I engage you because I care about conservatism, and I'd hate to reliquish it to biblical literalists, because I feel that would result in it becoming a perpetually shrunken political movement.
"Creationism: the Ice Water of Politics" placemarker
I know many people who vote Democratic because of the perceived anti-science position taken by Republicans. Their comments run along the lines of: "If you cannot trust Republicans to do science correctly, how can you trust them with anything?"
Let's cut to the chase: absolute truth is something 'true' conservatives don't argue much about ... we agree it exists (except true blue libertarian atheists).
A scientist believes the pathway to absolute truth (e.g., the second law of thermodynamics) comes from a group of folks demostrating reproducible results in a lab/journal environment.
A Christian (one who actually walks in that narrow road) also believes in 'absolute' truth, and in general they agree traditional science is a subset of it. Untestable theories are rejected as traditional science, or absolute truth, by your typical fundamentalist. A Christian would also argue that its the scientists who pirate from us the idea that you can arrive at absolute truth.
In short, we have more in common than we don't. The arguement hinges on the source of absolute truth. And there is a definite winner in the reality that we don't agree and are divided on this point ... and it's neither of us. Among the biggest losers are those who suffer in rotten marriages, or 'experience' divorce and the kids who become casualities within both.
I've noticed something ... your typical high visibility scientist has a typical high dysfunctional family life. But, no, publishing a study on that correlation is strictly verboten.