Agreed...
I think it would do well for the anti-evolutionists to learn that science is by nature adversarial
If we could substitute scientist in place of science above it would explain many of the issues which I've noticed bother many on the CREVO side of these threads.
It is my experience that most of the truly "religious" people I know are non-confrontational by nature to the point of being polite to a fault. It is exasperating to them IMHO that they are "talked to" the way many of the "scientists" on these threads appear to think is appropriate. I have found many of the threads to be of a much higher quality in terms of tone lately and it appears that trend invites more participation.
Thanks again for your input it has been most helpful.
I think that is only part of the answer.
Scientists normally go through an extremely long and difficult education process, and it doesn't stop with the Ph.D. There is simply so much to learn, often it takes a decade or more to just get to the leading edge where you can begin to do work which advances the field.
And then somebody, who has not gone through the same educational process, comes along and says its all "evo-bunk," or "evilution," or "evo-cultism" or, in one case, "I'm sick and tired of athiest monkey-worshipping communist swine ..." We see examples of this on these threads daily; most of these comments come from people with a religious background.
It is amazing that these comments are received as well as they are on these threads; occasionally there are responses in kind.
For the most part, the working scientists try to share their knowledge, but often the response from the other side is less than kind; religious belief is not open to reasoned argument. The level of discourse, as you might expect, can go downhill from at that point.