How has your post-T-day been if you are a citizen of the Greatest Nation in the World?TM Wow, I woke up this morning to a flare up in the Ed vs. PZ battle here on SB and elsewhere. Bora has the most most thorough round up of links, which can be reduced to theistic-evolutionists-are-sell-outs vs. theistic-evolutionists-are-OK-by-me. In many ways I do probably agree with Bora's perspective on this issue, there are a multiplicity of strategies, and different groups need to approach them from different angles. Of course, being a pragmatic libertarian conservative, I don't feel that Creationism is necessarily a symptom of "Conservative Pathology." I've already noted that the link between being an anti-evolutionist and on the Right are weak in Europe, and men like William Jennings Bryan were certainly not conservatives in their day. In regards to the "root causes" of Creationism I think there is a mix of innate psychology and historical contingency. I am averse to accepting a Dawkins-style model which reduces Creationism to a subset of the religion "problem."
At the end of the day, this all a bunch of words. Yes, it can cause some temporary ill-feeling, but the fight goes on, and there is science to be done. On a personal level my own atheism has minimal affect on my relationships with Christians, like Christer Chris. Let a thousand flowers bloom, from PZ level anti-theism to Brayton style respect for theism to Ken Miller out & out theism.
PS: Though the nastiness is pretty regrettable, at the end of the day we're all worm-food.
Zechariah 13:7 - Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
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Hey, where's the bibilical verse?
(I like your 'TM' ;) )
As for this "Theists are sellouts" stuff I tend to find that rather odious.
What business is it of scientists to opine or agitate as such except insofar as keeping hands off their empirical studies and their scientific theories that seek to explain those empirical results? What business is it of scientists to worry about some theory of remote but divine ultimate causation? As long as that theory steps aside before strong concrete evidence, that is, and makes room for it or incorporates it.
There are versions of atheism that smell like an evangelical secular cause, I think. Secular ideologies have also stood blocking science, and in the middle and later 20th century more effectively so than traditional religion. Recall Lysenko and biologists generally in the atheist Soviet Union. Scientists, as scientists, have no business in staking a claim there. As individuals they can of course, but may just open up doubt as to whether they're as dispassionately empirical as some deists are.
I don't think the link you gave for this comment
I've already noted that the link between being an anti-evolutionist and on the Right are weak in Europe
shows anything like that. Their idea of measuring being "on the right" seemed to ask US-specific questions like abortion. It's like asking Americans their opinions on conscription: if you're right-wing, you're almost certainly passionately pro-conscription... right? Or maybe you should ask about support for a state alcohol monopoly, land mines, wolf hunting, NATO membership, store opening hour regulations...?
Abortion just isn't a real issue here, so no matter what you're asking, you're not going to get a strong relationship with it.
"What business is it of scientists to worry about some theory of remote but divine ultimate causation?"
At what point do you think scientists should stop worrying, stop thinking, and hand over the keys to the oogy-boogies who make up nonsense and demand it is accepted as fact?
"As long as that theory steps aside before strong concrete evidence, that is, and makes room for it or incorporates it."
As long as some incredibly implausible thing that will never happen happens, yes, you're quite right. Shame about the implausibility and never-happening, though.