“Is it unfair to liken all Darwinists to communists? Of course, but no less so than likening all believers to al-Qaida and the Taliban - a popular trope among the New Atheists.”
Exactly, and this is the nut of the issue. Somebody has to take the high road and stop resorting to such absurd generalisations.
My observations tell me that the people behind Expelled are essentially cut from the same cloth as the likes of Dawkins, Harris et al.; they see a nice rabble-rousing subject that they can appeal to for financial gain. They have no real interest in getting to the bottom of the issue of whether science and religion truly are irreconcilable. They just want to sell books and movies. And of course, the more insulting, obfuscatory, and sensationalist the media strategy used, the more it sells.
We’re all being conned by this fabricated controversy, imho.
First off, this whole issue is somewhat misplaced; it’s more pertinent to a theological discussion regarding literal vs allegorical interpretations of scripture than an issue of scientific controversy. Clearly, evolution, along with a lot of other science, is in contradiction to a literal interpretation of the Bible. However, it is only a minority who follow this interpretation. That’s not to say that those few are right or wrong (it’s a theological discussion for another day), but to simply point out that for many people there really is no big controversy afoot here. Secondly, in their zeal to attack social Darwinists (and there’s still a few of them around) the ID crowd have conflated a scientific theory with an ideology. Not only rudely insinuating that a large number of God-loving scientists of being immoral degenerates, but putting forth the false dilemma that if you even find evolution vaguely compelling, you must be a satanist!
What’s needed is some coherent, thoughtful and respectful discussion that is inclusive of scientists and non-scientists regardless of faith, which aims to identify reasons for possible conflict between science and religion (particularly theological variances) and how & if these can be reconciled.
And no, science isn’t some leftwing fantasy. It’s been used well in the defence of this country specifically against leftwing fantasies, for anyone who cares to pick up a history book. The last thing we need our kids to be hearing is that science is equal to communism. Way to cut their legs off at the knees and leave them crippled against their enemies.