oes he or doesn't he? That's the question that academics and reporters are asking today, following a flurry of quotes, news wire reports and clarifications on what Vice President Al Gore's stand might over the hot-button topic of teaching creationism in public schools. The controversy began early last evening with a Reuters news service article by political correspondent Alan Eisner headlined: "Gore shocks scientists with creationism statement." According to this account, vice presidential spokesman Alejandro Cabrera declared, "The vice president favors the teaching of evolution in public schools. Obviously, that decision should and will be made at the local level and localities should be free to decide to teach creationism as well."

   According to Eisner, "Several hours" after the initial statement, Cabrera called Reuters again to insist "the vice president supports the right of school boards to teach creationism within the context of religious courses and not science courses." The story took on a life of its own after that; Reuters sent the dispatch out on its international wire, and over at the Washington Post the gaffe was soon picked up by Hanna Rosin for a piece headlined: "Gore avoids stance against creationism."

   Educators and scientists reacted strongly to the original statement released by the Gore office. "My God, that's appalling!" declared Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. Scott told Eisner, "I understand politicians like to compromise and that faced with one group who says two plus two equals four and another group that says two plus two equals six, will tend to arrive at a position that says two plus two equals five. Unfortunately, sometimes the answer has to be four, and this is one of those times."

   Daniel Koshland, former editor of the publication Science and a professor at the University of California, told the Post, "What he's trying to do is carry water on both shoulders. It reflects badly on him (Gore) that he would say something incorrect in order to appease all parts of the population."

    But why all of the fuss?

   One reason is the recent decision by the Kansas Board of Education to abolish the requirement that public schools teach evolution as fact, and to instead permit local school districts to include Christian Creationism and other pseudoscience accounts of how life and the universe originated in their curriculums.

   Another is the statement of Texas Governor George Bush, who last week in New Orleans declared, "I believe children ought to be exposed to different theories about how the world started." Bush campaign spokesperson Minday Tucker followed up, saying "He (Bush) believes both creationism and evolution ought to be taught. He believes it is a question for states and local school boards to decide but he believes both ought to be taught."

   While Bush currently leads the pack of GOP presidential nomination hopefuls, he is feeling heat from other contenders including publisher Steve Forbes and Sen. John McCain of Arizona; both have supported leaving the decision in the creationism-evolution debate to local school boards. Forbes has branded textbook depictions of evolutionary process "a massive fraud," but according to the Post "stops short of fully endorsing creationism."

   "A lot of what we thought was true, it turns out, science is finding is not true," he added.

   "Conservative Pat Buchanan," noted Eisner, "said he supported teaching children that the universe was created by God, although he did not object to them learning about evolution as a theory."

   And Gary Bauer, showing surprising strength in some straw polls, takes a hard-line stance. "Evolution ... is taught with the idea that life arose spontaneously and that there is no divine intelligence involved. I just reject the basis tenet of that theory ... and so do most Americans."

   Faced with polls showing him running behind Texas Governor Bush, the vice president has been making a steady move to the right in an effort to "take god back" for his campaign and the Democratic Party. Thursday's media blunder may betray a reluctance within the White House to take the sorts of strong, principled stands which distance Al Gore and his campaign from the pack of religious conservatives over at the GOP. In May, for instance, Gore unveiled a proposal for a "New Partnership" between government and faith-based groups to administer a broad range of social services. Paying lip service to the establishment clause, he lambasted those "who have said for too long that religious values should play no role in addressing public need," denouncing that view as "hollow secularism."

Faced with polls showing him running behind Texas Governor Bush, the vice president has been making a steady move to the right in an effort to take god back for his campaign and the Democratic Party.

   "I believe strongly in the separation of church and state," Gore told his audience of Salvation Army supporters at a faith-based drug rehab center in Atlanta. "But freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. There's a better way..."

   It's a far, far cry from the much-publicized "Millennium Evenings" hosted over a year ago by the White House, when speakers like physicist Stephen Hawking enthralled audiences of government dignitaries, including President Clinton and First Lady Hillary, and Vice President Al Gore. Hawking, for instance, talked about controlling DNA and startling advances in computer technology. At the March 7, 1998 "Millennium Evening," he told his hosts that science may soon be close to solving the basic riddles of the universe by unifying theories of quantum physics and relativity.

   But this embrace of science -- and with it the notion that the "deep time" universe is billions of years old -- is now at odds with the sordid intellectual climate of the year 2000 campaign. About 44% of Americans accept some creationist scenario, according to the Gallup Poll, with another 40% believing in some kind of "theistic evolution," the notion that a deity has organized and orchestrated millions of years of evolutionary development. Millions of creationists vote -- and their membership in fundamentalist church groups renders them suitable fodder for political organizations like Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. The sheer numbers involved may be creating a culture inside the Gore campaign that fears, at least on the issue of teaching creationism, it is far better to prevaricate and waffle than it is to fight.

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