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Let's mention another aspect of these discussions that fascinates me: the psychology of the people on the other side. Nearly all are totally evidence-proof.

Ain't that the truth! I also fine the rhetoric and psychology fascinating.

One thing I've noticed on many threads, is that D*m*cr*ts, drug warriors, and creationists all share several rhetorical flourishes:

1) They don't have opponents who simply disagree, who weigh the evidence differently and come to different conclusions. No, you're a Cl*nt*n-hating rightwing conspirator, or a spaced-out druggie who loves the Taliban and hates America, or an atheist trying to rationalize his sinfulness.

2) Part of this is ascribing motives to their opponents and then attacking that particular strawman.

3) They prophesise the most horrible consequences if you don't follow their prescriptions. "seniors starving", "everybody a junkie", "no possible basis for morals".

4) Flat-out ignorance and impermeabliity to evidence. Have you ever tried to pin a D*m down on exactly what it was that GW Bush (or Jeb, or Katherine Harris, or whoever) was supposed to have done to 'steal' the election? They *know* he did *something*, and that's enough! It's like getting a Woddie to admit the Anslinger appealed to racism when he was lobbying for the MJ tax act, or getting a creationist to acknowledge that very similar DNA sequences are found in different species, and that the tree of variations in the DNA pretty well matches the tree of life deduced by evolution.

I've had the same reaction big time. Building a better world, in this life or the next, gives you a license to throw away your brain every time it starts to bother you. The liberals have the lovely euphemism, "Sometimes it's necessary to lie in order to tell the truth." What they don't say is that "the truth" is whatever the revolution needs it to be.

In either case (creationists or lib activists), if you in any way question the right to the tactics employed, you become the enemy and you'll be lucky to see another straight answer again.

Wow! Outstanding name-calling and guilt by association. I thought I'd check in and can't believe this has been going on over a day. This is what passes for science and a scientific debate? The are two "sides" the other of which must be demonized?

What I find incredibly frustrating is that in light of what Gould concedes to be an absence of evidence of transitions between species no scientist is willing to consider any alternative other than the two "sides." It's either orthodoxy or creationism. There is no other possible explanation for the method of change of species on earth over time but Darwin's 150 year old theory, tweaked by P.E.

I'm not aware of any other branch of science so closed to to considering anything other than its orthodoxy. No wonder. If anyone considers any other possibility, they're immediately branded a creationist, and according to your post, called a "dim" or worse, and subjected to armchair psychoanalysis. Sheesh.