Presidential hopeful Ronald Reagan told a cheering throng of over 10,000 "born-again" Christians in Dallas that the lack of "that old-time religion" in public schools has led to an increase in human suffering. He was addressing a rally of New Right preachers and politicians from more than 41 states who gathered on August 22nd to participate in a "Roundtable National Affairs Briefing." In reference to the theory of evolution Reagan declared, "I have a great many questions about it. It is a theory, it is a scientific theory only. And in recent years it has been challenged in the world of science and is not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was. I think that recent discoveries down through the years have pointed up great flaws in it." He then added that if the theory of evolution is to be taught in public schools, so should the Biblical version of the origin of human life.
(Information from the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union, August 23, 1980)