So what does Sam Brownback think of evolution? Not much.

In the wake of the massive embarassment heaped upon him by American and global press in a recent Republican debate because he raised his hand to say he didn't "believe in evolution" (the BBC headline on the debate was about the three candidates who don't "believe" in evolution) candidate Sam Brownback has written an op-ed in the New York Times.
Let's look through some of this and sort the wheat from the chaff.
Brownback begins by properly citing the problem with assenting to answer a "yes or no" question. It doesn't do much to let us see the directions from which one might move in their position. But, that said, I find it rather hard to believe that if you raise your hand to essentially say, "I deny the truth of the Theory of Evolution," then your explanation of that position is likely to be laden with either misdirection (his is), non-scientific dead ends (sure is), disingenuous jargon usage (yep!), and religious or faith justifications (it sure is). But I agree that we need "to discuss the issue in a bit more detail."
Brownback addresses young earth creationism, seemingly distancing himself from it, but not really saying that he doesn't hold that view. In fact, that seems to be the tenor of this whole thing - to say a bunch of stuff about evolution that doesn't say much about evolution but says a lot about how much we need faith in God. And well, according to Brownback science and faith can't actually contradict one another because they have the same root. Sorry to say, but that is patently ridiculous.
If we look at the definitions of science and faith, we come to a fundamental disagreement between the two. In this point I will admit that I am rather inflexible and don't buy into what Stephen Jay Gould called the Non-Overlapping Magasteria or NOMA. Here is why.
Lawrence Krauss explains science very well. In his recent interviews and in articles I have read by him before, he has constistently stated that science is built upon a method that asks questions about the universe and that receives its answers from nature. In a broader sense, this is how we conduct reasonable historical research too. And how we ascertain whether or not your kid is smoking or not. You propose a test and then get evidence on it.
Faith requires no such tests. The tests are entirely subjective or at best culturally subjective. Facts have no place in this. All you have to do is look at statements of belief by churches to get that this is the case. We can look to the Nicene Creed or Apostle's Creed and find not one statement of evidence that stands up at all. It is all about "We believe" in this or that thing and not because it is supported at all by serious historical or rational inquiry. Look at the Lord's Prayer or "Our Father". According to catholic.org, Catholic beliefs are as follows (these are basically in line with my memory of CCD and service as a boy and teen):

1. To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world. Man must know, love and serve God in a supernatural manner in order to gain happiness of heaven. Man is raised to the supernatural order only by grace, a free gift of God.
2. We learn to know, love, and serve God from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who teaches us through the Catholic Church.
3. In order to be saved, all persons who have attained the use of reason must believe explicitly that God exist and that he rewards the good and punishes the wicked; in practice they must also believe in the mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation.
4. By the Blessed Trinity we mean one and the same God in three divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
5. By the Incarnation is meant that the Son of God, retaining His divine nature, took to Himself a human nature, that is, a body and soul like ours.
6. The Church is the congregation of all baptized persons united in the same true faith, the same sacrifice, and the same sacraments, under the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff and the bishops in communion with him.
7. We find the chief truths taught by Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed.

Or what about a statement of belief by a church like The Lord of Life Church, an "Orthodox Evangelical" Church [how's that for a trainwreck of anachronisms]?

We hold orthodox evangelical beliefs including the Trinity; the deity of Christ; the sinfulness of mankind; Jesus' substitutionary atoning death; justification by faith alone; the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture; and Jesus' second coming. You can view our full doctrinal statement here.

"Justification by faith alone" and "the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture." This is a world-view that puts the cart before the horse. In the cases of both the Catholic Church's prayers and the statement of belief by the Lord of Life Church (Brownback is a Catholic from a highly Protestant state, Kansas) we can see that the belief in revelation and the authority of revealed "truth" is primary. That there isn't a scrap of evidence for the reality of the trinity doesn't matter because all we need is "faith alone." There is nothing in any of these statements that says to us "We believe by the convergence of faith and reason that God is the trinity: the father almighty is the maker of heaven and earth, incarnated himself upon the earth as his own son, Jesus Christ, and proceeds forth as the avatar of the Holy Spirit." Of course it doesn't say that. If it did, it would 1. be a lie, and 2. it would contain the massive contradiction that three beings can't be one being who are individuals with independent acting parts. Maybe they're an extra-cosmic symbiote? It's all just an effront to reason.
There are lots of really smart people who really disagree with me on this one. Stephen Jay Gould did as he was the originator of the term NOMA in the book Rocks of Ages. Lawrence Krauss, who I cited above, is an atheist who thinks that life is capacious enough to accomodate reason and faith sufficiently. Eugenie Scott, is the head of the National Center for Science Education. She thinks that the NOMA is a good idea. So does Robert Pennock (whose beliefs I don't know) who wrote that evolution is atheistic the way that plumbing is; you just don't need to invoke God to fix piping but it doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. Ken Miller (lead witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Trial and a Catholic who has written Finding Darwin's God). In a colloquium that my father-in-law was involved with last year, he was the only one who agreed with me that science and faith are really incompatible.
If you want to compartmentalize your beliefs, which I think is probably inevitable in all people, then I reluctantly say that it is your right and I would certainly not force it from you. But it is compartmentalization for the sake of preventing cognitive dissonance. You can eat your cake and have it to. But it is much like pretending that the Double Chocolate Espresso cake you've just eaten has 300 calories a slice when it has 1100. It's at best a little deception and at worst, as in Brownback's case, a lie.
So Brownback's down on that one. Sorry Sam. Your Gould-esque attempt to keep science and faith separate doesn't honestly work.
Later, he writes:

If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.

First, it does mean those small changes and it's good to know that a man running for president doesn't deny the totally obvious facts of observable mutation and natural selection. But those changes extrapolated over billions of years accumulate in a most amazing way, resulting in what Daniel Dennett describes as the crane of evolution or Dawkins calls "climbing Mount Improbable." Those tiny steps proceed up the mountain of time but seemingly never know where they are going. Mutations are generated blindly, somewhat like a biochemical lottery in a game whose rules are governed by the laws of chemistry and physics. Those mutations that promote survival and fecundity are naturally selected for. If the advantage is enough, then the organism takes one more little step up Mt. Improbable. Neat.
Brownback continues that he is worried that this is a purely materialistic and deterministic vision of the world. I have two reactions to this: it is and it isn't. Evolution is changes in allele frequency in a population over time or descent with modification. Those are completely materialistic explanations. No way around it.
However, that doesn't prevent one (as the Miller example above or even Francis Collins head of the Human Genome Project will tell you) from glomming faith in some sort of divine intelligence onto the explanation. It makes the explanation much less parsimonious, but you are free to do it. If you want to then, as Brownback surely does, ascribe this divine intelligence with the desire to give us a purpose and that that purpose-giving divine intelligence is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of the Christian Faith then you have just not only eaten some Double Chocolate Espresso cake but also put some nutella all over it, entering it into a popular but totally dubious chain of assertions about evolution, human purpose and cognition, the unsubstantiated existence of deities, the doubly unsubstantiated identity of the deities, and the triply unsubstantiated purpose that the (un)identified (non)deities have imbued upon us.
As Brownback notes, it is his worry about purpose that drives his beliefs about evolution even if he is "happy to let the facts speak for themselves." That is a totally disingenuous remark and he probably knows it. That scientists exclude God from their questions is because God has nothing to do with science. Go back to the Pennock remark. Consider what Pierre Simon Laplace said to Napoleon upon showing him his model of the solar system. Napoleon asked where God was in his work on the universe. LaPlace replied that he had no need of that hypothesis. It is atheistic only insofar as it deals with the matter and energy of which things like stars, planets, oceans, the weather, cacti, lizards, and human beings are made and create. Were Brownback serious about letting the facts speak for themselves then he would be content with allowing scientists (and historians I bet too) go about the business of asking questions and looking at the facts and seeing where they are led.
And he uses this cart before the horse approach to slide down the slippery slope that in more ridiculous writers leads them to the Stalin/Mao/Hitler debacle. I'm so glad he didn't enter into that fray. Brownback says,

The unique and special place of each and every person in creation is a fundamental truth that must be safeguarded. I am wary of any theory that seeks to undermine man’s essential dignity and unique and intended place in the cosmos. I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose.

I can't really agree more that we all have special places in the world. It is fundamental that we love and respect the dignity of individuals. In no way does the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection say that we are neither special or not unique. In fact, because of evolutionary biology and biochemistry, we know that we are all unique. It's not just an appearance but a fact. Our genomes are entirely our own. They are not just our dad's or mom's. They are a new iteration, a new ripple in a new part of the amazing river of life that sprang from the earth billions of years ago, a river that proceeds inexorably, if messily, along the surface of time on our little planet.
And Brownback is in a way correct that we were willed into existence, but not in the way he wants to believe we were. Our parents created us, some of us more deliberately than others (hey accidents happen). But we didn't select the sperm that fertilized the egg. That sperm's unique position, timing, and biochemical print made that possible. But that sperm was randomly generated among billions of others in a man's testicles. Why be so wasteful with all of those other sperm? If God wills it to be, couldn't he have been a little bit more efficient? The average male ejaculates 250,000,000 sperm. Most intercourse doesn't result in conception either. I'm glad God wasn't the engineer for my car, it would get 1 mile for 250,000,000 gallons.
But the end is the kicker. Brownback does the theistic realism thing, declaring,

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.
Without hesitation, I am happy to raise my hand to that.

There it is. Evolutionary theory must be reconciled with dogma and the "truth" of his religion. Interesting to note that he didn't endorse a single religious doctrine other than this bland uniqueness of humanity and humanity's likeness in the created order. How's that for standing up for what you believe in?
Evolution does not contradict uniqueness - Homo sapiens are not Pan troglodytus or Dendroaspis polylepis - and individuals of our species are only who they are, the blessing and curse that that is.
But Brownback is not engaging in this debate seriously. It's pretty clear that he has simply discarded out of hand that material causes have material explanations when it comes to human beings. Instead, he used the opportunity to blather about his faith instead of actually telling us why he might find the Theory of Evolution disreputable on its own grounds. Brownback, one of the would-be ayatollahs of our nation, is a fountain of ignorance.