evolution.